MarrFest

The Sentinel often featured local residents whose achievements were making a positive difference  so today the blog entry comes from Thomas Kane who contacted From There To Here about his friend and former band member Alex Marr. 

I am organising a charity gig in aid of the British Heart Foundation in memory of my friend Alex Marr who sadly passed away in July last year.  Alex was a singer and songwriter from Wester Hailes in Edinburgh, and played several gigs and events with his band AC Rid. Alex was taken into hospital in June with a suspected heart attack, however the doctor’s found he had suffered a dissected aorta, a tear in the aortic artery. After heart surgery, Alex never regained consciousness and passed away in July at the Royal Infirmary at Little France in Edinburgh. He was only 34 years old.

AC Rid were formed in 1997 by Alex on lead vocals and guitar, Steve Atkins on guitar and Thomas Kane on bass and vocals. They were joined by a host of drummers in the following years, so many they could’ve rivalled Spinal Tap! However the core element of Alex, Steve and Thomas remained for several years.  They were more than just a band; they were best mates who hung out at weekends between practices and gigs. AC Rid played many gigs around Edinburgh, such as The Venue, Tap O’ Lauriston, The Cas Rock, and Alex even organised his own mini festivals, unashamedly entitled MarrFest.

MarrFest started locally in Wester Hailes, at The Greenway Centre. Alex would give many young musicians and bands a platform that they could showcase their music on, and the events were extremely popular. The thing was, Alex would always give people a chance, whether it was drummers, singers or even brass players in the area, he would give them all an opportunity to play at his events. As AC Rid grew to include singer Lisa Aird and a brass section including a young Phil Ramsay, MarrFest also grew, changing locations into the city centre at The Bongo Club. Still, Alex would sign up bands and musicians who were known to him, giving many new bands and musicians their first taste of a gig in the city centre. MarrFest continued to grow, reaching its height at The Liquid Room in 2003 and featuring a line up including Edinburgh stalwarts Bombskare and Phil’s new band, Big Hand.

AC Rid finally broke up in 2004, however Alex continued to play and write music under several other guises such as Big G, and the humorously named 12 Inches of Thunder. The three founding members of AC Rid remained good friends. Alex played his final gig which included guest appearances by Steve Atkins and Thomas Kane once again, as 12 Inches of Thunder at Whistle Binkies in December 2011. It wasn’t a spectacular gig, or incredibly busy, but it felt special for those three close friends to play together one last time.

Since Alex passed away, there has been a lot of discussion about putting on an event to celebrate Alex and his music. Then in February 2013, founding members Steve Atkins and Thomas Kane got together with AC Rid’s last drummer Lewis “Forbo” Forbes to have a practice. This session went better than ever expected, with Thomas even stepping up to lend his vocals to some of Alex’s songs. It wasn’t long until the words MarrFest were suggested once again.

MarrFest 2013 takes place on Saturday 1st June 2013 at The Bongo Club in Edinburgh. Tickets cost £5 and are available from all band members and at Tickets Scotland on 127 Rose Street. Doors open at 7pm, and it has a 10pm curfew. It is a charity event, where all money raised will go to the British Heart Foundation in Alex’s name. Playing at the event will be an acoustic performance from Lisa Aird, who is the lead singer with local act Bias Firey. Also playing is Black Riot Valves, who feature Dan Lowe on guitar and vocals. Alex gave Dan his first ever gig at one of the first MarrFests at The Greenway Centre. Headlining the event are Edinburgh favourites Victorian Trout Conspiracy, who feature one time AC Rid member and close friend Phil Ramsay on trumpet. However, before the main headline act, once again AC Rid will take to the stage, playing songs written by Alex Marr. The current AC Rid line up features all ex members of the band including founding members Thomas Kane on bass and vocals and Steve Atkins on Guitar. Also playing with AC Rid are Lewis “Forbo” Forbes on drums, Lynsey MacDonald on alto sax, Siobhan Hunter-Reynolds on trombone and guest slots with Lisa Aird on alto sax and vocals and Phil Ramsay on trumpet.

