If this famous old Scottish pub can close, then nowhere is safe |
Hogmanay, 1990, could’ve been 1991, not sure, never been good with dates. I’m in the pub, it’s rammed, the music’s loud, really loud, the beer is cheap, really cheap, my chums are here, I’m warm and happy and a little bit drunk then a little bit more then a lot. I’m not saying my university years were wasted by any means but the memories that linger aren’t of jurisprudence or Roman law, they’re of nights like this one, nights in the pub, and particularly this pub. Glorious.
The pub was/is The Blue Lamp on the Gallowgate in Aberdeen which was half-way between uni and town so featured in many nights-out. It’s a pretty vengeful wind that whips down the Gallowgate in December, or any time of year, but you’d step inside, under the lamp, and into warm. I know nostalgia’s at work here, of course I do – the past is often warmer than the present – but the Lamp was a fine pub and popular and the Hogmanay hoolies were particularly good.
Which is why the news this week that the Lamp is closing down has come as a bit of a shock. I heard about it when my chum Scott, with whom I spent many a night in the Lamp, sent me a copy of a letter the owners of the pub had written about its future. “Dear friends,” it said. “Sadly, the rising costs of running a business have reached a point where it is simply no longer viable for us to continue operating. We have tried everything to keep The Blue Lamp’s doors........