Intimations of autumn are all around. Schools are back, leaves are falling, temperatures are dropping, and Celtic have already said adios to the Champions League. Some things never change. In Edinburgh, the festival is coming to an end and with it there is the mass exodus of artistes and audiences returning from wherever they came.

It’s at this time of year that I think of Miss Jean Brodie in her prime, of whom it was said she was “an Edinburgh Festival all on her own”. Like Jay Gatsby, Miss Brodie is the kind of fictional being who is forever elusive and enigmatic and intriguing. At times we might think we have got her measure but she has a habit of slipping off her straitjacket and demanding a fresh interpretation.

Miss Brodie is a teacher, of which there’s a surfeit in Scottish literature. The all-girls school where she works is called Marcia Blaine, which Muriel Spark based on James Gillespie’s, where she had been a pupil.

As Edinburgh folk know, Gillespie’s girls of a certain vintage have a rare air about them. They are secure in their own well-maintained skins and effortlessly exude a sense of superiority. In their minds, and through embracing the gospel according to Miss Brodie, they are the chosen ones, and do not mind who knows it.

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Unlike schoolteachers today, Miss Brodie has her favourites, which she calls her “set”. They are her disciples and are invited to tea at her house, taken clandestinely to concerts, regaled with stories of their mentor’s........

© Herald Scotland