
17 photos to transport you back to Edinburgh in 1985, including dramatic gun shop siege
Nineteen-eighty-five was a year of grand openings and great change in Scotland’s capital city
At Abbeyhill, in the east of Edinburgh, there was a dramtic firearms incident.
A police raid on the shop Field and Stream in Montrose Terrace led to the owner firing a shot in an eight-hour stand off.
Eric Miller was later jailed for 34 months.
Judge Lord Bannatyne condemned the pensioner’s “cavalier attitude” and lack of co-operation during his sentencing at the High Court in Perth.
But the judge made an “exceptional circumstances” exemption to the normal mandatory five-year sentence for possessing a gun because the weapon was more than 100 years old, heavily corroded and the trigger no longer worked.
Elsewhere, there was the Emperor’s Warriors exhibition at the City Art Centre, which attracted tens of thousands of people over the summer and is still talked about to this day.
Take a look through our picture gallery, and be transported back to 1985.
Eric Miller was later jailed for 34 months.
5. Cresser's brush shop
Stephen Gilhooly, owner of Robert Cresser (The Brush Shop) a specialised ironmongers in Victoria Street Edinburgh. Picture taken December 1985.
Photo: George Smith
6. Stand off
A man shut himself in the Field and Stream gun shop in Montrose Terrace Edinburgh, November 1985. By late evening the man had given himself up and was taken away in an ambulance.
Photo: Hamish Campbell
7. New Argos
One of the first customers at the new Argos catalogue shop on North Bridge, Edinburgh, just opened in September 1985.
Photo: Bill Newton
8. SavaCentre
SavaCentrestore in Edinburgh shopping centre Cameron Toll in December 1985.
Photo: Bill Stout