Wail I never …

I cannot stand the incessant wail of the bagpipes. There, I have written it.

However, on a cycling trip through Holland I once caught the sound of someone practising the bagpipes in an out-of-town business park (unfortunately the cycle paths in Holland do not constantly pass through endless bulb fields and alongside bucolic dykes), and the sound was the most evocative and romantic I have ever heard.

Similarly, on Monday morning as I walked through the slight mist down the Mound in Edinburgh I caught the sound of the toll of a tram bell and it was truly magical, like a ship’s bell on the bow of a liner or distant fog horn.

Neil Sinclair

Clarence Street

Edinburgh