John Gibson: Did Sinders do the dirty on city trip?

AN OUTCAST from society. Just ‘‘different”. That’s how your crotchety columnist feels today. I’ve not been groped. Well, not so far.

News that a world-wide Armageddon virus could devastate mankind in the next five years has got me selling off my vintage Hibs programmes.

And the trams, they’re not true, it’s just been a horrific nightmare. Something in the water. We won’t mention Salmond’s manic desperation for votes from bairns newly out of school.

So let’s get on with it. If my memory serves me right – and increasingly it doesn’t – I interviewed Donald Sinden, the venerable thesp, for the Evening News way, way back and left him standing on the Waverley Steps.

You’ll recall his cut-glass voice if you’ve been around long enough. Anyway, I had to dig deep into the Gibpress File, an occasional series, to remind myself and, just perhaps you, of that encounter.

It was a too-much-information natter that began with me daring to tear a few strips off him for smoking at the table.

In his smokey retirement, Sinden has just celebrated his birthday in London and quit after 30 years as president of a theatrical fund founded by Charles Dickens.

Sinders told me: “I made my screen debut in The Cruel Sea. Jack Hawkins was my captain.” As he left for his Princes Street hotel then, he confided: “I had a dirty week-end there once. That was at least 35 years ago. I’ve been married 34.’’

Sinders the sinner?