A Capital Tale tells the story of the day to day life of what it was like to live in Scotland's capital during the decades of the 1970s; 1980s; and 1990s until the author leaves the city in 1996 to begin a new family life in the Highlands.It is based on extracts from the author's diaries and journals and makes no pretension to being of great literary value or merit. The diaries were never intended for publication only as a personal keepsake recording the days and the weeks and the years and then the decades - after all who might ever be interested in the day to day life of an ordinary Edinburgher?However with the passage of time - it's almost half a century since the schoolboy entries were written in 1971 they now offer a certain period charm capturing day to day life in the capital and the social and cultural life of one ordinary Edinburgh family during the late twentieth century. And perhaps the only real literary merit is that it may be a unique such record of what it was like to live in the capital during that era.Everything changes but the cyclical rhythms of the seasons are a constant and of course much of the city remains the same and is instantly recognisable today. The posts take the form of a Dali folded clock so that although the diary extracts correlate with the day of the year they include entries from amongst 25 years so the author may appear as a boy as a youth or as a man - as a schoolboy or at work - single or married - as a son an uncle and eventually as a father too. As the various stories and threads appear and ebb and flow it's rather like a TV soap spread across three decades. And from this a tapestry begins to be weaved and distinct characters emerge - of a family encompassing great-grandparents; sets of grandparents; aunt; mother; father, brother and sister and many others too who flit in and out of the family story. The journals begin in 1971 when the author is a 14 year old Boroughmuir schoolboy through to him approaching middle age when he celebrates his 40th birthday in 1996 and leaves the capital. The tale is set within the social culture of Edinburgh and includes entries on sport; the arts; newspapers; books; radio; and television as well as the city's shops and the surrounding landscape and of course the ever present and varying temperamental Edinburgh climate and weather. Whilst much of the story is about the author and how he views the world perhaps that is just the nature of the diarist but a flavour of that time, that place and that era and of course that family is captured - of A Capital Tale - of times past and of past times residing in Oxgangs; Portobello; Powderhall; Morningside and Colinton which may be of interest to today's readers and to those still yet to come - of living in Edinburgh during that period of time and of her surroundings; her schools and her workplaces; of births and deaths; of weddings and divorces; of life's ups and life's downs; of the author's hopes, aspirations and dreams and of course of regrets and disappointments too. All of Edinburgh life is here - a local story but a universal one too. In the coming years the author intends to publish further volumes for each month of the year.