I remember the day the door to our stair on Warrender Park Road was removed by a builder and replaced by a new door, fitted with a closer, and an intercom and buzzer to let guests in. The old door was solid oak, and painted blue--Edinburgh blue.  The new one was a laminate, hollow in the middle, red as a pillar box, but missing the letter slot. A few days later, in an antique ship that had popped up on the street, I saw the heavy brass Georgian octagonal door pulls from the old door (centre pull from the front, left hand pull from the back), and the brasenose knocker, offered as architectural salvage, along with many another treasure that was still useful, but not where it belonged. It would have been too hard to eradicate the crow step gables built by Dutch stonemasons, but one day they might yet turn up on the secondary market for some purpose as yet undefined. And none of the changes helped Mary, the angel of the stair, stay warm in her flat.  Sure, she had scot...