When I first started working in St. Andrew's House in 1994 I was based on the ground floor in Room 57B. One day I was idly pondering who had the honour of working in Room 1. So I had a look around and after a while I found the area with the low numbered rooms. Then I saw a door with '1' on it, but no nameplate or other clue as to who was in there. So I poked my head in and to my immense disappointment it turned out to be the home of an industrial sized photocopier, operated by a couple of admin staff. There was me thinking I would have seen some senior mandarin sitting at a vast desk thinking great thoughts…
My latest significant memories of St. Andrew's House come from 2005. I was working in Private Office and preparing to attend the G8 gathering in Gleneagles, which started later in the week. On this particular day, we gradually became aware of a series of protests and disturbances were taking place in Edinburgh. Eventually I was among a group of Private Office and Cabinet Secretariat staff, who took up a position on the roof of the building in an attempt to see for ourselves what was happening, and size up the situation. We couldn't see a great deal, and it wasn't quite like being on the roof of the US embassy in Saigon awaiting helicopter evacuation, but it's about as close as I'll get!
Rooftop parties were popular in the days when the end-of-Festival fireworks took place on a weeknight, the best view in the whole city by far.