The Society of Leith

It's Gwen's birthday. She's 21 today. Key of the door, but I think she's had that a while. Gwen came to us a year ago I guess it must be.

Lots of people come to us. Welcome to the Hotel by the Dockside. "You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave." People don't check into Leith, they ship in. Some of them use Leith as a trendy spot to set up yuppie-camp. "This corner used to be just crawling with prostitutes," proud new owners coo to their office colleagues. "But darling it's so, so ethnic! Absolutely bijou!!" they reply, startled, making a mental one to phone the estate agent.

Others, usually young or unemployed or both, come here because it's cheap. You can rent or even buy here for figures last heard of in the eighties. Nothing much changes. Except Duke Street where under the awnings of Leith Central Station now lodges a brand new JobCentre, a plush and louvred monument to the Welfare State. You've heard of Leith Central, even if you haven't seen it. It gave the title to Mr Welsh's book Trainspotting. Which we might point out, for those who've seen the film but not read the book, is set round and about the very nooks and crannies we try and paint for you here. Not Glasgow. Specifically not Glasgow, as the American reviewers tried to indicate - that city being perhaps the only Scottish location they'd heard of.

I first saw it in its delicious reality quarter of a century ago, and I knew I had to have it, as Quentin Crisp said about New York. I'd just recently read Genet's "Querelle of Brest", and in Leith I saw that very port. Jean would have loved it. Plus the cheapness helped.

Whilst elsewhere in the UK, urban areas decayed into drugs and crime and poverty, Leith had all those already, so things could only get better. And they did, so I never had to move. Leith just improved around me.

And Gwen had a perfect visiting-card.