For more information please contact Thomas Kane at thomaskane22@hotmail.com

Music Notes

Top Of The Pops made its last live appearance in 2006, but a marathon set of repeats is well underway.  This year, the repeat cycle has reached 1978 and you could tune in tonight and watch the Dooleys, Ruby Winters, Darts and the Boomtown Rats.  Music remains powerfully evocative for memory and there are few of us who aren’t transported back in time when we hear certain tracks.

As well as cataloguing local news, the Sentinel inevitably reflected the wider times around it and this was particularly true when it came to music trends.  Its record reviews were often forthright.  But it also covered wider music news and gave space to often passionately held views about music.  In 1978 it published an article called No Future which challenged the view that punk rock was dying out.  You can read the article here.

When musicians sought to influence politics in the 1980s, Red Wedge was set up as an alliance of musicians, writers and artists to promote the importance of political knowledge and activism.  In 1986 the Red Wedge tour came to Edinburgh and the Sentinel obtained interviews with some of the key members as well as reviewing the concert itself, publishing a 3 page feature in their February 1986 edition.

Large events were also covered.  In 1996, there was a feature on T In The Park where the headline acts that year were Prodigy, Radiohead and Pulp.  Rumour had it that Keanu Reeves was making an appearance but unfortunately for the journalist they missed his performance.  You can read all about one writer’s experience of T In The Park here.

Concerts were also covered and in 1996 the Sentinel obtained tickets for Oasis who played at Loch Lomond in front of 40,000 people.  It’s fair to say that the reviewer was impressed by the whole experience, describing their response as “stunned admiration”. You can read their review here.

Local bands weren’t overlooked.  When the Wester Hailes Festival Association organised a free rock concert in Sighthill Park in 1986, the event received full coverage with information about all the bands playing including the Styngrites, Camera Shy and The Play.  Also included in the local music feature were other up and coming Edinburgh based bands who were taking part in a competition at the Jailhouse, Calton Road.  And if you want a taste of those forthright record reviews, there’s a good selection included on these pages as well, including the hope that one album takes to the charts like a rock to water!  You can read this music feature here.

Death Of A Dream

“One of the saddest things about unemployment is the number of young people involved.  These young people with their abundant energy and fresh ideas have much to contribute to society and it is society that must suffer from this present crisis.”

Unemployment amongst young people in the UK continues to be a cause for concern as the country faces difficult economic times and the on-going effects of austerity measures.  However, these words were written 35 years ago by the Chair of the Wester Hailes Youth Opportunity Programme as the WHYOP was launched.  He went on to say

 “Wester Hailes has never been slow to face up to its responsibilities and is proving true to form in this new venture which offers young people an alternative to the dole queue.”

Whilst youth training programmes attracted their fair amount of critics, Wester Hailes seemed to find creative ways to provide placements, training and improved community services.  The scheme was able to offer placements for example with the Sentinel, the community café and a recycling project.  From an early stage the project took a holistic approach, recognising that some young people needed a broader range of training including life skills to become fully equipped for work.  This inevitably raised the project’s costs but enabled the scheme to have a more positive and permanent impact for the young people involved. Over its lifetime it had a 95% success rate with its trainees and was regarded as one of the most successful projects of its kind.

When the Youth Opportunity Programme was replaced by the Youth Training Scheme, the programme in Wester Hailes was adapted to meet the new requirements. In 1988, the Sentinel reported on 10 years of the Wester Hailes YTS.  During that time nearly 400 young people had benefited from being involved.  It was also one of the longest running voluntary YTS group in the country.  It also specialised in working with young people who found it difficult to access mainstream training, providing additional support and training to ensure they could take up training opportunities.  You can read more about their success story here.

The project got to a stage when it really needed new premises and in 1990, the Sentinel reported on the on-going tussle with the Wester Hailes Partnership over the promised funding that had yet to materialise.  When Malcom Rifkind visited the YTS, the manager took the opportunity to raise the issue with him, with the matter being reported in the paper.

