Olympic Torch Relay St Andrews

Very early this morning, there was much excitement in North Street, as the Olympic Torch Relay hit town.

In fact, yesterday we were held up on our way back from a day trip we made to Stirling, so that the torch could travel ahead of us through all the villages along the A91 - the only road into St Andrews. The relay route for yesterday was officially from Aberdeen to Dundee, but it had taken a rather roundabout route to take in these smaller villages. Apparently, the aim is to have the torch be accessible to over 98% of the total population of the British Isles. A few days ago the flame was flown up to the Orkney and Shetland Islands. Once on the ground, various people ran with it up there.

It finished in Dundee last night, and arrived in St Andrews at 6.00am this morning. There was a 'tickets only' event in St Salvator's College quad before the relay came past our house. However, I read online that the St Andrews Pipe Band would be entering the quad to mark the official lighting of the first torch, so I headed down there at 6.15am.

Some of the Official Escort for the Torch

The first sign of activity is masses of police cars and motor cycles all with flashing lights. These are followed by buses containing the runners and other paraphernalia that gets deposited along the route; and finally a bus arrives containing the flame itself. There is quite a bit of discussion about the flame travelling by bus rather than the ancient tradition of running it everywhere. Lloyd says that there is a parallel relay doing it properly, but I didn't see any sign of it this morning.

Bus Containing Olympic Flame

At 6.45am, right on cue, the unmistakable sounds of bagpipes warming up could be heard, the drummers started and round the corner the band all came. The precision of drumming in Scottish pipe bands is amazing, and for me there is nothing like the sound of bagpipes.

The band was followed by the dignatories of the University of St Andrews all in their full regalia. These were the very same people with whole we had enjoyed lunch last week.

St Andrews Pipe Band

St Andrews Pipe Band

Once the band was safely installed into the quad and I had heard the rest of their playing, I dashed back to the house to see the torch pass the house.

First Runner in North Street

At 7.00am, the church bells of St Salvator's College Chapel rang out and the first runner left the college to run up North Street in front of our house. As the lounge is on the third floor, I got an excellent view as it went past.

Olympic Torch Passes 40 North Street

A minor incovenience of the torch relay though, is that we missed the fact that our garbage collection was a day earlier than usual. Our bin is normally picked up on a Wednesday morning, and when we were putting it out as usual last night, a neighbour told us that the collectors had visited on Tuesday morning to allow for the street to be completely closed for the relay. I'm not sure how we were to have found this out; but we didn't know unfortunately.