The Sir Walter Scott – Bombers, billionaires and birds

Waiting in a Wetherspoons at Edinburgh airport.

Made using Substack’s generative AI tool

In my imagination, planning a flight during aviation’s golden age would entail perusing brochures, booking with a travel agent months in advance, printing an itinerary and performing the necessary transaction at the bureau de change. On the day, one would have their chauffeur drive them to the airport and carry their bags to the check-in desk. They would await the aeroplane in the lounge, sipping champagne and sampling caviar, before boarding the aircraft.

On board, more champagne, or maybe a martini, set down with a bowl of nuts next to the ashtray. With a smile, the air hostess would offer a warm refreshing towel. In a reassuring voice, the pilot would confirm that the flight is scheduled to run smoothly. One would marvel at this modern mode of transport. Flight! The open skies, previously the preserve of bombers, billionaires and birds. Now available to the masses.

I flew last Friday evening. I’d booked it on my laptop in my living room on a grey Monday afternoon in January. To save cash, I hadn’t booked any luggage, so I stuffed some socks and underwear into my rucksack. After work, I power-walked to the tram and stood, sweating, among commuters. At the airport, I grabbed a clear plastic bag and shoved my toiletries inside. I walked in my socks through the scanner, beckoned forward by a small man wearing a white short-sleeve shirt and blue latex gloves.

I cleared security 40 minutes before my flight. Which left just enough time to hurry past Fat Face and JD Sports, and settle in for a half of Leffe at The Sir Walter Scott: a JD Wetherspoon establishment. Oh, what glamour when we fly.

I have plenty of time for Wetherspoon’s, but even I struggle with this one. I don’t know how popular regular Spoons are with overseas visitors, but I imagine many tourists end up here on their way back home. I hope they don’t think this is what all pubs look like: A huge wooden bar along one side; the floor randomly divided between parquet flooring and carpet; dangling pendant lamps arranged in a layout with no discernible correlation to the tables below. Three of the walls are covered in paper made to look like bricks (the fourth is open to the fluorescent terminal). More graphics on the wallpaper appear to be trying to tell some sort of history of Scotland, but the words are largely indecipherable.

I plonk my bag on the floor and sit with my half pint. I look around. A quick check on the Wetherspoon app tells me there are over 160 tables here. Around a third of them are occupied. Most of my fellow drinkers are on their phones, ignoring their travel companions. Or, like me, they are on their own. Some have got their laptops out to do work. It’s 7:15pm on a Friday. Perhaps airport rules work both ways: you can drink when you should be working, and you can work when you should be drinking.

I glance at the in-house departures board and relax a little. I have time. My ticket says I’m in boarding priority group five, which I’m pretty sure is the lowest one. It shouldn't really have the word “priority” on it. I use the airport WiFi to Google the opposite of “priority”. I get: inferiority, last, subservience, unimportance. That’s budget airlines for you.

Above me, the ceiling at the “front” of the “pub” (i.e. the bit closest to the rest of the terminal) is a corrugated green metal. It reminds me of the gantry of an old-school football ground. But it dawns on me that this is meant to be some kind of fake awning. I think this is meant to be the pub garden. The al-fresco section, if you will. This is confirmed by the knee-height fence and plastic box plants which run along the pub’s entrance. But when I look out, instead of observing a bustling street scene, I’m gawking at an MDF board advertising the new Starbucks at gate 10.

Still, this place serves a purpose. Sure, they’ve bumped the prices up, but it’s still cheaper than it should be, given it has a captive audience and the Brewdog round the corner charges £11 for bread and olives. The staff have always been very friendly when I’ve been in here. You know what you’re getting at a Spoons. I wouldn’t necessarily trust the cask ale in this one, but the keg stuff is perfectly fine. If this is the final taste of Caledonia left in the mouths of our foreign brothers and sisters as they fly away, so be it. It could be worse. Actually, it really could be a lot worse: there’s an All Bar One at gate six.

I take the final gulp of Leffe as I hear a final call over the tannoy in the distance. I join the back of the queue with my fellow passengers in inferiority group five. We trudge indifferently to the machine that will take us six miles into the air. The open skies, previously the preserve of bombers, billionaires and birds. Now available to the masses.

Where is it?

• Unit C170, after security, Jubilee Rd, Ingliston, Edinburgh, EH12 9DN

Open every day, 4am to 9pm.

Where next?

Well, I’m assuming your next stop is your plane seat. Feel free to get a drink on board.

The chaser

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