By Roger Lytollis

Greyfriars Bobby may be Britain’s best-loved statue. Bobby is the Skye Terrier whose owner John Gray was an Edinburgh City Police nightwatchman. They walked the streets together from 1855, when Bobby was a pup, until Gray’s death from tuberculosis two-and-a-half years later.

He was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard. Bobby led the funeral procession, then refused to leave his master’s grave. The kirkyard’s curator gave up trying to force Bobby out and put sacking for him under two table stones, which Bobby slept under.

Bobby was trained to walk to a nearby coffee house every afternoon when Edinburgh Castle’s One O’Clock Gun sounded, and was fed there. He became a celebrity. Crowds gathered to watch his daily excursion.

For 14 years, Bobby continued keeping watch over his master’s grave until his own death in 1872. That Bobby is not forgotten is largely due to English philanthropist Lady Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts. She funded a granite drinking fountain with a life-size bronze statue of Bobby on top, opposite the kirkyard at the southern end of George IV Bridge. Sculptor William Brodie did a fine job of depicting canine mournfulness. No violin string was left unplayed.

Unveiled in 1873, it is Edinburgh’s smallest listed building. Although the water supply was cut off in the 1950s, the statue is one of Edinburgh’s most popular tourist attractions and Bobby is adored around the world for his heart-warming story … which probably isn’t true.

The popular version of events has long been questioned – even while Bobby was alive, in some contemporary newspaper reports. There are doubts about whether he was owned by a John Gray, whether he mourned by anyone’s grave, and whether he always slept outside rather than in the homes of nearby dog lovers.

In his 2011 book Greyfriars Bobby: The Most Faithful Dog in the World, Jan Bondeson suggests Bobby was a stray mongrel who hung around the graveyard catching rats. The graveyard’s curator James Brown adopted him. For a small fee, Brown would spin visitors a yarn about Bobby’s loyalty to his dead owner and, when the story had become well known, sell them photographs of the dog. He’d also show them the coffee house where Bobby ate, and suggest that they might like to visit it.

Bondeson believes Bobby died in 1867 and was replaced with a younger dog, citing differences in photos and paintings of him before and after May of that year. He suggests this could have been Brown’s or coffee house owner John Traill’s idea, to maintain the arrangement that benefited them both.

This theory sees the mongrel replaced with a Skye Terrier. The breed rarely reaches age 16, as Bobby is supposed to have done. And spending most of one’s time in a graveyard is highly unlikely to increase life expectancy.

But the traditional view still holds sway, partly thanks to the trio of films made about Bobby. The best-known is the 1961 Disney version based on the 1912 novel by American author Eleanor Atkinson. That was based more on Atkinson’s imagination than on research. But who wants the truth when fiction is so appealing?

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Just inside the kirkyard gates, a man is sitting on the steps of a small building. I ask him about Greyfriars Bobby. It turns out that he’s something of an expert. He’s Jamie Corstophine, manager of City of the Dead Tours, whose ghostly locations include Greyfriars Kirkyard. The small building is his office, now known as Bobby’s Bothy. It was built in the early 1800s for relatives of the recently buried to guard graves in the days – or nights – when bodies were dug up and sold to medical schools. It later became James Brown’s office.

During his 15 years as a tour guide, Jamie has done plenty of research into the famous dog. He agrees with those who doubt the traditional story. "There’s a lot of inconsistencies," he says. "There’s no paper trail tying any John Gray to Bobby. There are 17 John Grays buried here. But police records don’t show any employee called John Gray around the time he was supposed to have been a nightwatchman with Bobby. Maybe it was James Brown who brought the story to people to make money.

"The dog was real. He linked the One O’Clock Gun with getting fed. He was a clued-up dog. He was well looked after. I’m surprised he didn’t die of diabetes!"

One illustration of Bobby’s popularity came in 1867. Stray dogs were regarded as a nuisance in Edinburgh; a new by-law required all dogs to be licensed or face being destroyed. Bobby had no legal owner. The city’s Lord Provost presented Bobby with a collar that had a brass plate engraved: "Greyfriars Bobby from the Lord Provost 1867. Licensed." The collar is displayed at the Museum of Edinburgh on the Royal Mile.

The statue remains the most public reminder of the affection felt for Bobby. Even here, Jamie thinks there’s an inconsistency. Bobby is supposed to have been a Skye Terrier. Jamie thinks the statue looks more like a Cairn Terrier. I agree, although Cairns and Skyes are related.

Whatever the breed, Jamie is annoyed by people rubbing the statue’s nose [supposedly for luck]. "It’s vandalism. I’m trying to educate people that it’s not a good idea. It’s a listed monument. If you damaged the Wallace Monument, you’d be committing a criminal offence. You could be fined thousands of pounds."

How do people react when he asks that they don’t touch the statue? "People laugh or say, 'What are you going to do about it?' People believe they’re right to do this made-up tradition. Gift shops are selling Bobby with a gold nose now. It’s got that bad. We’re trying to protect it for future generations. It’s been there since 1873. Who are these people to think they have the right to destroy it?"

I presume nose-rubbers don’t realise they could be damaging the statue, but Jamie is right that it’s a danger. He mentions a statue of Shakespeare’s Juliet in Italy that had to be replaced when parts of it were worn away through people touching it "for good luck".

He thinks people are still drawn to Greyfriars Bobby because "it’s a lovely story. People want to believe it. And there is an element of truth behind the myths. But some people get upset if you tell them some of it might not be true. They say, 'I’ve seen the film! Oh yeah, ’cause Disney are well known for factual documentaries.

"As a tour guide, and someone who respects history, I’m not going to lie to people to make them feel better. And I’m not going to force my views on them. I could be wrong. I’m just one of those that wants to know the truth."

The Herald:

This is an edited extract from On A Pedestal: A Trip Around Britain’s Statues by Roger Lytollis, published by Robinson, £20