Ian's putting away his pans after half a century

Coal or cooking. Ian Harper, as a teenager fresh from school, had to make a choice that would shape his life, he tells John Gibson.

"I was raised in Loanhead, where it seemed every second bloke was a miner. We had three productive pits around us, including Bilston Glen.

"I had family who were miners but I didn't fancy it at all as a livelihood. I'd had a sneaking, perhaps a flair, for cooking, I'd done a wee bit around the house. Besides, keeping my hands clean was preferable to a coal-blackened face."

Ian's introduction to cheffing was surprisingly easy in his case. "I knocked on the door, so to speak, of the George Hotel and asked if there were any jobs going in the kitchen and they took me on as a learner commis chef."

That was in June 1959 and now, at 66, he has finally retired after half a century of rattling the pots and pans.

When he begins to reel off the kitchens that have known his culinary skill it seems like there isn't going to be paper enough to list them all.

From the George - "a great training ground that was to produce many of the most influential chefs and head waiters in Edinburgh" - he moved down to the Commodore Hotel by the water at Silverknowes as second chef.

Back uptown he second-cheffed at Danny Brown's in George Street for five years. Short stints at the Laughing Duck and the Jolly Judge preceded two years at the Hunters Tryst.

Ian's lengthy employ with the renowned Sami Denzler merits his "great admiration".

He recalls: "I learned a lot head-cheffing for Sami. As well as being a talented chef himself, Sami was a strict disciplinarian, a real pro. No swearing, no smoking, no drinking in his kitchen.

"He was strict but fair. We worked a four-and-a-half-day week for him. Generous hours for our profession in those days. I had two long, enjoyable stints with him, at Denzlers and the Alphorn in Rose Street."

Subsequently, Ian was head chef at Fettes College and he was six years in charge at the Royal Overseas League in Princes Street until he retired this month.

"I've got a great kick out of it all. No regrets," smiles Ian whose CV shows two years of day release classes to the catering college in Atholl Crescent during his five-year apprenticeship.

"Definitely it's been much more preferable to digging for coal."

Married with one son, he is trading in his "whites" for gardening tools.

"The garden is a favourite pastime for me. And car boot sales hold a certain fascination.

"You might say I'm a man of simple pleasures. I've never smoked, I enjoy a glass or two and I've never developed the chef's bulk round my middle.

"Nobody ever had to say to me 'if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen'."