Day 37
Where were you for Christmas 1988?
On Day 37 of 100 Days of Leith, local Author Tim Bell recalls the first glimpse of Trainspotting…
Around Christmas of 1988 Clocktower Press published, in pamphlet form, a short story by a young Leith author, who worked in the Housing Department of Edinburgh Council.
The story featured a young Leith man coming home from London for Christmas. Off the top of Leith Walk he passes the Playhouse, where Edinburgh folk are enjoying dinner and a show - an evening’s entertainment.
At the foot of the Walk, with a friend he has met, he walks up the ramp into the doomed Leith Central Station. It was easy, and common enough. They are in darkness and dirt and impending demolition. An old drunkard makes the ridiculous suggestion they are there to spot trains. It was the end of the year, the end of the line, the end of jokes.
The short story was titled Trainspotting at Leith Central Station, and the author was of course Irvine Welsh. He wanted to mark the distinct contrast between Edinburgh’s prosperity and Leith’s dereliction. He asked Dave Todd to make an image of the themes of the story: a ghost train in reverse, specifically Edinburgh yuppies mocking Leith’s dereliction. Who is spotting whom?
This short story was to become the anchor episode in his book Trainspotting. It is better known now for its associations with heroin and HIV. But that wasn’t the only original intention.
Things had been bad in Leith for 30 years. The old Kirkgate was gone. The hundreds of jobs in the docks had dwindled to dozens. Henry Robb’s shipyard (where Ocean Terminal is now) had closed. Edinburgh Crystal and many whisky maturing bonds had left. The much loved Leith hospital had closed. And now this – a real opportunity for something special was going to waste.
In autumn 1988 Edinburgh City Council had decided to demolish Leith Central Station, with the demolition squads scheduled for February 1989. No passenger train had left for almost 40 years. As Kenneth Williamson outlines on Day 22, this vastly over-sized building was almost useless as a station.
But in the 1980s Rev Mrs Wardlaw (Day 21) among others pointed out that it had wonderful potential – maybe as a transport museum, or a concert hall and arts complex, possibly a small athletics stadium. Some said you could put a Guggenheim there!
However, none of these ideas came to pass, and the space eventually became a much more mundane supermarket and a leisure pool (now soft play centre).
In the almost 30 years since this publication the reputation of Leith has changed significantly. While it is still the most densely populated area of the city, with a high number of low income households, Leith is no longer seen as a dangerous haunt of drug users and ne’er do well. It has become the creative heart of the city, and one thing does remain the same - the independent community spirit that makes Leith the place it is.
Tim Bell has lived in Leith since 1980, and is a well known local figure. He began running Leith Walks in 2000, providing the original Trainspotting themed tours, and has been delving into the world of Trainspotting in the 20 years since. In 2018 he published his book: CHOOSE LIFE. CHOOSE LEITH: Trainspotting on Location, exploring the realities behind the fiction.
