Forsyth Of Edinburgh

Netball: Where the wild things are

The year was 1983. The venue was Singapore. It was the netball world championships but not as we know it now. The last time the Silver Ferns played for the world title in the Asian state, their captain was haunted by a marauding python. Two other players were dive-bombed by bats, while another Fern suffered from an almost constant nosebleed in the tropical heat.

The tournament was played outdoors, under the burning sun, on unforgiving concrete courts with no substitutions allowed. The Ferns had no hot water at their accommodation and had to contend with midget' umpires, deadly lightning strikes and some over-zealous security. Oh, and a heartbreaking loss in the final.

"Looking back, it was a hell of a tournament," says coach Lois Muir, "but in those days you just accepted things and got on with it. They were a tough bunch of players."

The Ferns were the favourites for the sixth world championships, having won five of their last six clashes with Australia. They had also just come off an unbeaten five-match tour of the UK, where they had beaten England by an average margin of 22 goals. A $26,000 grant from the New Zealand Sports Foundation allowed the team to hold a three-week training camp in Singapore, an invaluable opportunity to acclimatise.

They were put up in New Zealand military accommodation at an air base and Muir dictated that the air conditioning was not to be turned on in their living quarters. "I was a bit mean," recalls Muir, "but you had to live in the environment as well as play in it."

The temperatures were oppressive; the Ferns would start practice at 6am but even then, it was close to 30 degrees. Rita Fatialofa struggled to adjust to combination of heat and humidity, and her nose bled heavily.

After enduring it for several days, she was eventually sent to hospital for a minor operation. One afternoon during training, the rain started, followed by rumbling thunder. "We continued practising, a bit of rain didn't worry us," says then vice-captain Yvonne Willering. "But the sound got louder and louder; eventually some locals came over to tell us that a number of people had been struck by lightning in the last few years on the adjoining golf course. We rushed inside."

Captain Lyn Gunson, playing at her third world tournament, suffered a night-mare build-up. A few days before their opening game, they were hosted by the New Zealand Army battalion posted in Singapore. The team posed for a group photo after dinner, with the soldiers standing on tables and chairs behind them. A chair collapsed, smashing into Gunson's Achilles tendon and sending her to hospital. Muir, Willering and another player visited her the next day, where they were scolded by medical staff for choosing to walk to the hospital, down a busy causeway that was reputedly the most dangerous road on the island.

Budget hotel for prime Princes Street site | Online Investing

PART of one of the most iconic buildings on Princes Street, Edinburgh, is to be turned into a Travelodge hotel, the budget chain announced today.

The top floors of the site housing the fashion outlet Topshop, a Grade II listed building that was once home to R W Forsyth’s department store, are to be converted into 96-room hotel which will be opened next summer.

The hotel is part of a deal w

ADVERTISEMENT

ith Arcadia Group, the UK’s largest privately-owned clothing retailer, which owns the Topshop building. The budget hotel group has agreed a 35-year lease, which represents a 10 million investment.

The Travelodge will be one of two being built in Edinburgh – the other is in Queen Street, and they will bring the number of hotels the chain owns in the capital to 13.

The upper floors of the Princes Street building have been lying empty for years.

Travelodge chief executive Guy Parsons said the hotel would fill four floors above the Topshop store. “We will be utilising space that was previously used for offices and storage,” he said.

“Given the lack of new development sites in central Edinburgh, this really is one of the most prominent sites left in the city, and we are delighted to have secured it.”

The two Edinburgh addresses are among 22 new hotels being opened by Travelodge across the UK this year, including one at Glasgow Airport, with a combined investment value of 165m.

The announcement comes just four years after Arcadia unsuccessfully tried to sell the Princes Street building a year after it bought it for 26m.

Graham Bell of the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce said that the announcement was a positive move.

“They are utilising upper floors of premises that don’t have use, which is all adding to the value of Princes Street,” he said. “Also the fact that it’s a hotel that’s being opened, creating a mixture of what’s going on in Princes Street – just as the chamber believes should be happening, which is a blend of retail, eating houses and quality hotels.

“I don’t think there’s is any snobbish regard as to how much they’re charging with regards to Princes Street. If they are alongside other quality establishments, that can only be a good thing.”

Mr Bell added that the arrival of the hotel was a sign that the regeneration of the shopping street was in place and would accelerate with the completion of the troubled tram project.

An encyclopædia of cottage, farm, and villa architecture and furniture, containing numerous designs for dwellings ... each design accompanied by analytical and critical remarks ...

The Edinburgh literary journal, or, Weekly register of criticism and belles lettres

The National union catalog, pre-1956 imprints, a cumulative author list representing Library of Congress printed cards and titles reported by other American libraries

Oliver and Boyd's Edinburgh almanac and national repository ...

The Edinburgh review, or Critical journal