Scotland - Mobile Phones / Coverage

Can any of you folks up there recommend an inexpensive, pay-as-you-go mobile phone my folks can pick up in London or Edinburgh before they head off into the yonder?
They really only need it for a week (before I go up and have my phone with me) for emergency situations.
Everything I've looked at is about £60 just for the phone, not even looking at airtime, etc. yet.

Thank ye!

Have you checked with friends, particularly those with kids?  They might have an old one that they can lend you.

*smacks self on forehead*

I still have MY old phone!  Duh... thank you for reminding me!

Okay, then what I need is... a SIM card...
I really wonder if it's worth it for a week.

My dad just needs to not get lost

As I recall, sim cards are pretty cheap...maybe 10 pounds or so?  If I were there I'd let you have an orange sim for nothing...I got it back when they were giving them away for free and never used it!

Ooh, actually, just popped onto the carphonewarehouse site and it looks like you can pick up a Virgin Mobile payg sim for a fiver.  Probably worth it for peace of mind.  Don't know how the Virgin Mobile coverage is in Scotland, though...I assume it's ok, but I use O2.

Modified to add - it seems like sim cards usually come w/a wee bit of time on them, so if your dad isn't planning on making loads of phone calls you may not even need to buy any additional credit...

Thank you!

Last time I bought a SIM it was Virgin (PAYG).  £10 for the card with £5 free air time.  Might be worth a look.

Don't know how the Virgin Mobile coverage is in Scotland, though...I assume it's ok, but I use O2.

There is no Virgin Mobile network as such.  Ignoring the Johnny-Come-Lately 3G services which have yet to make any real impact outside the major urban corridors, there are only four GSM networks in the U.K.:

Vodafone
O2  (formerly BT Cellnet)
Orange
T-Mobile UK (formerly Mercury/Cable & Wireless One-2-One).

Any other VirginNet, AcmeNet, or whatever will actually operate on one of those four networks.   Vodafone and O2 tend to have the best overall coverage in more rural areas, as they're the longest established and also use GSM 900 & 1800 (Orange and T-Mobile are GSM 1800 only).

For what they're worth, you can see some rough coverage maps here:

http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_gb.shtml

There will be a lot of very localized variations though, especially in mountainous areas such as the Scottish Highlands.

Thank you Paul (and Cait!).

I use Virgin as my phone provider, and when I initially bought the phone the documentation stated it used the T-Mobile network coverage.

Over the summer texts from virgin to virgin phones are free!

I bought a new SIM card on Ebay for £1. 

Thanks for all the input!

Turns out they decided to wing it... I've not heard from them since they left on Saturday, so I'm hoping and assuming all is well.