Welcome to Leith Walks, home of the original Trainspotting Tours and the book Choose Life. Choose Leith: Trainspotting on Location by Tim Bell, published by Luath Press.
The tours: engaging, intelligent, entertaining, heart-breaking, well-informed in every part of the Trainspotting Phenomenon. COMMENTS >>
The book: comprehensive, hugely informative, ground-breaking, very read-able, the only serious commentary, analysis and introduction to Trainspotting the book, the play and the film. EXCERPTS AND REVIEWS >>
I’m working on a virtual tour, with the Fringe and Luath, during August. On location the content has to fit into geography. With Zoom different parameters apply. Should be interesting. Keep in touch.
From the Blog
Tipping point no. 02
Midsummer day. The solstice. We should mark it more than we do. It's not just another day. A few years ago on this day I was visiting the coal ships in Leith, and got friendly with a Philippine crew. At 10 o'clock in the evening I was extolling with them how wonderful...
read moreaw Jock Tamson’s bairns…
Give Welsh's Trainspotting a bit of respect for having a broad view of Leith in the 1980s. Spud Murphy, explicitly of Catholic Irish descent, and his mixed-race uncle Dode, are going into the Persevere pub near the foot of Easter Road where the Orange Order and the...
read moreJournalism, history or fiction?
Exactly three years ago, as MC of the Leith Community Tattoo, I called for the customary minute's silence following the Last Post to include respect and a call to action for the dead, bereaved and affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower. Later I wrote in my book: "In...
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