Edinburgh legends Bay City Rollers Alan Longmuir and Les McKeown honoured with memorial benches in Princes Street Gardens

The benches - in honour of founding member Alan Longmuir, who died in 2018, and former lead singer Les McKeown, who died in 2021 - were paid for by Still Rollin, an online Bay City Rollers fan community with more than 1500 active members around the world, who raised more than £12,000 for the tributes.

The Bay City Rollers had a string of big hits in the 1970s, like “Bye, Bye, Baby” and "Remember (Sha-La-La-La)", and were hailed as a “tartan teen sensation” around the world.

The idea of memorial benches came originally from Les McKeown’s wife Peko, who asked the fan group to help her fundraise for a bench during the planning of a gala celebration last year at Edinburgh’s Caledonian Hotel attended by 150 fans from across the globe, marking 50 years since the release of the Rollers’ first studio album, Rollin.

Peko said that she and Les had often walked through Princes Street Gardens looking at the bench inscriptions, and that Les had often told her he would like to have a bench when he was no longer here.

Les McKeown's wife PekoKeiko Tsukioka McKeown and son Jubei McKeown on the bench dedicated to his memory. | Greg Macvean Photography

She donated items of Les's stage clothing for auction to help raise the £5,045 required for a bench. A GoFundMe page was also set up to allow fans unable to take part in the auction to make a donation instead.

Then the fans decided they wanted a memorial bench for Alan Longmuir as well and, with his wife Eileen's blessing, the fundraising was extended to cover two benches.

Eric Faulkner, former Rollers lead guitarist and songwriter, contacted the fans group to say he had found an old cassette tape containing some early demos and previously unheard Bay City Rollers' music that he would like to make available to fans in exchange for a donation to help with the bench fundraising.

Stars in Your Eyes, an EP comprising six tracks and a personal tribute from Eric, raised more than half the eventual total of more then £12,000. Any surplus funds is to be donated to Help Musicians, a charity which supports musicians when they need it most.

The benches have been installed overlooking the Ross Fountain, in the shadows of the Castle and close to the Ross Bandstand, where Alan Lomgmuir and his brother Derek, also a founding member of the band, performed in public for the first time as schoolboys at the weekly Saturday Show Time.