#leither

On March 7th 1924, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, the renowned sculptor and artist, was born in Leith.

Eduardo Paolozzi was a prolific and inventive artist most known for his marriage of Surrealism's early principles with brave new elements of popular culture, modern machinery and technology.

The teenage Paolozzi was interned as an enemy alien. His father and grandfather were put on a ship to Canada and drowned when it was targeted by a German U-boat.

And with that his family life was deeply affected by the divisive nature of a country involved in conflict, which birthed his lifelong exploration into the many ways humans are influenced by external, uncontrollable forces. This exploration would come to inform a vast and various body of work that vacillated between the darker and lighter consequences of society's advancements and its so-called progress.

On the one hand, he would create abstract sculptures, which were dark and brutal in both material and form, portraying the idea of man as a mere assemblage of parts in an overall machine. On the other hand, he would create collages brighter in nature that reflected the way contemporary culture and mass media influenced individual identity. Some of these collages, with their appropriation of American advertising's look and feel would inspire the future Pop Art movement.

Paolozzi's early love of American culture and the collecting of its paraphernalia would lead him to make collages that were credited for launching the Pop art movement. He was the first to appropriate images from advertisements to create work representative of the shinier, happier lifestyles that were touted in American magazines and media.

Adam Archibald was born on 14th January 1879 at Leith.

Archibald was awarded the Victoria Croos for an act of bravery during Worlad War One near Ors, France.

Adam was the son of Rennie Archibald, a Plasterer, and Christina Archibald, of 24 Shaws Street, Edinburgh. He lived at 53 Balfour Street with his wife and four children, and before he joined the Army in 1916 he had been Outside Foreman with Stewart’s Granolithic Co Ltd of Duff Street. In his younger days he had been a keen footballer and had had a trial with St Bernard’s FC, an early Football club that rivalled Hibs and Hearts during the Victorian era. Adam aws also a bowler and at the time of his enlistment he had been President of the Eastfield Bowling Club. Another of his hobbies was gardening and he had won prizes at local flower shows.

He enlisted with the 7th Durham Light Infantry before transferring to the 218th Field Company, Royal Engineers during the second battle of the Sambre. At the age of 39, he was awarded the Victoria Cross for action while his unit was attempting to bridge the Sambre–Oise Canal.

On 4th November 1918 near Ors, France, Sapper Archibald was with a party building a floating bridge across the canal. He was foremost in the work under a very heavy artillery barrage and machine-gun fire. The latter was directed at him from a few yards distance while he was working on the cork floats. Nevertheless, he persevered in his task and his example and efforts were such that the bridge which was essential to the success of the operations was very quickly completed. Immediately afterwards Sapper Archibald collapsed from gas poisoning.

The Scottish naturalist and mineralogist Robert Jameson was born on July 11th 1774 at Leith.

Jameson was educated at Leith Grammar school, where he excelled and went on to became the apprentice of the Leith surgeon John Cheyne, planning on becoming a ships surgeon. He also attended classes at the University of Edinburgh studying botany, chemistry and natural history. By 1793 he had abandoned medicine and the idea of a life at sea, and focused instead on science, particularly geology and mineralogy, his class mates included Joseph Black and Thomas Dick, two future notable members of the Edinburgh Eliterati that were part of The Scottish Enlightenment.

He must have impressed the University hierarchy as that same year he was given charge of the Natural History department, at the age of just 19, the beginning of a long association lasting over 50 years. In 1804 he succeeded Dr Walker as the third Regius Professor of Natural History at Edinburgh University, during this period he became the first eminent exponent in the British Isles of the Wernerian geological system.

Although not always agreeing with him, Jameson worked with the eminent James Hutton who is often referred to as the ‘father’ of modern geology.

As a teacher, Jameson is said to be remarkable for his power of imparting enthusiasm to his students, and from his class-room there radiated an influence which gave a marked impetus to the study of geology, but not by all his pupils, a young student by the name of Charles Darwin apparently found the lectures boring, this may have been to Darwin being only 16 at the time and Jameson much more senior at 52.

Over Jameson’s fifty year tenure, he built up a huge collection of mineralogical and geological specimens for the Museum of Edinburgh University, including fossils, birds and insects. By 1852 there were over 74,000 zoological and geological specimens at the museum, and in Britain the natural history collection was second only to that of the British Museum. Shortly after his death, the University Museum was transferred to the British Crown and became part of the Royal Scottish Museum, now the Royal Museum, in Edinburgh’s Chambers Street. He was also a prolific author of scientific papers and books, including the Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles.

