Edinburgh '93 — Memories and Adventures
Edinburgh '93 — Memories and Adventures is an article written by Barbara Roden published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 4, 1993).
This personal reminiscence recounts the 1993 Arthur Conan Doyle Society Convention in Edinburgh, describing the hotel fire crisis, scholarly visits, lectures, and social events that marked the weekend. Blending anecdote with affectionate tribute, particularly to Owen Dudley Edwards, it captures the camaraderie and intellectual spirit of the gathering.
Edinburgh '93
The day of 20 December 1992 dawned bright and clear, and Christopher and I were pleased: it was to be my first birthday in Britain, and the fact that the sun was shining was taken to be a good sign. We were wrong.
The first inkling we had was when the 8:00 radio news came on. We were still half asleep, but woke up somewhat when we heard that there had been a major fire at a leading Edinburgh hotel. We looked at each other in horror. It couldn't be... but it was. Fully awake now, we heard that The Scandic Crown Hotel, on Edinburgh's Royal Mile, had been the site of a major fire: damage was estimated to be extensive. And the Scandic Crown was where the first Arthur Conan Doyle Society Convention was to be held in less than three months.
There were several phone calls placed to the hotel over the following days, and we found that damage, while extensive, had been limited to the back and top of the hotel. The hotel would be completely closed down for the next few weeks while repairs and rebuilding went on. The question had to be asked: would we still be able to hold the Convention there?
Yes, was the answer, and we breathed a sigh of relief. Neither of us fancied the task of having to re-negotiate with another hotel so close to the event date. We were kept posted of progress over the next two months, and a week before the event we made a quick dash to Edinburgh to make the final arrangements.
The hotel looked fine from the outside, but inside: well, that was another story. The lobby was still a hard hat area, with masses of plywood and swathes of plastic sheeting everywhere. Builders bustled in and out, and our hearts sank when we saw that our Convention room was being used as the hotel's office, with desks, fax machines, photocopiers and computer terminals everywhere. We were assured once more that all would be ready for next week, however, and what could we do at that stage but smile and nod convincingly?
We arrived the following Friday, and, after each taking a deep breath, walked into the lobby. It looked ... perfect. Everything was as we remembered it from our very first trip, right down to the basket of apples on the check-in counter. Not a speck of plywood, not a square inch of plastic sheeting was in evidence, and over the course of the weekend we had more than one Convention participant say to us, 'You know, if you hadn't told us, we would never have known there was a fire here.'
With the hotel setting such a splendid example, how could the weekend be anything other than a success? It began with a chance to see some rare Conan Doyle documents, ended with a discussion of the Oxford Sherlock Holmes with all four editors (a chance sadly denied to us now, following the death of Professor Wallace Robson), and was good fun from start to finish.
An account of the events of the weekend appeared in The Parish Magazine Number Eight, and four of the papers that were presented (those of Stephen Guinn, Frederick Kittle, Christopher Roden and Barbara Roden) follow this article. This will not, therefore, be a blow-by-blow description of the weekend, but a stroll down memory lane, if you will: and the overwhelming memory I have of Edinburgh '93 (apart, of course, from the fire) is Owen Dudley Edwards.
Is there anything he does not know? Any fact, name, date, place or anecdote which he does not have stored in his prodigious brain-attic? I very much doubt it. Our coach tour of ACD's Edinburgh became, in Owen's capable hands, much more than a 'First he lived here, and then he lived here, and then he went to school there' affair. For a period of almost three hours a steady stream of information and anecdotes about Conan Doyle and his family, friends, dwelling-places and history was forthcoming, all of it fascinating and much of it humorous. Owen had arranged for us to see ACD's baptismal certificate at St Mary's Cathedral, and he also gave us a talk about Charles Doyle in the appropriate setting of the courtyard of Holyrood Palace. We were not in danger of losing any of our members, but we almost gained a few: more than one stray tourist tacked themselves onto the back of the group to listen as Owen spoke eloquently about Charles Doyle's involvement with the Palace. He was so eloquent, in fact, that one or two of the Palace guards appeared to feel that he was moving in on their territory, and tried to shoo us away from the door. Owen was unmoved, however, and the guards wisely gave up and left us the field. Another highlight of the weekend was the opportunity to view the unpublished
Owen Dudley Edwards holding the register which records the baptism of one Arthur Ignatius
Conan Doyle manuscript of Conan Doyle's short story 'The Haunted Grange of Goresthorpe', which was submitted to Blackwood's Magazine when the author was only seventeen or eighteen. The manuscript now resides at the National Library of Scotland, where we were able to view it and a few other rare Conan Doyle items. This was arranged through the kind offices of Librarian Ian McGowan, who laid on coffee and biscuits and took part in a question-and-answer session when we had all seen the manuscript. Saturday's dinner was highlighted by a reading of Conan Doyle's 1901 toast to the Edinburgh Burns Club, The Immortal Memory. It was read by Burns Society member Roger Mullin, whose rich Scottish accent brought ACD's heartfelt tribute to Burns movingly to life. This was followed by a rollicking version of Burns' 'Tam o'Shanter': I may have only understood one word in three (oh, for an English-Scottish dictionary!), but there was no mistaking the high spirits of the poem.
Spirits of another sort had been evoked on the Friday evening, when most of the participants took part in a tour of some of Edinburgh's more eerie spots. All manner of bloody and frightening deeds were dramatically and skillfully recounted by our knowledgeable guide, with particular emphasis on the doings of Messrs. Burke and Hare. Towards the end of the tour she needed a volunteer, in order to show us exactly how people were hanged. Christopher gamely played along, and so it was that the assembled ACDS members were treated to the sight of the Society's founder being hanged, not once but three times.
What else? Well, the chance to meet other admirers of Conan Doyle, and exchange ideas and viewpoints, was one of the best things about the event. There was never any lack of discussion after a paper, as everyone took advantage of the opportunities to raise questions and bring up points. Especially interesting was the panel discussion about the Oxford Sherlock Holmes, which was chaired by Oxford University Press's Michael Cox. Michael revealed that the idea for publishing the Holmes series in Oxford came to him while he was having a bath: and of course one wag, who shall remain nameless, had to reply, 'You must have been thinking of the navel treaty.'
Discussing the 'navel treaty. Left to right, Professor W. W. Robson, Owen Dudley Edwards, Michael Cox, Richard Lancelyn Green and Christopher Roden share a joke during the panel discussion.
From the serious to the silly: such was Edinburgh '93. We are now in the midst of preparing for Toronto '94, which will be a very different event altogether. Will it be as great a success? I certainly think so. But we could do without a fire...
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
