Last week my son was holidaying in Scotland, renting a holiday place near Edinburgh. It’s been many years since I’ve been there, but I suggested that he visit the Greyfriars kirkyard and the black mausoleum, the final resting place of the infamous George ‘Bloody’ MacKenzie, who was interred there, following his death in 1691.
Up until the run up to the millennium, Greyfriars most famous piece of history was the little Skye terrier, Greyfriars Bobby, whose statue, outside the cemetery in Candlemaker Row, remains a huge tourist attraction. He was immortalised in a book by Eleanor Atkinson and then later a Walt Disney film, as the loyal dog who refused to leave his master’s side upon his death, sleeping on Auld Jock’s grave every night.