Aspiring to be ‘the Athens of the North’ once more, Edinburgh had, in the International Festival, presented an event in 1947 that emphasised ‘high culture’ and successfully attracted many of the best artists Europe had to offer to the city, at a time when austerity measures were still in force and European nations were emerging from the upheaval of the Second World War. In the run-up to the inaugural Festival, Rudolf Bing found himself going beyond the usual duties of an artistic director by organising the de-requisitioning of a number of Edinburgh hotels and negotiating the de-rationing of curtain material. With Britain in the grip of vicious rationing, the Board of Trade had had to assist by securing supplies of crockery and household goods for visitors. (A controversy also occurred when the Minister for Fuel and Power, Emanuel Shinwell, banned the floodlighting of Edinburgh Castle; a compromise, that of lighting the castle during specific hours in the evening, was reached in the face of widespread outrage). Arts impresario Richard Demarco, then a seventeen-year-old schoolboy, recalled: