Tam Lin, Starstruck

North Bridge, Edinburgh

from The Scotsman's Steps

My partner had academic gigs in Scotland either side of the weekend, so I flew up to Edinburgh (in a plane, obvs: I am not really a crow) so we could spend a long weekend there. I expect I'll post a little about that lovely city in due course, with a gallery of photographs, but first I have a story to tell.

On Saturday we had enjoyed a visit to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, which is truly an amazing collection set within an extraordinarily beautiful building. As well as classic Ramsays and Raeburns, there's a good selection of contemporary work, too, from the chilling "Three Oncologists" by Ken Currie to engagingly quirky portraits by John Byrne, among which I was pleased to see his sketchy and unglamorous pastel portrait of Tilda Swinton, which I've admired for some time, but only ever seen on the Web. On Monday, the Prof had departed for Glasgow, and I had a morning to kill before flying back to Southampton (in a plane, etc.).

It was a beautiful, sunny-but-brisk morning, so I went for a walk up onto Calton Hill, where I admired the views over the city, took a few touristy photos, and inspected the police cordon around the spot where a body had been found over the weekend. Coming back down onto Princes Street, I remembered seeing a poster for a John Byrne exhibition in the Royal Scottish Academy, so, having had that recent reminder of his work, decided to head there, battling through the crowds thronging the Christmas market and fairground that has been installed in the gardens around the Scott Memorial, and which seem to have attracted half the population of Europe.

You may not be aware of John Byrne. British readers of a certain age are likely to be aware of him, even if unknowingly. He was part of that post-War Glasgow working-class eruption of talent that included Billy Connolly and Gerry Rafferty. In fact, Byrne painted the distinctive LP covers for Connolly and Rafferty's band, the Humblebums, and for all of Rafferty's subsequent albums. He also wrote the outstanding TV dramas Tutti Frutti and Your Cheatin' Heart, and had a long relationship with the young star of the latter, Tilda Swinton. You can get a good flavour of the man from this BBC feature. I like his painting, not least because of his dogged, contrarian pursuit of a decorative, street-level figurative art, against all prevailing fashions: Peter Blake might be a useful point of comparison.

Anyway, I went to the Academy, and had a look round the show. I was astonished to see the prices – £12,000 for a small painting, £6,000 for a print – and by the fact that nonetheless every single item had a red dot on it, indicating a sale. Even allowing for the gallery cut, I calculated that Byrne must have cleared roughly the value of a semi-detached house in Southampton – our house! – from a single show. At which point, I became aware of a growly smoker's voice emanating from a tall, bearded, bushily-mustachioed elderly fellow in a long overcoat, talking confidingly with the woman behind the desk. Yes, it was John Byrne himself.

Now, I am not one to be intimidated by celebrity, but I'm reluctant to presume upon a man's time and patience. This was not the opening of the show, after all, which would have been back in November, where he could expect to be interrogated, glad-handed, and selfied by all and sundry: presumably he'd just dropped by to see how things were going and count the red dots. So I simply kept an eye on him, and waited for an opportunity to grab a snap. Which came when he moved to look at one enormous painting, where he was joined by a very tall, elegant woman. As she turned her head to speak I realised it was, unmistakably, Tilda Swinton. A full-on art-world paparazzo moment if ever there was one.

So, having got a couple of pictures, I went off happily to the Academy's cafe for a coffee, still with an hour to spare before I'd need to catch the bus out to the airport. I managed to find myself a table, and sat there nursing an Americano, collecting my thoughts about the weekend, and watching the Christmas market action outside the window. I then became aware of that rumbling voice again, behind me. I turned, and there were Byrne and Swinton, standing in the queue for coffee. He's an old man now, and she was clearly looking for somewhere to sit him down. So I did the obvious thing: I caught her eye, and offered them my table, for the small price of a photograph.

Call me naive, but I don't expect to see the likes of Tilda Swinton standing in a gallery cafe queue, in full public view, simply to buy a paper cup of coffee. I also didn't expect her to look so pleased to be offered a table, or to engage me so readily in conversation – I said how much I'd enjoyed The Seasons in Quincy, her video portrait of John Berger – or to end up warmly shaking hands all round after they'd posed for me. It may be that I had succumbed to the magic dust of celebrity, after all, but I truly felt as if I, wee Tam Lin, had had an encounter with the undisputed Queen of the Fair Folk. If nothing else, it was the perfect seal to set on a fine weekend away.

Taken with the Fuji X-20...

Shame to use the B-list camera on an A-list subject!