Your memories: Distinctive aroma that meant you were home

ONE of the Capital’s oldest distilleries has been in the news for all the wrong reasons recently, as the legionnaires’ crisis saw the North British Distillery close down operations.

For Leigh Jones, 56, a hospitality worker from Leith, the distinctive aromas from the Capital’s breweries are synonymous with happy memories.

“I used to live out in the country with my parents when I was growing up, and one of the things I always remembered was the distinctive smell from the breweries whenever you drove past.

“It was the first thing that made you think you were home after a trip and I always found it really comforting.

“I used to sit and stare out the car window to try and catch a glimpse of the brewery towers, and I always wondered what it was like to live there, and to have that all the time.

“For me that smell was always what really meant Edinburgh, although of course it’s just the area around the breweries – I lived near Seafield for a while and sadly there’s a very different smell there!”

Mr Jones said some of his fondest memories of the Capital were trips to the Odeon cinema in Clerk Street as a youngster.

“It is such a shame that building has been abandoned as it was a real cinema,” he says. “Now it’s all quite sterile, but that place was always very glamorous and exciting.

“I remember going to see Star Wars and having to wait in a queue that stretched up the street. It’s a very old- fashioned thing, I suppose, as now you don’t ever really have to queue at all, but for some reason I found it made the whole experience more exciting.

“I’d love to think it can be restored to its former glory.”