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My Dunfermline: Arabella Weir recalls Pilmuir Street childhood and shouts out city bistro

Comedian and actress Arabella Weir, aka Beth from Two Doors Down, reveals her favourite spots in Dunfermline.

Arabella Weir. Image: Adam Smith Festival of Ideas.
Arabella Weir. Image: Adam Smith Festival of Ideas.

She may have grown up in sunny Bahrain, but comedy star Arabella Weir spent her summer holidays each year in Dunfermline.

The Fife city holds a special place in her heart; here, she tells The Courier the spots that she loves most.

What first springs to mind when you think of Dunfermline?

My Granny Nancy’s house with steps up to the front door in Pilmuir Street.

It was very dark inside with brown walls, I don’t think granny had decorated it after the Victorians built it.

There was a cold, dark kitchen at the back with steps up to a small garden my siblings and I would play in when visiting her.

Arabella Weir’s granny lived on Pilmuir Street in Dunfermline. Image: Supplied.

On solo visits I’d sleep a tiny, narrow bedroom in a high single bed with freezing cold sheets.

This was not a happy house and I don’t recall many happy times in it – granny was the very definition of nippy sweety, always ready to criticise and undermine. The complete opposite of my beloved Melrose granny!

Favourite spots to visit in the city when you’re looking for inspiration?

I’ve always loved Pittencrieff Park – even when granny made us go there on freezing cold days.

It’s so gorgeous there and always full of surprise turns and paths and goes on for miles, it’s just wonderful.

Arabella Weir completed a charity walk along the Fife Coastal Path in 2018 with Sarah Brown, Sandi Toksvig, and Debbie Toksvig.

I also love the area around the Abbey – on a lovely spring day there’s nothing to beat walk round and round it and drinking in the view over the kingdom of Fife from the low wall at the back.

I also love the Fife Coastal Path – did that a few years ago, I know it doesn’t come into Dunfermline, but it’s a spectacular walk and, boy, do you get your steps in!

Who was the person in Dunfermline that had the biggest influence on you?

That’d have to be my dad. He was born and brought up in Dunfermline, that brown house in Pilmuir Street, to be precise, and was the Dux at Dunfermline High School.

The area around Dunfermline Abbey is always a hit with Arabella Weir. Image: Steve Brown/DC Thomson.

Much to his dismay I didn’t carry on the legacy of his intellectual rigour but he was very witty, wry and so quick and I’d like to think I’ve carried on my own version of those attributes.

I’d say my dad was a true Fifer – hardworking, modest, a wee bit dour and dedicated.

What’s your first memory of the city?

Granny taking me for a picnic on a nearby cold, grey beach and making me swim in the sea, shouting from the shore as I inched my way gingerly in: “Don’t be such a big girl’s blouse, that is not cold water, I’ll show you cold water!”

My dad was working in the Middle East at the time so I was used to swimming in very warm waters under a boiling hot sun. I could not understand how my granny could claim this water wasn’t cold….least of all when she wasn’t about to go in.

Arabella is a fan of Pittencrieff Park. Image: Steve MacDougall/DC Thomson.

I do love cold water swimming and baths now, so maybe those days on the beach are better memories than I am giving them credit for!

Granny would also build sandcastle with me with a bucket and spade which I loved – not sure why but no one ever did on the beaches in the Middle East!

Funniest thing that ever happened to you in Dunfermline?

My granny (yes, sorry, her again, and she wasn’t even from Dunfermline originally, she was from Hawick, her dad managed the Co-Op there) took me round to see her neighbour who had recently had a new-ish baby.

The neighbour puts him in his high-chair and, bursting with pride, says to my granny: “Oh, look, wait, when I put his food in front of him, he claps his wee hands together.”

Arabella Weir recommends The Haberdashery Bistro,  Dunfermline. Image: Steve MacDougall/DC Thomson.

My granny, without pausing for breath, said: “Aye, they generally aw do that.”

There was no pleasing that woman but she was an excellent golfer – Fife Ladies champion in the 1920s.

My dad inherited his life-long obsession with golf from her – my parents honeymoon was a week’s golfing on the East Coast and my mother hated golf!

Do you have a favourite restaurant in Dunfermline?

The Haberdashery Bistro is fabulous – homey, original (I hate chains), quirky and has a great atmosphere.

What about the best place for a coffee stop? Cafe Fresh – lovely, proper coffee and delicious home baked stuff, too good!

How is 2025 going for you so far?

The year is going pretty well, so far, The Multibanks, which I work on with Gordon Brown and a fabulous team, are going from strength to strength, so that’s very exciting and uplifting.

There’s some very good news about Two Doors Down on its way…can’t say more than that right now.

Arabella Weir at the Multibank project in Fife. Image: Kenny Smith/DC Thomson

And the Fast Show Live tour at the end of the year is sold out months in advance – who knew we’d still be so popular?

Also, I’m alive, in control of all my own faculties and well and these days that feels like news worth putting the bunting out for!

The Big House Multibank gives surplus products from Amazon and other companies to families in need. You can donate to The Multibank at www.multibank.co.uk

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