The Edinburgh Festival ( 1976 --> )
I have been to the Edinburgh Festival three times. The last time, I took part in the inaugural parade. . . Crowds lined the streets, leaned out of every available window and even climbed the trees along our route. . .but, looking back, I think the year I liked the Festival most was my first in 1976 when everything about it was new to me.
That summer the city was ruled by Miss Greer. . . she interviewed me sitting on a bench in some public gardens.
I was working for a group of students from Bristol University. I occupied a room in one of the two huge flats which they had rented. Early one morning, Miss Greer visited us. The television crew that accompanied her everywhere woke up the students and told them to look as though they were asleep. . . When she beheld the dilapidated state of my hair brush, her heart was touched and she brought me a new one. Years later, she said to me, 'The way the press went on you would have thought it was of solid gold.' To me, of course, it was solid gold.
One my first day, when I asked the audience if it had understood and, furthermore, believed me, a man sitting right at the back of the house complained that I had, as he had hoped, conducted a serious existential discussion. I apologized and explained that he must not imagine that, because I was smiling, I did not at any time say what I did not mean.
That summer the city was ruled by Miss Greer. . . she interviewed me sitting on a bench in some public gardens.
I was working for a group of students from Bristol University. I occupied a room in one of the two huge flats which they had rented. Early one morning, Miss Greer visited us. The television crew that accompanied her everywhere woke up the students and told them to look as though they were asleep. . . When she beheld the dilapidated state of my hair brush, her heart was touched and she brought me a new one. Years later, she said to me, 'The way the press went on you would have thought it was of solid gold.' To me, of course, it was solid gold.
One my first day, when I asked the audience if it had understood and, furthermore, believed me, a man sitting right at the back of the house complained that I had, as he had hoped, conducted a serious existential discussion. I apologized and explained that he must not imagine that, because I was smiling, I did not at any time say what I did not mean.