Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 22 on 10/08/2005.

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The world’s eyes on Edinburgh

This has been an eventful summer for Scotland, what with the G8 Summit at Gleneagles Hotel and the accompanying demonstrations in Edinburgh, Stirling and Auchterarder.

No sooner had the streets of Scotland's capital begun to calm down again than the Edinburgh Festival was upon us, reminding me of that first Scotland-based international festival of music and drama held almost 60 years ago in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.

In the early days of that post-conflict world, it took courage for the city fathers of this northern Scottish city to embark upon such an ambitious project, but the philosophy it embodied then, remains.

The primary purpose of the Edinburgh International Festival, as it came to be known, was to help heal the wounds of international conflict, a message symbolised by the flying white doves of its early logo, designed by the French surrealist film director Jean Cocteau.

That same ideology remains as poignant and important today as it ever was then.

In 1946, the dour old northern capital remained intact, its monuments and buildings blackened not by the effects of war but the coal fires of a presmokeless zone century.

Today, energised by its own devolved parliament and a new-found sense of purpose, Edinburgh sparkles as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

My first Edinburgh Festival was when I was a teenager during the 1960s, and a group of rather over-confident, but nonetheless enterprising school friends decided to launch a weekly magazine. We .....

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By Roddy Martine

Section : Roddy Martine's World

Page number : 7