Going on a pub crawl can be an education finds Helen Puttick (part1)

A drinker sits alone with a pint of dark amber liquid in a quiet corner of an Edinburgh bar. He has been tucked there reading his book so long that as he gets up he finds his legs are numb and he stumbles, as if drunk, into a group of people clutching half pints.

"Gee, are you all right?" he is asked. He doesn't realise that his bumbling has just helped bring history to life for a crowd of American tourists on an unlikely pub crawl of the Capital. They are in Milne's, the last stop on a literary pub tour of Edinburgh. And for minds full of beer and images of mysterious intellectuals in snugs like this one, the tourists revel in the thought they may have encountered a wordsmith genius heading home to reel off another classic.

Poets Hugh MacDiarmid, Sydney Goodsir Smith and Norman McCaig rowed over socialism at this Hanover St. pub. The seeds of poems by Alexander Scott and Iain Crichton Smith were sewn within its walls.

The thought this tradition of books is living on through one limping unsuspecting punter is just enchanting for the tourists. Alcohol has coursed through the veins of literary masters from Daniel Defoe to Irvine Welsh. The Edinburgh Literary Pub Tour, similar to a successful version in Dublin, has harnessed its liquid power.

Actor Morris Paton is the inspiration behind the fictional pub tour which sees two fictional characters, Clart and McBrain, lead groups of tourists through city bars, acting-out a debate on Scottish writers. Brewers' McEwan's have just signed a three-year sponsorship deal for the tours, and the summer programme was launched with 38 American academics in tow on Tuesday night.

Going on a pub crawl can be an education finds Helen Puttick (part2)

That situation presents something of a challenge for 'between job' actors Keith Gordon (Clart) and Sharon Erskine (McBrain). They love Americans but fear academics and their pedantic questions. US visitors are the most frequent subscribers to the tour, tip everyone - including bar staff - and crave 'Scottish Blood'. Many claim to be direct descendants of William Wallace.

They also have an uncanny habit of getting terribly mixed up. Keith says: "There is a line I say at one point which goes ' I galloped to Edina shore' - an old name for Edinburgh.
"One American woman came up to me at the end of one tour and asked why I mentioned Dinah Shore - she really thought the American singer was something to do with Scottish literature!
"I explained politely and she said maybe that was how Dinah Shore got her name - she was serious!" The team leader of Tuesday's Virginia party - here for a conference - was so desperate to start cramming in the culture in the bars that she insisted the actors began the crawl 30 minutes early.

With a quick bout of Rabbie Burns singing "vines, wines and drunken Bacchus" they left the Beehive Inn in the Grassmarket, striding as fast as the bard had galloped in on horseback in November 1786.

In the hurry four PhD students were left behind. Clare Kilbane and Amy Troop had to run from pub to pub asking if anyone had seen a group of Americans flocking after two actors quoting Auld Reekie. Meanwhile their peers were going from Robert Fergusson to Walter Scott and the Jolly Judge pub in the Lawnmarket to the nearby Ensign Ewart.

Over a pint they enthused about the tour. Nancy Iverson was enjoying the event for a second time, having attended the same conference last year. "It has been such fun," she said. " I think it is more polished this year than last. It is a good way to get a feel for Scottish heritage." Another Virginian tourist, in Edinburgh for the first time, felt at home. " Where we come from was founded by Scots," she said. "We have a big parade every year and everyone comes out and all the dogs wear little tartan kilts. They are just so cute."

Going on a pub crawl can be an education finds Helen Puttick (part3)

There was little time to find out more about this quaint tradition. We were herded from the wee bar along the Lawnmarket to the courtyard before The Writers' Museum. Silence fell as Sharon launched into a passage of Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde. "I was born to a large fortune.. " she began, her voice rising upwards until she proclaimed with passion:"All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil."

Sharon, a mum and a masseuse as well as an actress, knows how to project her voice. She appeared on TV in Dr Finlay as a woman giving birth to a stillborn baby. Screaming and yelling was essential to the part and the producers so admired her lungs she was invited back for more. However, although such volume might be an asset during the literary tour on a windy night, it can land the actors in trouble.

Recently a student started shouting at a party from her bedroom window, telling Clart and McBrain to shut up. Alistair Tait, who was playing Clart, feared a plant pot might follow the abuse being hurled in his direction. Eggs have also been lobbed at the tour guides as they put gusto into the script. Keith explains: " The ghost tours go down past Milne's Court by the debating chambers and they have bells and everything. When we are there at the same time we have to speak louder and the students up above are trying to study. We do try to be quiet if we can."

But there were no complaints during this tour. In fact, Sharon and Keith wouldn't have minded a bit more rabble-rousing. The conclusion - a quiz just outside Milne's - was a subdued affair, with the academics straining to remember the facts they had just learnt, while PhD student Christopher Loss was keen to get back to the bar. Asked if he liked poetry he wrinkled his nose and pointed to his friend Munier Nazeer: "He is a kind of poet," he says. "He's into hip-hop."

So while the Americans revelled in the history of Edinburgh's wynds and courtyards - perhaps there was a profound truth in Clart's concluding quotation: " Not one in 50 kens a word Burns wrote."

Inn footsteps of the writers

The literary pub crawl begins at the Grassmarket's Beehive Inn, where it is believed Robert Burns drank in the 1700s, when it was known as the Stables Inn. The bard certainly drank in the area, staying at the White Hart Inn next door in 1786.

The next round is up at the Jolly Judge, then the Ensign Ewart in the Lawnmarket. Burns lived just minutes from the taverns and it is thought he was a regular through their doors in the late 1700s.

Sir Walter Scott is another likely drinker at the two bars. Although he lived in Castle Street and worked n law, he liked to mingle with the bawdy working classes. Many of his stories were inspired by tales told to him by impoverished drinking fellows. Robert Louis Stevenson is also believed to have followed in his footsteps. The author of Treasure Island lived so close to these two bars that experts say he must have called in for some light relief when his weak constitution would allow.

Last orders in the tour are at Milne's Bar in Hanover Street. Few Pubs could claim to have hosted so many poets: Hugh MacDiarmid, Tom Scott, Donald Campbell, David Morrison, Norman MacCaig, Stuart MacGregor, Alexander Scott and Iain Crichton Smith, to name a few, drank from its bar.

So many writers wanted to sup at Milne's early this century they were given their own room. It was on the right-hand side of the bar and the left wing politics discussed inside earned it the nickname The Little Kremlin. Milne's Bar is also mentioned in Alisdair Gray's novel Janine. He describes the gathering of three literary minds, MacDiarmid, MacCaig and Sydney Goodsir Smith, with scathing detail.