Sandra Dick: Our famous addresses are plenty to write home about

Fans of The Beatles, however, are less nonchalant towards the property where drummer Ringo Starr grew up.

Yesterday it emerged they had lost a long-running battle to secure the future of the house. While the childhood homes of John Lennon and Sir Paul McCartney are popular tourist attractions, Ringo's one-time abode is destined to become rubble. Soon those bricks and mortar which once echoed to the young Richard Starkey's drumming skills will be gone forever.

At least in England some properties do have a degree of status thanks to English Heritage's Blue Plaque scheme which marks locations with links to the famous, such as Jimi Hendrix and H.G. Wells.

It even extends to marking buildings where significant events or discoveries have taken place.

Blue Plaques, however, stop at the Border. Local historian Malcolm Cant believes there could be a place for some form of plaque system.

"Edinburgh's ancient history is well documented," he says. "But what is probably lacking is a little bit more about more recent events and people.

"Edinburgh has a strong modern history in science and medicine, for example, and visitors would be interested to have some access to it."

So who might be worthy of a 'tartan plaque' and where might they go?

HARRY POTTER'S 'REAL' BIRTHPLACE

Harry Potter creator JK Rowling lived in South Lorne Place in Leith with daughter Jessica in 1994 after separating from husband Jorge Arantes.

It was there that the first few chapters of what would become an international success story were penned.

She returned three years ago, commenting at the time: "This is where I turned my life around completely. My life really changed in this flat."

THE DEATH OF TB

Edinburgh University has been the location of many a significant medical breakthrough - none more than the work done by Sir John Crofton.

He led a team of scientists who found that a combination of three antibiotics - known as The Edinburgh Method - could beat the condition. It became a model for similar therapies used to treat cancer and HIV.

Between 1954 and 1957 his team halved the TB rates in Edinburgh.

TONY BLAIR

Tony Blair spent the first 19 months of his life in Paisley Terrace in Willowbrae. The Blair family lived there while his father Leo worked as a junior tax inspector and studied for a law degree from Edinburgh University.

The family later left to live in Australia and then returned to Durham.Blair's returned to Edinburgh as a pupil at Fettes College.

MARIE STOPES

There is a blue plaque to mark the childhood residence of sex education and birth control pioneer Marie Stopes in London, but nothing in recognition of her Edinburgh roots. She was born at 3 Abercromby Place on October 15, 1880. She opened her first British birth control clinic in 1921.

KEN BUCHANAN

He's widely regarded as one of the greatest Scottish boxers, but there's nothing to mark that fact around Northfield Drive near Portobello where Ken Buchanan was born in 1945.

The legendary former world, European and British lightweight champion's name is also heavily linked with Lochend club gym - perhaps another possible location for a plaque?

WAR POETS

Their passionate words brought to life the hell of the First World War. Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon met at Craiglockhart War Hospital.

Sassoon's gritty realistic approach to poetry had a profound influence on Owen, inspiring Owen to create some of the most powerful war poetry ever written. He was killed in action just before the end of the war.

TANK TRIALS

It's hard to imagine war without tanks. In 1916, they made one of their first outings - at an Edinburgh park.

Brown Brothers engineering works was in Broughton Road and the first trials of its prototype tanks were carried out in nearby Redbraes Park.

ST TRINNEAN'S

A by-word for naughtiness, St Trinian's boarding school first appeared in cartoon form in the 1940s before becoming a film. It was inspired by prim St Trinnean's School on Palmerston Road.