Dame Muriel

I went into the Scottish National Portrait Gallery this morning to see an exhibition of the work of pioneers of photography, Hill and Adamson.

Hill was a painter who saw the potential of the new science and Adamson the chemist who supplied the technical know-how. Sadly Adamson died a few years into the partnership and Hill went back to his painting. But they left a fascinating archive of landscapes and portraits of rich and poor around the middle of the 19th century.

In need of sustenance, I went to the excellent cafeteria. There on the wall was this portrait of Dame Muriel Spark, painted by Sandy Moffat.

She's an Edinburgh girl, best known for her short novel 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie', and she based the main character on one of the teachers she had at school. Twenty  years later, I was a pupil at that school, just as Muriel was becoming famous. Many of the staff who taught her were still in post (though not the original of Miss Brodie). 

Some were proud of her, others thought it was all a bit - well, not quite what was expected of a Gillespie Girl.

I wonder what she'd think of her portrait ending up in the cafe? The bust of David Octavius Hill (extra) has a much classier location in one of the galleries.