Princes Street Station closed forever in 1965. But the vision of those girls on the concourse has never left me.
I was watching the latest episode of the 1960’s-set series Endeavour last night when I suddenly remembered an incident in Edinburgh from the same era. At that time, the Caledonian Railway Hotel (now the Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh) and Princes Street Station occupied the same building at the west end of Princes Street. About halfway along the Lothian Road side of the building, there used to be a side-door that gave access to the station, but was almost always shut. It must have been about 10 o’clock one night when I was hurrying down Lothian Road to catch the bus home to the Ferry, having sneaked into Edinburgh to go to the pictures. I was fourteen or fifteen. Unusually, the side-door happened to be open, so I had a quick peek into the station. I could see an old porter sweeping the concourse and a gaggle of young women heading for the main exit. All the girls wore those white go-go boots and had their hair piled up, beehive fashion. “Come away, girls,” the porter shouted as they approached him. Spontaneously, the girls linked arms and danced across the concourse in a line, singing, “Come away, come away with William Tell/Come away to the land he loved so well/What a day, what a day when the apple fell/For Tell and Switzerland.” It was, of course, the theme song from the then popular TV series The Adventures of William Tell.
Princes Street Station closed forever in 1965. But the vision of those girls on the concourse has never left me.
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