Henry's Songbook

Edinburgh toon has a fine distinction
Edinburgh toon has a nice abuse
Everybody knows when the east wind often blows
Edinburgh toon's reduced
To two conditions that could be described
As the Auld Toon shuffle and the New Town stride

So cast a canny eye on the sooth side swagger
Don't be taken in by the New Town taste
Edinburgh toon wears a wig above a goon
Baith above a belt 'n' brace
But don't mistake it for Jekyll and Hyde
It's the Auld Toon shuffle and the New Town stride

Because the Auld Toon shuffle and the New Town stride
They walk round hand in hand
But when the Auld Toon ruffles up the New Town's pride
That's when the shit hits the fan

Take the office clerk in his two-piece pinstripe
Lounging round the Mound like a cat in heat
In the public eye wi' buttons on his fly
He's the prince of Princes Street
If you find him funny, joking aside
He's the Auld Toon shuffle and the New Town stride

And see the slinky legs by the 'sixties Bentley
Safe beneath the tweeds of a Jenners' bride
Who never had a voice, never knew she had a choice
Never got to lay outside
I know her ugly sisters, poverty and pride
They're the Auld Toon shuffle and the New Town stride

Because the Auld Toon shuffle and the New Town stride
They walk round hand in hand
But when the Auld Toon ruffles up the New Town's pride
That's when the shit hits the face of the fan

Old man in the road with a white stick tapping
Leaning in the wind at the Cowgate Head
Through the funny smell he thinks that he can tell
Sweeter airs are overhead
But it's an uphill struggle however you ride
From the Auld Toon shuffle to the New Town stride
'Cause you're one or the other, wherever you bide
You're the Auld Toon shuffle and the New Town stride

 [1992:] Small's was at that time [c. 1936] one of the five best women's shops in Edinburgh. The others were Darling's, Jenners' and Forsyths', with Maules' in the running. (Muriel Spark, Curriculum Vitae 110)

 [1995:] The typical Scottish burgher's house was a [...] homely and unpretentious dwelling. [...] The dour, uncompromising nature of these buildings is characteristic of the Scottish vernacular style, which allowed little room for comfort and refinement. [...] Renaissance Classicism became extremely popular in 18th-century Scotland: pediments, balusters and cornices appeared, while attempts were made at symmetrical planning. The new style was particularly associated with the work of William Adam (1689-1748) and his sons, Robert (1728-92) and James (1732-94). It was during this period that Edinburgh New Town was built, with its formal squares, crescents and regimented facades - in essence, the antithesis of the Scottish-style 'Old Town'. (Hackney, Charles Rennie Mackintosh 21)

 1997:] I have a cousin in Newington, known for her attachment to Edinburgh's Harrods (actually much more respectable and considerably more chic) which is called Jenners [...]. (Candia McWilliam, Observer Life, 20 July)

 [2002:] The historic buildings of Edinburgh's Old Town help to mark it out as one of Europe's most beautiful and architecturally important cities. In 1995, the Old Town, along with the city's New Town, was designated a World Heritage Site by Unesco. That puts it in the same bracket as the Taj Mahal and the pyramids of Egypt. [...] In its listing, Unesco paid tribute to the Old Town's "many buildings of great significance". It says the juxtaposition of the Old and New Towns is what "gives the city its unique character".

The Old Town is dominated, like the city, by the castle on a crag which has been fortified since the Iron Age. It is the great streets lined with imposing buildings which sweep up to the castle, and the network of closes in between, which tourists flock to in their millions every year. One of these buildings, on Chambers Street, is Adam House, currently owned by the University of Edinburgh, and used for exhibitions and as a venue during the International Edinburgh Festival. Named after the Adam family of architects who shaped much of the Georgian New Town [...]. The tenement buildings surrounding it date back to the early 16th century and formed the blueprint for classic Scottish housing. But rather than built to house the poor as they were in Edinburgh's sister city on the west coast, Glasgow, they were home to all levels of society in the capital.

In the 17th century, the burgeoning city of Edinburgh was desperately short of space. The rock on which the city had been established was surrounded on three sides by boggy ground, so the city fathers built up. The wealthiest families would take one whole house but relatively rich merchants would live side-by-side with the poor crammed into sub-divided flats next door. The Old Town was the buzzing hub of city life. The Scottish Parliament met there until the Act of Union with the English in 1707 and well into the 18th century, the area was also the home of Scotland's law courts, learning and commerce. [...]

In the 18th century, the development of the Georgian New Town led to "The Great Flitting" when the higher classes moved out of the stinking hole the Old Town had become to the new elegant squares across Princes Street. However, in recent decades, the Old Town has undergone a commercial and entertainment resurgence and was declared a conservation area with the creation of the Old Town Renewal Trust. (BBC Online, 8 Dec)

 [1999:] Overcrowding, disease and squalor had given Auld Reekie its name and reputation; Glasgow, by comparison, was the finest, sweetest city in all the Empire. The lack of housing and the density of people meant that people took shelter where they could find it. Each of the tottering Old Town tenements housed a cross-section of every class and occupation from Lords to barrow-boys. The Proposals for Carrying on Certain Public Works in the City of Edinburgh were drawn up by the Convention of Royal Burghs in 1752 and construction work [on the New Town] began soon after. The Nor' Loch below the Mound was drained and landscaped, the Lang Dykes became Princes Street and the slow geometry of the Georgian New Town began to unfold. Work had not been finished before the middle classes bolted from their squalid quarterings near the Castle to the new city.
The division between the old town and the new was the most eloquent illustration of the divisions in Edinburgh's character. It had always seemed the most strong-minded of all Scots cities, but under the surface the contradictions became more obvious. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it managed to sustain several wildly contradictory faiths: anti-Englishness and fervent Britishness; improvement and nostalgia; depression and vivacity. It never did, as it sometimes liked to believe, exist in cosmopolitan isolation. During this period it feared the invasion of the French, the Papists or the Wild Highlanders even more than it feared the loss of its identity to England. The terror of anarchy produced a contrariness in the city's character, at once devout and cruel, reasoned and unreasonable. (Bella Bathurst, The Lighthouse Stevensons 40 f.)

 [2005:] House of Fraser has confirmed that it is buying the Edinburgh-based Jenners stores. [...] Jenners has four shops in Scotland, with its headquarters in Princes Street the oldest independent department store in the world. It opened in the 1830s. (BBC Online, Jenners sold to House of Fraser, 21 Mar)