Pilmeny Youth Project needs your help
Council budget
Broomhouse Community Health Hub
Digital Sentinel
Targetting alcohol problems among the elderly
Pilmeny Youth Project in Leith entertains around 250 people of different ages over the course of a week.
In an effort to find something for the young people to do which they would find interesting it appears that Bryan Maughan manager at the Pilmeny Youth Centre has struck gold.
He has begun an investigation into the Gretna Rail Disaster which happened at Quintinshill in Cumbria on 22 May 1915 and has big plans about the 100 year commemoration later this year.
If you are still asking what that has to do with Edinburgh then the story begins and ends in Leith since many of the 216 victims of the train crash which involved three trains came from Leith.
One of the victims lived at the same address as Bryan does now and he is very passionate about finding out as much as he can about the troops from 7th Battalion Royal Scots who left the Drill Hall in Dalmeny Street to perish hours later just over the border.
Now Bryan needs your help in tracing families of the victims who perished that night in what was Britain’s worst train crash.
Are you related in some way to one of those victims? If so then Bryan would love to hear from you to get your family’s story. Even though the stories will now be second or even third hand it would help to piece together the human element behind the disaster.
Some of the men who perished were in their teens, with the youngest believed to be Bugler John Malone aged 16. The investigations by the young people at Pilmeny who have paid several visits to Register House have uncovered an even younger victim.
Do you know anyone who might have some knowledge of the families of the victims? If so then Bryan would love you to get in touch with him.
Email any detail to gretna@pilmeny.co.uk
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The City of Edinburgh Council set their budget for 2015/16 next Thursday 12 February 2015. You can watch proceedings online here.
We interviewed the Finance Convener Alasdair Rankin about the Capital Coalition’s plans for how the council will allocate the money in the next financial year and you can read that here.
The Council’s budget is partly provided by a Scottish Government grant.
Within his budget statement the Finance Secretary announced an additional funding package of £51 million for Scotland’s local authorities to help them maintain teacher numbers.
Edinburgh will also receive an additional £13.7 million in 2015-16 within their local government finance settlement. This will ensure that Edinburgh receives its fair share of Scotland’s £10.85bn local government funding allocation and part of that will go towards funding childcare for 3 to 4 year olds. .
The city will also have a huge £31.6 million boost to its housing stock and significant Scottish Government investment in the school estate.
Spending in health and social care within NHS Lothian will increase and the people of Edinburgh will benefit from the developments at the new Chalmers Hospital and the Royal Victoria Building at the Western General Hospital.
Edinburgh West MSO Colin Keir said: “This is good news for the people of Edinburgh. Among the highlights there’s more money going into health helping with issues such as delayed discharge from hospital as well as new money encouraging local authorities to maintain teacher numbers in our schools.
Given the desperate austerity measures coming out of Westminster from the Liberal Democrat/Tory coalition I must commend the Cabinet Secretary for once again producing a balanced fair budget in extremely tight circumstances. It’s such a shame the Labour Party couldn’t find it within themselves to support this investment. This budget shows why the SNP in government are trusted more than any other political party in the country.”
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Broomhouse has a Community Health Hub and the Social Justice Secretary Alex Neil MSP visited the other day. The Scottish Government recorded this video report:
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The Digital Sentinel in Wester Hailes is about to get an award of funding of £12,000 from The City of Edinburgh Council under its Contact in the Capital project.
£25,000 has already been earmarked for pilot schemes in North Edinburgh with money made available to North Edinburgh News for its community newspaper and a further £12,000 for an online community news outlet in Craigmillar, but this further funding will help the Digital Sentinel continue its development.
The online news website has already had £10,000 of support from Carnegie UK Trust and other financial and ‘in kind’ support from community partners in Wester Hailes. The Carnegie UK Trust offered a year’s funding to help support and grow the emerging hyperlocal news sector and to test out new models. They funded five projects in Brixton, Alston, Cumbria, Port Talbot South Wales, Harlow, Essex as well as the Digital Sentinel in Wester Hailes. The Digital Sentinel aimed to resurrect the local newspaper The Sentinel in digital form.
The Digital Sentinel plans to engage with the media studies students at Wester Hailes Education Centre (WHEC) as well as other teaching establishments. They are also going to print 500 copies of an eight page edition of a newspaper to engage locals. They will use QR codes in the newspaper to encourage traffic to the website as well as highlighting the project to those in the community without digital access.
The funding is recommended for approval at the Communities and Neighbourhoods Committee which is due to meet on Tuesday 10 February 2015.
The Digital Sentinel will be included in the first report on the £50,000 which the council earmarked for these projects which is due to be produced in April 2015.
You can read the Digital Sentinel here.
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The hardship and horror of a war that reached beyond the front line to our own doorsteps has been documented at the City of Edinburgh Council’s Museum of Edinburgh.
On display until 27 June 2015, Scars on the City: Edinburgh in World War I draws on the Capital’s extensive collection of objects and oral archives to recall what it was like to be in Edinburgh while the war was raging.
Documenting the stories of local munitions workers, nurses and children – and including an account of war recruitment drives that thronged the city’s streets – the display homes in on the tragic zeppelin raids of April 1916 which destroyed local buildings and scarred the Capital.
Councillor Richard Lewis, Culture and Sport Convener for the City of Edinburgh Council, said the exhibition offers a stirring glimpse at life on the home front during WW1. He said: “Scars on the City reveals the will of Edinburgh’s home front and how people coped with the hardship and dangers of the war. Most of the objects and photographs on display are from the city’s own archives, and have been based on fascinating accounts from those who lived through the unrest.
“Over the last year the Council has provided a programme of free exhibitions and events across the city which commemorate the centenary of WW1 and life on the front line. This free to visit display brings it back ‘home’ and recalls what life was like for those left behind. It’s hard to imagine Edinburgh’s skyline being attacked from the air by zeppelins, and it is stirring to see how the city was destroyed, but also how it survived and was rebuilt.”
Exhibition curator Vicky Garrington said she was spoilt for choice when it came to selecting objects for the exhibition. She commented: “We’ve got some wonderful objects that will really transport visitors back to wartime Edinburgh. There are pieces of shrapnel collected after the Zeppelin raids on Edinburgh in April 1916. A Braille pocket watch used by a blinded ex-servicemen shows the sacrifices made to defend Britain, and younger visitors will enjoy seeing the toys and games children played with during the war, drawn from the Museum of Childhood collection.
“I was surprised to find out how clued up young people at the time were about the details of the War. Cigarette cards taught them about ranks, Army signals and artillery, while board games challenged them to evade mines and bombs en route to Berlin.”
Scars on the City: Edinburgh in World War I will be on display at the Museum of Edinburgh until 27 June 2015. The Museum is owned and managed by the City of Edinburgh Council’s Museums & Galleries service and is free to visit.
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Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
