Oran Mor photo: TB COMMITTEE NEWS Some highlights of the latest meeting on 18th May. This was a Zoom meeting, so any ratifications must wait until a conventional meeting is held, post-COVID-19 NEWS (the Minutes can be read in full on The Botanics website) • Cladding: Cladding: the only EWS1 assessment issued for an apartment at The Botanics has removed the UK OF THE BOTANICS Finance imposed zero valuation, thereby permitting a mortgage-based sale, and also confirms that no remedial July-August 2020 works to the balcony decking are required. See the website for more details. • Neighbourhood Watch: Carol Puthucheary has the go- ahead to register the whole of the Botanics for this. NEWS is issued to all residents of The Botanics on behalf of The • Pending: CCTV, electric car charging, green moss Botanics Owners’ Committee. Views expressed are not staining on brickwork, landscaping, defibrillator. These necessarily those of the Committee. matters all await the resumption of general building Editors: Les Brown & Heidi Catto-Breslin activity. • Next Committee meeting: 29 June (Zoom) CORONAVIRUS SPECIAL (2) Although the light at the end of the tunnel is still dim, MEET A NEIGHBOUR some easing of restrictions that began in June means James Browning moved to the Botanics two years ago. Newly that we are able to print the NEWS again, and our single, he was looking to fleet-footed deliverer can bring it to you. downsize and leave the family- As we reported in the last issue, the Committee has orientated Pollokshields avenues written to all owners giving the contact details of for the more sociable West End. residents who have offered to help others with A large deck and views of the shopping, pharmacy collection, dog-walking etc. River Kelvin, the weir and 'our' Owners and tenants who require help may also heron sealed the deal. contact the Committee through its website – see James has led an interesting life. details at the end of the NEWS. He was born in Cheltenham, and worked initially as an academic consultant gynaecologist in Bristol and Auckland, New Zealand before moving to Scotland 26 years ago as a director of Ethicon (Johnson & LIFE IN LOCKDOWN: some readers’ accounts Johnson) in Edinburgh. His wife Alison Bigrigg founded and directed Sandyford and pioneered community gynaecology “I was in my final year studying medicine at the University of in the UK. She was responsible for the first Early Pregnancy when the Pandemic struck, coincidentally right in the Assessment Unit, which is now a standard of care in British middle of my final exams! Causing quite a lot of upheaval, the University worked tirelessly to get our exams completed and to hospitals, and was President of the UK Faculty of Family bring forward our graduation from July to April (with our ceremony Planning and Reproductive Health. Alison passed away taking place on Zoom!). As such, graduates from my year were from leukaemia in 2013, leaving a huge void in James’ life. able to start our jobs as junior doctors in April, as opposed to He set up several medical companies in Scotland, growing August, when we were originally scheduled to begin. Since then, some internationally and living for a while in Boston, USA. lockdown has been a little different for me, as I have still been After successful exits, he now chairs one Edinburgh commuting to and from work, which has helped maintain a business, and invests in & mentors fledgling Scottish smidgen of normality.” companies. Before the world stopped spinning, James loved all live “Our life is on hold, it feels. My partner and I (both retired) take daily walks. Hours at home are variously spent dreaming up – and performing arts, and he particularly values his association making – interesting meals; Zooming; re-learning French; glued to with the RSNO and A Play, Pie and a Pint at Oran Mor. He the news and I-player; reading obsessively; exercising to online is a keen squash and racketball player. He loves the gurus – these all help the days to fly past. Unable to offer much sociability and the exposure to nature of skiing, sailing and help to others (our age puts us in a ‘vulnerable’ bracket), we diving. Travel is a big part of his life, both to family down appreciate the incredible work of many others: clearly, there IS south and more widely. James has season tickets for such a thing as society!” Glasgow Warriors, Murrayfield (rugby) and Everton (football or something very close to it). Despite the English accent, “I can best describe lockdown as ‘boredom with an element of he wears dark blue at The Calcutta Cup! routine’. The sad part is that trips to meet the children and grandchildren are on semi-permanent hold, and anticipated In the lockdown James has been out walking and chatting holidays or short breaks abroad have all been cancelled. (at a distance) with neighbours. He is learning Spanish, has Highlights are the weekly Waitrose delivery, having the time to taken up biking, and ancestry-digging has revealed a experiment with new recipes (buttered chicken the most grandfather who was awarded the Military Medal in WW1, successful, although others get a distinguished mention) and plus a great grandfather who was a rugby international. But watching 1940s & 50s movies that bring back great memories.” his most interesting relatives were lighthouse keepers on the Scilly Isles. His great aunt told him stories of how they

