Roddy Martine

RODDY MARTINE was born in South East Asia but brought home to Scotland by his parents to be educated at Edinburgh Academy. From launching an Edinburgh Festival magazine in his schooldays, he has followed the progress of the Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Edinburgh Military Tattoo for over 60 years. For four years, he was co-opted as a judge for the Edinburgh Festivals’ Cavalcade.

As a columnist with five major newspapers during the 1990s, and editor of a succession of Scottish lifestyle magazines, he has always regarded Edinburgh as his home and has published 30 books largely relating to Scottish lifestyle topics – history, biography, interiors, Scotch whisky, tartan and the supernatural. For his involvement in the Scotch Whisky Industry, he was made a Keeper of the Quaich in 1996, and a Master of the Quaich in 2006.

He was a Trustee of the Edinburgh International Festival during the 1970s, and served as a Trustee of The 369 Gallery of Contemporary Art throughout the 1980s. As a writer and photo journalist, he has attended The Grandfather Mountain Highland Games in North Carolina, and Tartan Week in New York and Washington, USA; the International Gathering of the Clans in Nova Scotia, and, in 2003, he was honoured as the Scottish Australian Heritage Council’s Guest from Scotland for Sydney Scottish Week.

He was an early supporter of the Traverse Theatre in the Lawnmarket and subsequently in the Grassmarket where, although almost 20 years younger than its founder members, he knew them well. He was a cheerleader for The Demarco Gallery from the moment it first opened its doors in its original manifestation in Melville Crescent.