In 1992, the scheme faced its biggest challenge, which sadly proved to be its last.  The main funding came from Lothian and Edinburgh Enterprise Ltd.  When the government made cuts to their funding, those cuts were passed on making the YTS unsustainable.  In April 1992 it was announced that the YTS would close.  The Sentinel paid tribute to all the scheme’s achievements and pointed out the many ways that the wider community had benefited from the support and activities of the YTS trainees.

The Greening of Hailes

Early photos of Wester Hailes are dominated by the high rise blocks separated by wide seas of concrete and tarmac.  The green spaces that were included were certainly spacious but were not usable public space and sometimes seemed barren and arbitrary in design.   Efforts to keep pedestrians away from traffic without consulting on where residents actually needed pedestrian routes simply resulted in people using the grass verges or crossing the roads at sometimes dangerous points rather than following official paths.

Over the last few weeks we’ve been looking at the work and legacy of the Wester Hailes Partnership Group which oversaw an ambitious programme of development for the area.  Part of its strategy included improving local green spaces and addressing a number of environmental issues affecting the area including pedestrian routes, roadside footpaths and increasing the number of trees and plants in the area.

In 1990 the Sentinel devoted a double page spread to the Greenway Improvement Scheme.  Forming the pedestrian “backbone” of Wester Hailes, it  was supposed to be a 20^th century Royal Mile for the area, linking housing with local facilities and services.  But lack of investment and minimal maintenance had led to the route being underused due to concerns about safety.  Public consultation had shown that the top priorities for improvement were lighting, repaving and new planting.  Plans for upgrading the route included new junctions and focal points as well as redesigning the paths.

This scheme was one of a number of environmental projects that were aimed at improving the area in particular through creating more distinctive accessible green spaces that linked neighbourhoods rather than separated them.  The Wester Hailes Land Use Unit reported on progress in the 1992 Representative Council Annual Report.  Environmental improvements included roadside and boundary planting aimed at “greening” Wester Hailes and developing a plan for roadside footpaths.  Over the next couple of years an extensive planting programme was put into action resulting in thousands of additional plants and trees for the area.

The Land Use Unit also developed a proposal to employ an Urban Environmental Ranger.  This proposal was submitted to the Urban Aid panel with the application being successful.  This project was the first of its kind with the Ranger engaged in a variety of projects with local children and young people.  The Ranger worked with schools and neighbourhood councils encouraging local residents to become involved in litter picking, planting and other environmentally focused projects.  A Wildlife Club for children was also established for children to learn more about the environment through games and activities.  A regular column Environmental Outlook written by the Ranger featured in the Sentinel for several years during the 1990s.

Is Wester Hailes now greener than it was?  With Spring finally arriving, now would be a good time for residents to judge for themselves.  Last year the increased use of tarmac in the area was raised at a Wester Hailes Community Council meeting with concern being expressed that trees and shrubs are being cut back or removed and replaced by areas of tarmac as have some areas of grassland.  The issue is not clear cut however, with some residents indicating that they preferred this to overgrown shrubs and the associated issues such as rubbish and blocked paths.  Yet with so much work and investment over the years being put into developing Wester Hailes’ green space it seems a shame that this might now be in danger of being reduced.  Last year the City of Edinburgh Council published a report, the first of its kind in Scotland that estimated the value of Edinburgh’s trees in absorbing carbon dioxide, thus reducing pollution.  The 600,000 trees across the city are estimated to have an economic value in removing airborne pollution of around £2.3 million.  Announcing the report, Paul Wheelhouse, the Scottish Government’s Environment & Climate Change Minister commented

“Urban trees, together with community woods, parks and green spaces are the lungs of our Capital.”

The trees planted back in the early 1990s in Wester Hailes are playing their part in reducing pollution.  Hopefully, they will be able to carry on this role for a long time yet as well as bringing a wealth of other environmental benefits to the community.  In 1993 the Environment Outlook column explained that many of the newly planted trees were native Scottish species, trees that would have been growing in the area if the land had not been cleared.  As shown below, the column gave information about the trees and some of the folklore associated with them.

REALIZING THE POTENTIAL – HALFWAY THERE?

