麻豆社

Edinburgh - EH1 3DG.

Despite having an exempt occupation, Arthur Woodburn decided to resist conscription on grounds of conscience. His application for exemption was turned down and he was arrested and jailed. He spent much of his sentence in what was then Edinburgh鈥檚 Calton jail. Calton was a grim experience: prisoners were not allowed to speak to each other, the cold was biting, food bad and the hard labour could almost destroy your body. Arthur wasn鈥檛 released till going on hunger strike in 1919. Yet he made a dramatic return to the site of the jail in 1947, now demolished and rebuilt as St Andrews House, as Secretary of State for Scotland during the Attlee Government (1947-50), presiding over the place where he was once jailed. 麻豆社 Scotland Political Editor, Brian Taylor talks to Ken Duffy, Arthur鈥檚 great nephew and Andy Omand, the building manager at St Andrew鈥檚 House