set misleading lights to shipwreck German U boats. So, if BARRACKS Covid-19 is over by September there is a sailing trip On Maryhill Road, just past the Tesco, the remains of a 19th planned, destination - the Scillies! HCB century stone wall can be seen. This is a remnant of Maryhill Barracks, which had been established as Garrioch RESTAURANT REVIEW with David Burberry Barracks in 1872, replacing the previous buildings on Duke Spuntini, 199-201 Byres Rd Street. Glasgow City Corporation had been petitioning the BC (before Coronavirus) a weekly visit to a local mid-priced government since the early 19th century for more military and family-friendly Italian restaurant was a staple for us and protection, out of fear of “riot and tumult” in the growing many residents at the Botanics and we all benefited from a industrial city. The nearby Elephant and Bugle (the HLI wide choice. There’s La Lanterna on Great Western Road, emblem) pub, is a reminder that the Barracks were occupied Eusebi on Gibson Street, Caffe Parma in Hyndland, by, among other, the (HLI). Despite its Celino’s on Dumbarton Road - a good pasta was never far name, the HLI was a ‘non-kilted’ regiment formed in 1881 and away. So, with many of our favourites now closed but with raised principally from working class areas of Glasgow, and the need for the comfort of pasta we decided on a takeaway its reputation for toughness and aggression (to put it mildly) meal from Spuntini. Shunning the options of online or came from this association. An anecdote from the author’s phone ordering, we made our order at the restaurant. We childhood was that, in WW1, an attack by the HLI was often did not have to wait long to order from the extensive menu. preceded by a shower of bicycle chains and broken bottles! In To sample a selection of dishes for this review we ordered 1923, the regiment’s connection to Glasgow was recognised and paid for enough food for a meal for four. Returning when the name was changed to the Highland Light Infantry later, our meal was packed in plastic containers - no sign of (City of Glasgow Regiment). the end of single-use plastic any time soon! During the 1919 40-hour general strike in Glasgow, the The lobster ravioli was disappointing, as the delicate lobster soldiers at Maryhill were believed (probably correctly) to be in flavour was lost to an overpowering Napoli cream and chilli sympathy with the strikers, and were confined to barracks sauce. Much better was the Pennette Spuntini which while troops from elsewhere were brought in to re-impose featured Italian sausage, mushrooms and sun-dried order. The HLI was involved extensively in both World Wars. tomatoes. Spaghetti Gamberetti was average, as the king In WW1, the regiment was engaged in battles from 1915 prawns were small and rather sparse. The mini (12.5cm) onwards – Loos, Arras, Ypres, Somme, Cambrai, Gallipoli are pizzas were good value and tasty, as were the seasonal among many names on the regiments battle honours. In asparagus and mozzarella fritta. Overall it was a typical WW2, units of the HLI were in the BEF that landed in France Italian meal, not as good as La Lanterna or Eusebi, but on a in 1939 and were evacuated at Dunkirk. Later, they were par with the rest, and - given the country- involved in the Normandy landings and in the wide lockdown - a welcome change from Battle of the Bulge. David Niven was cooking the family meal. commissioned into the HLI in 1932. Adolf Hitler’s Cost for 4: £55. second-in-command Rudolf Hess was held for a Score. 6/10. time in Maryhill Barracks after his supposed “Peace” flight to the UK in 1941. The HLI were LOCKDOWN READING #2 merged with other regiments in 1959 to form the Royal Highland Fusiliers. The Barracks were “The Amber Fury” by Natalie Haynes. decommissioned in the early 1960s, and the Alex Morris, a talented young theatre housing estate was built on the site. producer, has lost everything: her fiancée, Only the guardroom and boundary walls now her career and her faith in the future. Moving remain. DMcK to Edinburgh to escape her demons, Alex takes a job teaching at a Pupil Referral Unit. It's a place for kids whose behaviour is so extreme that they cannot be taught in a Local News normal classroom. • A new local Primary School – an unusual event in the Alex is fragile with grief and way out of her depth. Her West End – is being built on the old QMD football pitches fourth-year students are troubled and violent. In desperation • John McLeod, architect owner of Crabshakk, and the to reach them, Alex turns to the stories she knows best. original force behind the food ascendancy of Finnieston, is Greek tragedy isn't the most obvious way to win over such now taking an initiative to save the restaurant trade there. damaged children, yet these tales of fate, family and He is suggesting the closure of a section of Argyle Street vengeance speak directly to them in a way she never and covering it with a quick-build greenhouse-style ‘food imagined. court’ where patrons can distance themselves in a way that Enthralled by the bloodthirsty justice of the ancient world, would be difficult in most of the street’s small premises. the teenagers begin to weave the threads of their own • Mother India Café is now providing takeaway and Uber tragedy - one that Alex watches, gets deeply entangled Eats options LB with, and is helpless to prevent. I found the plot intriguing, i.e. troubled teenagers, at first - somewhat reluctantly - exploring classic Greek tragedies Want to comment on any of the above? Please contact the Editors or the Committee and then finding that they have much more in common with via the Website: the characters in their harsh, almost black-and-white www.botanicsowners.org judgements, than they anticipated. I enjoyed the style of writing, particularly the sympathetic descriptions of Yes, the IKEA jest is shamelessly pinched from the internet, for your Edinburgh locations. A cracking read. HCB amusement