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CULTURE • LITERATURE • ART • EVENTS • MUSIC • MUSEUMS...
Leslie Hills tells us about her latest book
I hope you can make it
Unfolding
a history
10 SCOTLAND STREET, a maindoor flat in
Edinburgh’s second New Town, has been my
home for fifty years. When finally I paid off the
mortgage on number 10, our solicitor handed
me a substantial bundle of vellum deeds,
dating back to 1824 when the builders sold 10
Scotland Street to David Kedie Whytt. I laid
the deeds out on the floor of his drawing room
and read until I reached 1974. It took a long
time. The cursive penmanship was sometimes
difficult, but with a bit of perseverance, the
script yielded. A story unfolded. Vaguely,
I decided I would have a look, someday,
at the man who had bought my house when
it was brand new. The bundle was set aside,
and aside it stayed for some time, until one
morning in the 1990s, researching a film,
I visited the National Archives in Kew.
Having found what I needed, I looked in the
catalogue for David Kedie Whytt. I was
handed a very old box containing an oilskin-
wrapped letter dated May 1836, and headed
10 Scotland Street, Edinburgh.
In a flowing, elegant hand, David Kedie
Whytt, of His Majesty’s Royal Navy (retired), is
writing to the Admiralty from 10 Scotland
Street to claim the increase in half-pay to
which he is entitled, by virtue of his thirty-one
years’ service, during and after the Napoleonic
Wars, as purser, secretary clerk to three
admirals and as prize agent, in London and
Leith. The style and sentence structure match
the quality of the handwriting. It is a beautiful
letter. I left the archives knowing that after that
crystalline moment in Kew’s search room, I’d
pursue Mr Whytt properly.
As I looked into the lives of David, his wife
Ann and siblings William and Grace, Idiscovered complex, energetic characters at the
heart of an extended family. Getting to know
them and the many who followed over the
years, before we made number 10 our home,
became a decades-long task – and pleasure.
During the 2019 pandemic, I decided it was
time to sit down in the Whytt’s dining room,
and make some sense of it all. The result is 10
Scotland Street: the world of the house, the
street, and its connections far and wide –
sometimes startlingly coinciding with mine;
the lives, deaths, triumphs and failures of a
gloriously varied bunch of characters, on an
ever-changing panorama – their one common
point, 10 Scotland Street.10 Scotland Street can be found in bookshops
now. For more information please visit:
http://www.toppingbooks.co.ukANDY WHITE
Leith Depot
Sunday, 21 January 7pm to 10pm
140 Leith Walk EH6 5DTAndy White, the popular Melbourne-based, Belfast-born, singer-songwriter starts his
UK and Ireland tour in January bringing his new album - 'Good luck I hope you can
make it' to Leith Depot.
Book now for this up-close and personal performance.
Tickets can be purchased at: http://www.eventbrite.co.ukOTHER EVENTS AT LEITH DEPOT...- 12 January - wornoc
- 20 January - Fuzz Fest Episode lI
- Every Tuesday there is a pub quiz hosted by Sean the Barman.
http://www.leithdepot.com/events
Leslie Hills