Festival diary: Demarco wants statue to honour horse which helped launch Edinburgh's cultural celebration

August in Edinburgh is never complete with an encounter with Ricky Demarco, who drew a full house to his book festival event with author Roddy Martine.

Demarco may have recently turned 94 but was still as fired up as he ever was.

Some of his favourite topics were back on the agenda, including the uncertain-as-ever fate of his vast personal archive and the lack of a museum celebrating Edinburgh’s festivals heritage.

However Demarco had a new hobby horse, inspired by one of the least-known aspects of the origins of the cultural celebration.

Richard Demarco

It is fairly well-known that Edinburgh has an Austrian-born opera impresario, Rudolf Bing, to thank for the idea of an international arts festival.

After his first choice of Oxford fell through, Bing was persuaded to consider Edinburgh for the event by Henry Harvey Wood, then head of the British Council in Scotland, which provided crucial financial backing, along with the town council, after the Lord Provost Sir John Falconer rallied support within the city.

However Demarco took great delight in highlighting how the first festival was supported with around £10,000 in winnings made from Ocean Swell, a horse which won the only two races to be run during the Second World War, and was owned by Lord Rosebery, husband of arts patron Lady Rosebery, who would become a key figure in the Edinburgh International Festival’s early years.

Demarco said: “The first festival happened against all the odds. Food and clothes were still being rationed at the time. There were no hotels and the Lord Provost had to appeal to the citizens to accommodate visitors to the city. There should be a statue of a horse in front of the Usher Hall!”

Judith Doherty, chief executive of Edinburgh-based Grid Iron Theatre Company, might not be able to match Demarco’s long involvement in the festivals.

But she was still able to reflect on more than 30 years worth of experiences of Edinburgh in August at the annual Made in Scotland showcase reception.

Grid Iron is best known for staging work in disused spaces beneath the Old Town, including Mary King’s Close and what would become Underbelly’s first venue, a climbing centre, a department store on Princes Street and even the Barony Bar on Broughton Street.

Doherty said she had been around long enough to recall an “extremely odd” rule that theatre companies were not allowed to use their funding to put on shows during the Fringe and the impact the Scottish Government’s Festivals Expo Fund had made when it was introduced.

She said: “We were one of the first companies to be supported. Were allowed to use our funding to buy drinks for people because our show was in a bar." She added quickly: “It was our venue rent!”

Happy news about Hoppy has emerged from the Scottish Storytelling Centre over its appeal to find the owner of a fluffy pink rabbit left behind after a Fringe show.

Hoppy, as she was named by staff, had further adventures around the venue after a stint in its box office, taking in a performance by writer and storyteller Niall Moorjani.

But after a couple of days on the loose, no sooner had Hoopy featured in the Festival Diary when the venue announced that she had been reunited with her family.