John Gibson: The weegie's well suited to the job

Published on 18/04/2011 11:41

Another opening, another show! Allan McWilliam, the roving retailer, opened Slaters, the men's outfitters in George Street, in 2002. Now he's managing the re-launch of Romanes & Paterson, the three-storey department store in Princes Street.

One of the worst-kept secrets in the garment trade, after today, is that the affable Allan, 51, is a Weegie. His successor at Slaters, Peter Chesney, is another Weegie, as is godfather Paul Slater himself. They come through here, pinch our jobs, yet unashamedly talk Glesca.

Romanes & Paterson go way back, to 1808. They've been on Princes Street, with to-die-for views of the Castle, seemingly for ever and, seriously charred by a spectacular fire in the summer of 2007, reopened this month.

Part of the family-owned Edinburgh Woollen Mill chain, this store at No 62, the "flagship", is one of 700 in the UK (seven in Edinburgh) and, its manager stresses, it is "Scottish-run with no imitations'' and a kilted staff of ten full-timers and 30 part-time.

Brags Allan: "Our whisky section with 300 malts is virtually a shop within the shop and the Sir Walter Scott Tearoom is particularly popular with seniors and, particularly again, with locals. American tourists predictably plump for the haggis and Cullen Skink on our menu.

"We also feed them with biographical bits on Sir Walter and they're stunned to hear that he was a bankrupt''

News to me, too, and I hadn't wished to hear it from a Weegie.

Afterwords . .

. . . Bloomin' ill! That was Heston Blumenthal peering up at me from my slice of toast this morning, I swear. And he had scrambled egg on his chin.