The Wester Hailes Partnership was launched in 1989 under the banner “Wester Hailes – Full of Potential” tasked with developing and implementing a strategy to regenerate the estate by the end of the 1990s. In 1995, halfway through its expected lifespan, the Scottish Office Central Research Unit published what they called an “Interim Evaluation of the Wester Hailes Partnership”. The Evaluation’s findings were based on a range of existing reports including household surveys carried out in the area in 1989 and 1994, unemployment stats and interviews with a large number of people who had been or were currently involved in the work of the Partnership.

Just how far had the potential of Wester Hailes – located next to a large established industrial estate, close to the Gyle shopping and business hub, and with very good transport links – been realised after 5+ years? Interviews with residents  identified that more people thought that the area was changing for the better than had been the case prior to the Partnership being set up. Also, the energetic participation of the community (i.e. the time spent by unpaid local activists and volunteers across the full range of policy and strategy sub-groups) had been a major factor in getting things off the ground. However, the report also identified the complex administrative structure of the Partnership as placing great demands on these people, flagging up the issue of whether this level of involvement would be sustainable in the longer term.

The community might have been playing its part but, nevertheless, the report concluded that the Partnership “did not get off to a good start”. Edinburgh District Council and Lothian Regional Council were seen as being “reluctant participants” in the early stages when the Partnership was “trying to develop its agenda and create momentum”. The decision to make Wester Hailes a Partnership area was regarded by the two Labour-controlled Councils as being driven by the fact that it was located within the constituency of the then Tory Secretary of State for Scotland, Malcolm Rifkind. The lesson the Report drew from this was  that “partnerships formed from the bottom up were likely to pose fewer problems in terms of cohesion and drive” than a top down approach. Also, up to that point, the private sector (essentially private housebuilders) had played a minor role, due to the shortage of developable land.

In terms of actual measurable outcomes, the picture in 1995 was decidedly mixed. The launch of a major redevelopment of the town centre area was seen as a significant achievement. In addition, although health and crime  were not high priorities on the Partneship’s agenda, there was evidence of declining crime rates and of increasing confidence in the local secondary school. On the debit side, there had been no decrease in poverty with the proportion of households receiving benefit payments actually increasing from 68% to 74% between 1998 and 1994. The report interpreted this as reflecting a continuing flow of “disadvantaged households” into the area. And with regard to the Partnership’s economic strategy, there was little sign of reduction in unemployment relative to Edinburgh as a whole. It was noted that the issue of unemployment and the Partnership’s failure to tackle the problem more effectively was where “frustration at the pace of change was expressed most consistently” by interviewees.

Housing had been identified as the key element of the regeneration strategy but, here again, progress had been slow. This was due to a number of factors: there was little vacant land immediately available for development; it took time for Edinburgh District Council and Scottish Homes (the Government’s funding body) to establish an effective working relationship; and there was considerable delay in putting in place agreements to facilitate mixed tenure redevelopments. By 1995 it did seem as though this area of the Partnership’s work was belatedly starting to gain momentum. However, the report noted that the relatively slow progress in the early stages had “conveyed a poor impression of the effectiveness of the Partnership”.

So, according to the the Interim Evaluation, the Partnership’s report card for 1995 was a case of could have done better, maybe a lot better. Despite the fanfare of its launch it had got off to a slow start. There had been a few successes but, in terms of the main regeneration objectives of housing and the local economy, relatively little concrete progress had been made by the midway point. It left a huge amount to be achieved during the second five year period.

Next week we’ll take a look at what was ultimately achieved by the Partnership and what long term legacy it bequeathed to Wester Hailes.

THANKS FRASER!

On 14th July 2008, in a corner of Wester Hailes Library, a small group of people met for the first time. This informal get together had been organised by Fraser McAllister, one of the Library staff, to discuss the setting up of a local history archive.

Following the closing of the Wester Hailes Representative Council earlier in the year, the Library had become home to what remained of that organisation’s written records and photographs. Also, not long before, the West Edinburgh Times had ceased publication and the paper’s extensive archive, including that of its predecessor, the Wester Hailes Sentinel, had been transferred to Prospect for safekeeping.