Ken Buchanan, arguably the best boxer Scotland has ever produced was born on June 28th 1945 in Edinburgh.

After turning pro in 1965 Ken Buchannan won both the Scottish and British lightweight crowns before traveling to the United States and gaining world-wide recognition.

In 1970, Buchanan, lost to Miguel Velasquez in Madrid, Spain, in a bid to capture the European 135-pound title. By year’s end, though, he’d conquer the world.

Buchanan challenged lightweight champion Ismael Laguna on September 26, 1970 in Puerto Rico. The temperature inside Hiram Bithorn Stadium reached 100-degrees as these master boxers put on a sterling exhibition. Buchanan rocked the champion in the 12th round and won the title via narrow split decision. He became the first fighter from the British Isles to take the lightweight crown since Freddie Welsh in 1917.

In 1971, Buchanan successfully defended his title twice, copping 15-round decisions over Ruben Navarro in Los Angeles and Laguna at Madison Square Garden in New York on a card ahead of Muhammad Ali and the late Joe Frazier A year later, Buchanan would return to the Garden for his most controversial and memorable contest.

On June 26th, 1972 Buchanan put his belt on the line against Roberto Duran (Duran scored an impressive kayo on the undercard of the Buchanan-Laguna rematch). Duran dropped Buchanan early and controlled much of the action. At the close of Round 13, the fighters swapped punches. Buchanan claimed he was kneed in the groin. Referee Johnny LoBianco, however, did not see the infraction. The fight was stopped before the 14th round could begin and Duran was rewarded with the victory and the title.

Buchanan came back three months later and stopped future Hall-of-Famer Carlos Ortiz in six rounds. In 1973, he decisioned future world champ Jim Watt to regain the British lightweight title. He lost in his only other world-title bid, dropping a decision in 1975 to WBC champ Ishimatsu Suzuki.

Buchanan was inactive from 1976 to 1978 and fought sporadically until retiring for good in 1983.

If Ken made money out of his boxing career it never made him rich, or he never held on to it going back to his old trade as a carpenter.. Many of my friends in the building trade have told me they worked on sites with him through the late 80's and the 1990's, he was described as an amiable man who was easy to get on with.

In 2022 Ken's family revealed he was suffering from Dementia, probably brought on through taking blows to the head during his career, he spent his last year or so in a Leith care home, In August last year he was able to make his final public appearance at the unveiling of his statue where he was serenaded with bagpipes in front of the crowd that was believed to be in the hundreds.

Ken Buchanan passed away peacefully in his sleep on Aplril 1st this year.

His funeral procession began in Leith and meandered its way past the former site of Sparta Boxing Club to St Giles on The Royal Mile where a memorial service was held a pair of white boxing gloves sat on his coffin.

The ‘Fighting Carpenter’ fought 69 times throughout his career, losing only eight and winning 27 by knockout.

Ken Buchanan Statue, Little King Street, Edinburgh.

Ken won multiple championships at lightweight; the World Boxing Association (WBA) and Ring magazine titles from 1970 to 1972; and the World Boxing Council (WBC) title in 1971, briefly reigning as undisputed champion until being stripped of the WBC title four months later. At regional level he held the British title twice in 1968 and 1973, and the European title from 1974 to 1975.

April 22nd 2005 saw the death of the sculptor and artist Eduardo Paolozzi

Paolozzi’s Italian parents ran a small ice cream parlour in Leith, in June 1940, when Italy declared war Eduardo was interned (along with most other Italian men in Britain).During Eduardo’s three-month internment at Saughton prison his father, grandfather and uncle, who had also been detained, were among the 446 Italians who drowned when the ship carrying them to Canada, the Arandora Star, was sunk by a German U-boat.

There is little online about his internment and you wouldn’t have condemned him if he decided to leave Scotland after his release, the words of a Proclaimer’s song always springs to mind when I read about Eduardo Paolozzi, and other Scots=Italians:

Joseph D'Angelo dreams of the days

When Italian kids in the Grassmarket played

We burned out his shop when the boys went to war

But auld Joe's a big man and he forgave all

By the time Eduardo was released it was 1943 and he began attending Edinburgh College of Art before moving to London and feigned madness to secure his release from army duties in order that he could study sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1944 to 1947.

Paolozzi is widely considered to be one of the first Pop artists and created many collages including the famous ‘I was a rich man’s plaything’ in 1947, which was the first artwork to feature the word ‘Pop’ in it.

