“Betty’s Coffee Parlour is now closed. The following are still for sale:
Balloon backed antique chairs
Tall upright freezer
Under worktop freezer
Tall drinks/display cooler
Microwave oven
Espresso coffee machine”

The menu in the window had been replaced by this matter of fact inventory of remaining items. The interior was stripped of all that had given it character, not even a shred of wallpaper lent colour and vitality to the room and a sullen aluminium ladder rested purposeless against the side door. Peering into the semi-darkness through a pane of glass still immaculately clean I could make out the gold lettering on the dispenser of caffeine-infused hot beverages, La San Marco. On the solitary table lay a set of plates, unmatched designs exacerbating the sense of abandonment. How abrupt an end, how unwelcome a reminder of the cruelty of passing years. Instead of the nostalgia and refreshment I had sought a large steel padlock greeted me and the brass door handles hung forlorn. Memory would be my sole access now.

Betty’s, or Brown’s as it was originally called, occupied a distinct place in the hierarchy of premises of consumption. Its clientele did not desire the self-induced stupor and temporary forgetting of the pub. Nor did they wish to fill themselves quickly before scurrying back into the fray of shoppers competing for bargains. It stood in stark and haughty contrast to the likes of the Lite Bite (now Semi-Chem) with its loud, brash cheerfulness, its formica and linoleum in bright oranges and reds, with coffee rings and crumbs on every surface, a baker’s section peddling temptation in the shape of single-portion trifles, sticky buns, cream cakes with artificial filling and icing in surfeit, a pervasive smell of baked beans, fried eggs, chips, bacon, cigarette smoke, the fragrance of my childhood, an orderly self-service queue of customers sliding their laden trays inexorably towards the cash desk and hearty pots of tea. With its gossip and its absence of pretensions I had always felt completely at ease there. Visiting Brown’s was an altogether different experience. Passing through its doorway was entering a sanctuary. Its sensuous dark green menus with gold calligraphy oozed style and a sophistication otherwise unknown in the city. Brown sugar coagulated in generous bowls at each table, a blackboard above the display of gateaux proclaimed the mouth-watering array of daily specials from soup to dessert, service was individual, oil paintings of no particular distinction depicting rural scenes of fields and cottages in heavy gilded frames, the furniture was of dark wood and the curtains were strategically placed to shelter clients from the prying eyes of passers-by, both deflecting and arousing their curiosity: if you were possibly contemplating going in you could, with a conscious effort, look inside to ascertain how crowded the café was, and if you just so happened to be wandering by with a little time to spare you might be prompted to investigate by what little you could make out. In retrospect, this was typical of the discreet notion of propriety that held sway there.

Brown’s was the first true coffee house in the city. In the days, almost inconceivable now that the Scots have fallen prey wholesale to the seduction of stimulants diluted by frothy milk, when instant coffee in sachets of powdered granules was bordering on the risqué and supermarket shelves were stacked with single products (cheese being synonymous with Scottish cheddar in every gradation of orange and nothing else to speak of available) Brown’s boasted an unrivalled selection of exotic beans and roasts. The espresso-maker with its steel pipes and nozzles was the first I had ever clapped eyes on and the eruptions of steam that intruded on earnest or idle conversation was never resented, but possessed an almost musical quality, banishing the grey provinciality of a small urban setting with aspirations to greater grandeur. This local relative of the continental establishments of Budapest and Vienna had been scaled-down to more manageable proportions befitting the context. Little bigger than a sitting-room its intimate clusters of tables and huddles of chairs might not, at first glance, have seemed to share any common feature with the glittering, palatial halls of the Central European capitals with their exuberant ornamentation, fresco-adorned ceilings with mischievous cherubs, their barley sugar twist columns and their cosmopolitanism. True, it would take more than a slight stretch of the imagination to envisage Brown’s as the venue where revolutionary tracts were first set down on paper, where literary movements flourished and the course of history altered forever and yet its function as a space for observation, interaction and unhurried contemplation in comfortable and elegant surrounds was identical. There were no muddy boots, no steaming dogs panting after a swim in the river, but polite exchanges on every conceivable topic from trivial comments on new hairstyles or farm estate management to profound musings on the nature of existence.

