What we leave behind..

John Watt was born on 8 July 1894, the son of Alexander Watt, mining engineer and his wife, Barbara Fraser. He was articled to George Lennox Beattie of George Beattie & Son in 1909, studying at Edinburgh College of Art from 1910. On completing his apprenticeship in 1913 he joined Hippolyte Jean Blanc as assistant. His career was interrupted by military service from 1914 to 1919, but on his return he entered the office of James McLachlan, where he worked on Morningside Congregational Church and various business and other premises. He left in 1930 to take up an appointment as assistant in H M Office of Works under John Wilson Paterson, and commenced practice in Edinburgh on his own account a year later. After only three years, in 1934 he accepted the post of assistant at the Royal Infirmary.

Watt died on 7 October 1969 aged 75 at the City Hospital Edinburgh. He never married. (from the Dictionary of Scottish Architects)

This once upon a time was Morningside Congregational Church. It seems to me that the biography above describes a pretty ordinary, even drab, existence.

But did he know that one day, a passer by would stop in awe and notice how the early morning sunlight brought to glorious life his Italianate faux-campanile. Would it have pleased him? Surely. Because that's what all artists (blippers included) hope for.