Herman smells.

He smells of Edinburgh. My Edinburgh. As a student, in Edinburgh, I shared a mahoosive house with hundreds of other students near the Brewery. That house was a warren. It had once been rather grand but by the time we all lived there it had let itself go somewhat. It no longer intimated with its scale. It sprawled.  A hazaderous climb dodging two sets of fully working traffic lights (courtesy of the ‘Civil Engineers’ night out) and traffic cones of every size, colour and shape, (courtesy of the Arts, and every other faculty unable to organise the, let’s be honest, frankly outstanding logistics of an actual traffic lights haul) would take you eventually to the sky roof light we’d all climb out to watch whatever mega star was playing Murrayfield. It felt like there were hundreds of us swinging legs off the square roof ends. Four flights of stairs to perch precariously on a ledge, clink your bottle, and sing your lungs out. All accompanied by the sweet inhalation of the omnipresent whiff of brewery. Happy days. 

That house was crammed with us. A daunting rent sub divided and sub divided again with each of us squeezing in just one more pal to bring the rent money down and put our student union beer money up. The original kitchen had been in the basement and the old fireplace ovens had become an alcove of sorts. A cavernous retreat from the rest of the room. We eyed it. Someone could live in that we thought. Another £1.75 off the rent each. Enter Tom.

Tom played rugby. Tom went on rugby lads nights out. Tom lifted weights to improve his rugby game. Tom woke everyone every morning at 6am to go running to improve his rugby speed. Tom battered his rugby ball relentlessly off the stone kitchen walls to help his rugby catch.

We hated Tom.

According to our now ritual Christmas group email he still plays rugby, he also now coaches his kid’s team and, somewhere on the side amongst the tackles, tries and scores he is an excellent heart surgeon. He might also not really be called Tom 😉 ‘Tom’ has read this, and as I thought he would took it in good sport. ‘Tom’ knows I’m still owed my revenge over the skeleton in my room prank of 1991.

Tom didn’t wash much. Or do laundry, at all, we thought. A lot of rugby. A lot of sweaty exercise. Not a lot of hygiene. I’m old. These are students days of old. One ‘bathroom’ to at least 327 students all sardined into one house. Baths were logistical nightmares; there was no shower. Some of us ran up and down flight of stairs after flight of stairs yelling ‘does any one need the toilet? If you do say now or hold it because I’M GOING FOR A BATH’, some of us showered on campus, some of us showered at the ‘pools’; Tom just stank.

His abode was basically the central fireplace of the entire rambling house. His stink travelled up the chimneys to slither insidiously out the badly boarded up fireplaces in every room. Other students had drafts we had Toms. By the time it reached me in the attic his eau d’yoghurt had mellowed somewhat. Nobody’s windows fully worked and mine remained frozen in a never open, never fully shut jam. Just enough to always let the brewery smell waft in. Always there but not entirely unpleasant once you’d got used to it; a mixture, if you will, of Tom’s home made yoghurt odour out the fireplace and brewer’s yeast in the window. They say smells form memories, a tiny hint and suddenly you’re travelling back through time and space to a particular place. A smell works quicker and more fully than any ‘do you remember when…?’. I have no idea where I first read that, or if it is even true, but I believe it. Every whiff of Herman hurtles me back in time.

Herman smells of a gentler Edinburgh than I’ve described. The raw gag of Tom is now subdued, mellow, older and only just there. Yes Herman does smell but for me it’s base notes of happy days and high notes of nostalgia. Days of books and libraries, clever people explaining interesting ideas, and nights of sitting under Edinburgh skies on a roof five floors up kicking your heels as music thrummed though you and laughter consumed you.  In reality Herman smells simply of yoghurt and yeast a mild ‘Tom’ and the brewery. Each sniff brings many happy memories but he IS,  just strong enough, that like Tom, he got shunted out the common areas and now… he’s behind a closed door in the pantry.

Where’s your Herman?