In many respects, Brown’s represented a near flawless embodiment of semi-Puritanical Scottish middle-class values, reflected in its use of language, formalistic and old-fashioned, removed from the vulgarity of everyday transactions, conveying a refinement, which I latterly found quite reassuring. We were treated to home baking, with all the connotations embedded in the simple phrase, not mass-produced by soulless, ultra-hygienic machines, but made fresh, to the taste of the proprietor, with a greater investment of care and circumspection, in a word quality. Chutney, relish, scones with jam, chocolate fudge cake, refreshing drinks, baked potatoes preserving the vitamins concealed just beneath the skin, grated cheese and pickle and a small accompanying salad, sensible, wholesome brown bread sandwiches with slices of cucumber and tomato, tuna and chicken fillings, toasties. A careful balance had been struck between pleasure and utility: indulgence was an option, but even then it was never permitted to transgress the boundaries of respectability, but kept within the limits implicit in a modest portion, nutritional value at a premium. Gluttony and excess were banished from the premises. Mocha, cappuccino, espresso either black or with a tiny jug of pouring cream to be added to taste, Viennese with a dollop of whipped cream floating on top (which my artist friend would pile high with sugar until it tipped, jettisoning the sweet cargo beneath the hot liquid in what he considered a re-enactment of the disappearance of Atlantis) and, my customary choice, special Viennese, distinguished from its namesake by the addition of half a chocolate Flake. Each cup was presented with a glass containing a sip or two of tap water in true imitation of the Austrian original, the melange.

It was my dear friend Maggie who first introduced me to Brown’s. We were still adolescents and must have made a somewhat incongruous pairing, she in her combat jacket and PLO scarf and I in a starchy outfit more appropriate for a woman three times my age, wrapped in a cardigan to hide my contours. She came from the top of the hill on which P. Academy, where we were form mates, is still situated, I from the bottom with all the social distinctions inherent in the geography. She was going through her Communist phase and I my born-again phase. Her bedroom wall sported a Che Guevara poster with his beret tilted rakishly, defiance and courage written across his youthful features, mine a crucifix and Biblical quotations. She and I were both equally impassioned about our respective paths. Her clear and fiercely intellectual blue eyes burned with conviction and anger at injustice. We each harboured our own peculiar blend of compassion and contempt for our fellow customers: she regarded them as the incarnation of petit bourgeois corruption, decadence and exploitation, radiating a constricting philistinism that stifled the radical, I watched with disgust as their whited sepulchre fingers grasped the delicate handles of the cups, they were all damned and yet here they prospered without a care in the world convinced of their superiority to me. We each believed we had the perfect recipe for redemption, yet our visions were mutually incompatible. Although we had long since given up trying to convert each other we were bound together in enduring friendship through being outsiders, rejecting the restraints of conventional expectations. I would never have ventured into Brown’s had it not been for her, lacking the confidence that she appeared to take for granted, but I am glad that she did. Indeed I will never forget the gesture that she made on that first occasion, sending my coffee back because the whipped cream had gone off. I was too timid, too afraid to complain and she was magnificent, courteous yet firm. When a new coffee was duly brought to our table, she tasted the cream from a teaspoon only to discover that it was no better, so, undaunted she once again called the waitress back, urging her to taste for herself. The consummate professionalism of the staff was manifested in the response: rather than dismissing us as teenage troublemakers or attention-seekers, she made a point of discarding the offending canister and starting again. I feel duty-bound to point out that in all the long years I frequented Betty’s Coffee Parlour that was the only time such a problem occurred.

More than a decade has elapsed since I deserted Scottish shores, yet on every return to the city of my birth I have made my way to Brown’s in an act of pilgrimage and renewal of the ties of affection, however grudging, to my roots. With the closure due to retirement P. has lost more than a genteel snack purveyor, its cultural landscape has been deprived of a highly distinctive feature, a haven for writers without ever being dangerously Bohemian, a locus of relaxation, debate and thought that none of the newer, trendier coffee houses can hope to match. Number 67 G. Street is empty, the once animated chatter has died down, it can never be replaced.