Taken together these materials amounted to a treasure trove, documenting in tremendous detail, the social history of the area stretching back over thirty years. Fraser had called the meeting to put forward the idea that these collections should be catalogued and digitised and then a web site created to maximise access for anyone who wanted to study them and find out more about the Wester Hailes’s past.

As can often be the way with new ideas, there was a bit of a slow start but once things got properly into gear, groundbreaking projects followed one after the other. First, it was this blog, then the From There To Here facebook page, followed by the Wester Hailes codebook with its social history walks (courtesy of Eoghan Howard and the local Health Agency), and the Digital Totem Pole. And that’s not the end of it. Currently, as readers of this blog will know, plans for interactive wall plaques incorporating QR codes; and the establishment of a Digital Sentinel – an online successor to the old Sentinel – are also well advanced.

Unfortunately, staff reorganistion meant that Fraser was with us for a too-short time before he had to move on. Nevertheless, he was one of the key figures in those early days when we were still finding our feet. His enthusiasm helped kick-start something that turned out to be much bigger than I think any of us who attended those early meetings could ever have imagined. Thanks Fraser.

Snapping Up History

Last year the WHALE Snappers was established as a group.  Local participants meet up every month at WHALE Arts to improve their knowledge and practical skills in black and white photography.  The group support each other to learn, express their creativity and make new friends.  They examine many themes and forms from social history to relationships, architecture, nature and the beauty all around us.

Recently the group was awarded funds from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to document Wester Hailes past and present.  WHALE Snappers was one of the first groups in the UK to receive a HLF All Our Stories grant.  This exciting social history project documents Wester Hailes old and new.  This could include portraits of local characters, how the physical landscape has transformed and what the area means to them personally.  Wester Hailes is a community which is constantly adapting and changing.  WHALE Snappers plan to document and celebrate that.

All Our Stories was developed last year by the HLF in support of BBC Two’s programme series last year “The Great British Story” and was designed as an opportunity for everyone to get involved in their heritage. With HLF funding and support, community groups were offered the opportunity to carry out activities that would help people explore, share and celebrate their local heritage.  The popular series was presented by historian Michael Wood and supported by a programme of BBC Learning activities and events got thousands of us asking questions about our history and inspired us to look at our history in a different way through the eyes of ordinary people.

WHALE Arts has just celebrated its 20^th Anniversary running art activities for the people of Wester Hailes and SW Edinburgh so this project is a chance for everyone to reflect and celebrate the evolution of Wester Hailes.  As part of the project there will be workshops in photography, training available in citizen journalism and oral history, trips to archive collections and exhibitions of the group’s work.  Social networking and media will be used to promote the accessibility of the work.   The first part of the project is now available to view as the Snappers have an exhibition of their work at the Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations Council buildings at 14 Ashley Place from  Monday 11^th February until April 2013.  Some Snappers also went to visit the Capital Collection at the Central Library on George IV Bridge last weekend.  It’s a free collection of old photos, maps and artefacts open to everyone with very helpful and friendly staff to guide you through it.  The Snappers recommend a visit!

TV presenter and historian Michael Wood said:

“We British love our history, and no wonder: few nations in the world, if any, have such riches on their doorstep, and so much of it accessible to all of us. It is really tremendous that the people of Wester Hailes have been inspired to get involved to tell their own story and to dig deeper into their own past. It’s brilliant that so many people are being given the chance to get involved through the All Our Stories grants. Having travelled the length and breadth of the British Isles this last year filming The Great British Story, I am certain that fascinating and moving stories will be uncovered which will not only bring to life the excitement of local history, but will illuminate and enrich every community’s connection with the national narrative.”

The WHALE Snappers is for everyone from beginners to skilled enthusiasts.  If you would like to join the Snappers just come along to the next session  which is on Wednesday 6^th March 6pm- 9pm at WHALE Arts 30 Westburn Grove, or phone WHALE on 0131 458 3267.

We’re hoping to put some of the Snappers’ work in a future blog post.