You’d be forgiven for forgetting about my project to walk up the 7 hills of Edinburgh by now: hell, I’d almost forgotten myself. The last time I posted – Hill Number 6 – was Arthur’s Seat back in December last year.

Well, there have been some challenging times this year, especially as regards Mrs F’s health (she’s improving now, thanks) and finishing this project wasn’t to the forefront.

Nevertheless, with the excellent company of my sister Carole I set off up Craiglockhart Hill that first weekend of this September when, as so often, indifferent August weather gives way to some glorious sunshine in Scotland.

There’s actually two Craiglockhart Hills, Easter and Wester. However, the conventional wisdom from t’internet was that Easter was the one that represented the 7th Edinburgh Hill, which is just as well, because from where we started off on Glenlockhart Road, Wester loomed above us, a sheer cliff of unwelcoming rock that said ‘you’ll have had your tea,’ in true Edinburgh fashion.

Craiglockhart is better know for the former Hydropathic Hospital and the War Poets – of which more presently – but at the foot of the Hill on this side, another name on the sign sparked a memory: Monro. The trees were apparently planted by Alexander Monro Secundus, or, as our American pals would say, the II. He was the middle of a family dynasty of Professors of Anatomy at Edinburgh University, and they came to own Craiglockhart Estate for a decent number of years.

Monro II (1733 – 1817) was a talented lecturer who contributed to the School of Anatomy’s international reputation at the time. Unfortunately for the dynasty, Sonny Boy (or Tertius if you insist) didn’t inherit the brainy gene, and was apparently incredibly dull. This was to have consequences, as the students decamped to other, private lecturers who were more entertaining, including one Robert Knox. The intense competition amongst them all led to the supply of cadavers for anatomy demonstrations becoming something of an issue.

That, in turn, led to some immigrant enterprise on the part of William Burke and William Hare, who supplied Knox’s dissection table with prime material without, it turned out, waiting for the material to die first. After the sensationalist trial of Burke and his execution (Hare turned King’s Evidence and escaped) the murderer’s corpse was turned over for dissection  to, you’ve guessed it, the official Uni guy, Alexander Monro III, who droned on to a packed audience drawn more by the celebrity of the guy on the slab than Monro’s lecturing skills. Apparently Monro used some of Burke’s blood in a quill pen, so he wasn’t without some sense of theatre, at least.

Charles Darwin wasn’t a fan though,  writing to his family that “I dislike [Monro] and his lectures so much that I cannot speak with decency about them. He is so dirty in person and actions.”

Chuntering on about this connection to a well-known story to Carole, we quite quickly ascended to the summit – it’s not the biggest of hills by any manner of means – to be rewarded with views of Fife to the north, and the Pentlands to the south. You could even make out the bridges spanning the Forth in the former view.

Having taken some photos of the views, and observed the golfers hacking about on the northward slopes, there was still time to ponder Napier University’s Craiglockhart buildings, far below us. These originally comprised the former Hydropathic, commandeered during the First World War for soldiers recovering from the horrors of the trenches and what was then called shell shock. Among them were Wilfrid Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, two men who were to become famous for their war poetry.

When I was growing up, the prospect of a land-based war of bitter hand to hand fighting seemed much less likely than a set of missiles bearing nuclear warheads raining down on us and bringing the whole world to an end. Now, though, with the Ukrainians struggling through a counter-offensive to take back their country village by village, street by street, some of their words seem all too current:

The buildings have long passed into the hands of Napier University, Alison’s alma mater, and

turning from the Pentlands westwards you get a good view of the former hospital. As you can see, some architect in search of an award has inserted what bears to be a giant vacuum cleaner attachment in amongst the stone-built stuff.

I suppose why I did this climbing of the hills is a bit like both of these but not really. I’m not the City

Council, nor indeed am I a cat. However, climbing all these hills – scattered as they are from the centre, southward and westward (mainly) was to get a perspective of my new home, not to mention a distant view of my old one over the Forth. And, from any perspective, Edinburgh is a pretty stunning mad dream of a place.