Edinburgh’s first Festival ran on postwar rations
● Donations of food, beds, flowers, flags and coal helped make first event happen
The first Edinburgh International Festival went ahead after the city’s residents donated rations and opened their homes to visitors, a new archive has revealed.
The online treasure trove has been assembled to mark the 70th anniversary of the Edinburgh International Festival. It documents how The Scotsman and its sister title, the Evening Dispatch – which became the Evening News – were hit with an “avalanche” of correspondence divided over whether the event should happen or not after they revealed plans for the first festival.
Festival organisers hope the new “storytelling” site will help expand their archive of its 70-year history.
A new archive created to mark the 70th anniversary of the Edinburgh International Festival has revealed how the city’s residents were initially divided about the first event – but ended up ensuring it went ahead by donating rations.
The online treasure trove shows how The Scotsman and its then sister title, the Evening Dispatch, were hit with an “avalanche” of correspondence split over whether the event should happen or not after they both revealed plans for the first festival.
The EIF’S new “storytelling” site recalls how 6,000 homeowners across the city offered rooms for festival guests following a plea from Lord Provost John Falconer because many hotels had not yet been reclaimed from military use in the Second World War.
Residents also helped overturn a ban on Edinburgh Castle being lit up for the festival by donating their own coal rations to help welcome visitors to the city. They also helped dress the city with flowers and flags.
Volunteers manned a Festival Club at the Assembly Rooms, preparing and cooking 2,500 meals a day for visitors to the city, while the festival liaised with the Ministry of Food to ensure there were enough ingredients.
The original inspiration for the festival was said to have been a walk along Princes Street by the Austrian-born opera impresario Sir Rudolf Bing, general manager of Glyndebourne Opera, and the soprano Audrey Mildmay in 1942. The archive reveals how the news of moves to set up a new festival in Edinburgh was first reported in November 1945 – less than three months after the end of the war.
One article in The Scotsman, headlined “Edinburgh as a world festival centre”, revealed moves were afoot to stage a “short but brilliant season of three weeks or a month”.
It stated: “Lord Provost Falconer has had the project closely at heart, for it not only accords with Edinburgh’s historical and cultural status, but fits into the tourist traffic potential of the city, the natural attractions of which are admittedly unique.”
The new site – 70years.eif. co.uk – states: “On Saturday 24 November 1945, the plan for an International Festival in Edinburgh was announced in three newspaper articles in The Scotsman and the Evening Dispatch, which later became the Evening News.
“An avalanche of letters from Edinburgh residents arrived on editors’ desks, both for and against the notion of a festival. Most people enthusiastically favoured the idea. The response confirmed the desire for a spectacular celebration of the ‘flowering of the human spirit’, the founding vision expressed by the Lord Provost in the aftermath of a harrowing world war.”
Behind-the-scenes dramas, 11th-hour fundraising efforts and political interventions are all recalled in the new archive, which allows people to add personal memories.
Nicola Kenny, the EIF digital manager, said: “It’s been a great experience to look back over the incredible 70-year history of the International Festival and find just some of the wonderful stories told by audiences, artists and former members of staff.
“The website has a varied selection but there are so many tales to be told.”
“An avalanche of letters from Edinburgh residents arrived on editors’ desks, both for and against the notion of a festival”