The Leither magazine is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary.
In those two decades the magazine has become a much enjoyed publication, featuring a range of themes and contributors.
Their commemorative issue no. 159 is now available (for free) in Leith, including various pubs and cafés and from McDonald Road Library and the Out of the Blue Drill Hall.
The pages and the cover (by Bernie Reid) reflect a changing Leith – but one still with a unique character.
In his opening editorial, Billy Gould talks about the way that the publication has evolved in its first 20 years. It was originally mooted as a local Leith newspaper, but soon morphed into the eclectic magazine we know today, produced and inspired by the inhabitants of Leith ‘in all their myriad shapes and sizes’.
Peter Laing was the original editor, while Gould has now overseen an impressive 110 issues. In his article ’20 years of the Leither’, regular contributor Tom Wheeler reflects on the way that the magazine has charted the way the area has changed while remaining ‘undeniably, indefinably, unmistakably Leith’.
Wheeler himself first came across the magazine in a Leith pub- many others have discovered it in the same way. For Leither’s ‘writer without portfolio’ Tracey Griffin, the magazine is, like Leith, ‘perseverance personified’.Â
The varied character of Leith is well represented in the pages of Leither Issue 159: political polemic, culture, charitable organisations, history and reminiscence. The issue also includes a powerful piece on Leith’s severe drug problems by Stephen Millar. He fears that problems are likely to get worse due to an influx of synthetic opioids, such as Nitazenes- which can be much stronger than heroin.Â
All aspects of Leith feature in the Leither’s pages.
Two decades for a volunteer-run publication is a rare achievement that’s certainly worth commemorating, and I wish all the team well for the future.
I do find it interesting, though, that back in 2004 the earliest ideas for “The Leither” was it being a newspaper, rather than a magazine. This is understandable, given the previous publications which also went by the name of “The Leither”. There was the Leith Tenants’ Association newsletter in the early 1970s, a relatively short-lived (I think) “independent newspaper” in the early 1990s, and then a tabloid-sized (somewhat monochrome) tabloid launched in 1997. This latter publication managed to survive until 2001, when it suffered the horrendous fate of being “amalgamated” into sister title, “Edinburgh Times”. (Out of interest to readers of “The Edinburgh Reporter”: for around a year, THAT “Leither” featured a regular theatre/entertainment round-up by a young Mr Liam Rudden, before he moved on to many greater things!)
More widely, of course, the present-day “Leither” continues in the tradition of several Leith-based newspapers which, from the late 19th century into the 20th, reported and campaigned on behalf of the then-independent Burgh. Most notable was “The Leith Observer”, originally founded to campaign against Leith’s proposed “amalgamation” with Edinburgh. (Let’s just say, while they may have won some early battles, they ultimately lost that particular war.)
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