ACTOR Nigel Planer has visited Edinburgh as he stepped up his campaign to have the capital's airport renamed in honour of Robert Louis Stevenson.
The former Young Ones star posed by the monument to the famous Scottish author in Colinton during a trip to the city yesterday to mark "RLS Day".
The actor said that the Treasure Island writer, who died 120 years ago, was an idol to him in his youth and renaming Edinburgh Airport after him would pay tribute to his work.
Mr Planer, 61, said: "Stevenson spent his life getting away from Edinburgh, travelling, but missing the city too."
Best known in Britain as the author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped and his novella, The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Stevenson also wrote extensively about travel.
Mr Planer said RLS had invented "travel writing as we know it" through works such as Travels with a Donkey and and The Amateur Emigrant.
Scores of airports around the world have been renamed in honour of local celebrities, including George Best in Belfast and Liverpool John Lennon Airport.
In Scotland, campaigners have repeatedly called for Prestwick to be renamed Robert Burns Airport. The latest bid for the name change was rejected on the grounds that it would confuse foreign visitors.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article