After a spell in Paris he returned to London and moved into a studio in Chelsea and by the 1950s was establishing himself as a surrealist artist through a series of screen-prints, pioneering the technique in which each print can have a separate colourway, predating Warhol’s famous prints of the same nature by four years.

In 1968 Paolozzi taught sculpture and ceramics at the University of California, Berkeley. He worked in Berlin from 1974, and was Professor at the Fachhochschule in Cologne from 1977 to 1981. He also later taught at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich.

Paolozzi might have spent many years away from his home town of Edinburgh but didn’t forget it, he donated a great deal of work to the Scottish National Gallery, who have since displayed a reconstruction of his studio and a large body of his work in the Dean Gallery.

If you have wandered around Edinburgh and visited St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral you will have come across Eduardo Paolozzi statues, “Manuscript of Monte Cassino” which comprises a giant foot and matching hand and ankle. The work was a gift to the city by entrepreneur Tom Farmer, the work is found outside St Mary’s RC Cathedral, I like how the area there has three pieces of art, on the left at Picardy Place you can enjoy a statue of Sherlock Holmes, and on the right you have two giant Giraffes outside the Omni Centre made of scrap metal.

Eduardo Paolozzi suffered a serious stroke in 2001 and he died in a hospital in London in April 2005.

Ken Buchanan, arguably the best boxer Scotland has ever produced was born on June 28th 1945 in Edinburgh.

After turning pro in 1965 Ken Buchannan won both the Scottish and British lightweight crowns before traveling to the United States and gaining world-wide recognition.

In 1970, Buchanan, lost to Miguel Velasquez in Madrid, Spain, in a bid to capture the European 135-pound title. By year’s end, though, he’d conquer the world.

Buchanan challenged lightweight champion Ismael Laguna on September 26, 1970 in Puerto Rico. The temperature inside Hiram Bithorn Stadium reached 100-degrees as these master boxers put on a sterling exhibition. Buchanan rocked the champion in the 12th round and won the title via narrow split decision. He became the first fighter from the British Isles to take the lightweight crown since Freddie Welsh in 1917.

In 1971, Buchanan successfully defended his title twice, copping 15-round decisions over Ruben Navarro in Los Angeles and Laguna at Madison Square Garden in New York on a card ahead of Muhammad Ali and the late Joe Frazier A year later, Buchanan would return to the Garden for his most controversial and memorable contest.

On June 26th, 1972 Buchanan put his belt on the line against Roberto Duran (Duran scored an impressive kayo on the undercard of the Buchanan-Laguna rematch). Duran dropped Buchanan early and controlled much of the action. At the close of Round 13, the fighters swapped punches. Buchanan claimed he was kneed in the groin. Referee Johnny LoBianco, however, did not see the infraction. The fight was stopped before the 14th round could begin and Duran was rewarded with the victory and the title.

Buchanan came back three months later and stopped future Hall-of-Famer Carlos Ortiz in six rounds. In 1973, he decisioned future world champ Jim Watt to regain the British lightweight title. He lost in his only other world-title bid, dropping a decision in 1975 to WBC champ Ishimatsu Suzuki.

Buchanan was inactive from 1976 to 1978 and fought sporadically until retiring for good in 1983.

If Ken made money out of his boxing career it never made him rich, or he never held on to it going back to his old trade as a carpenter.. Many of my friends in the building trade have told me they worked on sites with him through the late 80's and the 1990's, he was described as an amiable man who was easy to get on with.

In 2022 Ken's family revealed he was suffering from Dementia, probably brought on through taking blows to the head during his career, he spent his last year or so in a Leith care home, In August last year he was able to make his final public appearance at the unveiling of his statue where he was serenaded with bagpipes in front of the crowd that was believed to be in the hundreds.

Ken Buchanan passed away peacefully in his sleep on Aplril 1st this year.

His funeral procession began in Leith and meandered its way past the former site of Sparta Boxing Club to St Giles on The Royal Mile where a memorial service was held a pair of white boxing gloves sat on his coffin.

Arthur Williams.

O​nce a familiar face on the streets of Leith and Edinburgh, Arthur Williams, a homeless man lived on and in the vicinity of Leith Walk for over 20 year.

It is quite fitting that street artist Shona Hardie chose Arthur Street to immortalise him.

Arthur was homeless, but I never knew him to beg on the streets, he used to fair get around though, I recall seeing him around the west end all the way down to Canongate.

Arthur Williams was finally persuaded by his family to go into a care home ten years ago.