Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

Edinburgh nights

Some people say the original spirit of the Edinburgh Fringe has gone; that raw young comedians like Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, who got their first breaks at Edinburgh, would never nowadays be 'discovered' here. Others point out that we Edinburgh residents either a) take the annual August carnival in our city horribly for granted, unmoved by having the world's biggest arts festival here on our doorsteps or, b) get annoyed at the thespy types who invade our home city, taking over local cafes and bars, smoking and shoving leaflets into our hands at every turn, all while taking themselves much too seriously. Some say all that fun, innovation and excitement from when the Fringe started in the immediate post-war years has shrivelled under the dullness of corporate spreadsheets.

But I'm not so sure. I'm looking at the picture I was lucky enough to acquire on Friday evening. In it a crescent moon is glowing above the spires of St Stephen's Church. Next to it twinkles a star. Bernie O'Donnell - a local artist, friend and neighbour - tells me that Jupiter appeared above St Stephen's Church back in the winter of 2002, when she first began painting this picture. The moon and star are what you notice first, but if you look again more carefully, it is possible also to make out Georgian tenement buildings, standing four stories high, underneath the planet of Jupiter. Their contours softened by the light from a sinking sun. Acrylic paint has made them a beacon of smudgy warmth. For months, I pushed my daughter home from nursery along these same streets in the tank-like buggy, blind in one eye following complications with the birth of my second child. We had some good times - like when daughter shouted out "moon", or, at other times, "star". But sometimes, if daughter was tired at the end of a long day, like most two-year-olds, she didn't bother talking, she just wailed. And there were many times when I felt like joining her. Perhaps that's why I like this picture so much - its serenity allows you to forget the pavement-level struggles.

Further down the picture, the deep blue of the Edinburgh sky mellows into turquoise, and then into yellow, as it touches the black hulk of St Stephen's, where a troupe of actors has again taken up residence this year. Bernie's love of Edinburgh shines through in this picture, as it does in so much of her work. It is people like Bernie, you see, who keep the original spirit of the Fringe alive. On Friday evening she held a private view of her Fringe exhibition - in her own home. "Hello Helen," she said, when she saw me looking through a box of pictures in the room that normally serves as her sitting room. "Lovely to see you. I see you've found something you like. Tell me, have I already given you a picture for the girls?" She picked up the print and put it into my hands. "For the children". 

Exhibition by Bernie O'Donnell, 48 Cumberland Street, Edinburgh, EH3 6RG. Runs until 5 September. From 12 till 5pm (not Sunday).

Posted 10 August 2009 22:05

Edinburgh Festival Friends

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