Porty Podcast

On the first Saturday of the month, you may have seen a poster outside St John’s Church in Brighton Place. It reads ‘Pamoja Fashion’ and points you towards the church hall where a market selling clothes, jewellery and other accessories is being held. It’s raising money for a charity which for many years has linked schools in Edinburgh with those in a district of Tanzania. And, as you’ll hear, it all began here in Portobello.
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Last week, we heard about the news that the keys to the Town Hall has been passed to the community. But that’s not the only Council asset that’s been handed over recently to a different, smaller, less-well known part of the Portobello community. It’s a fairly small plot of land off Mount Lodge Place which has remained locked and unused...until now. This is the story of how Mount Lodge Green came to be restored to community use.

On Monday morning, a group of cyclists will leave the Cake Stand in Straiton Place Park on what, for one of them, will be an epic journey. Leading them will be Xani Byrne, brother of Alice Byrne, who disappeared on New Year’s Day in 2022. Neither she nor her body were found and the police concluded that she had taken her own life. This trip is all about raising awareness around the country about mental health and suicide and raisin...

There seem to be a huge number of videos showing people doing astonishing feats – climbing buildings, running precariously along railings, leaping across streams. It’s all part of a relatively new sport called Parkour. Part of its popularity seems to come from the fact that it’s not a traditional competitive sport. You challenge yourself, not each other. And  now it’s coming to a beach near you.

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Cast your minds back to the turn of the year. Five men from Portobello’s Eastern Amateur Rowing Club were thousands of miles away from their families, in the middle of the Atlantic in quite a small rowing boat taking part in the Talisker Atlantic Challenge. It took them 39 days and 8hours but it’s also taken them time to come to terms with the enormity of what they’ve achieved and with life back on dry land. Next weekend, Cal MacAn...

Walk down any street – not just in Portobello – but almost any town in the UK and you’ll see row after row of cars, mostly just sitting there, hardly used. The Western World is obsessed with private car ownership. They’re a status symbol. And yet, cars – and road transport generally – are responsible for a considerable proportion of greenhouse gas emissions. If the country is to meet its climate targets, attitudes are going to have...

Portobello has a rich and varied history, dating back about 300 years. And before that, the Figgate Whins were known as the haunt of smugglers and outlaws. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that there are stories of mysterious happenings in parts of the town. But from next week and through the summer, we’ll be able to hear about some of these tales of ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night when the Portobello Ghost Tours...

You may have seen the posters about what’s happening at the Town Hall. You may have spoken to people about how the building will be used when it becomes a community asset. You may have your own ideas about events you’d like to see – or even put on – there. But right now, the trustees are looking for your practical help in the form of the cash they’ll need to run the Town Hall from Day 1 when they take over the lease from the Counci...

Next Saturday, a group of storytellers from around the country are gathering at Bellfield for an event next Saturday evening entitled “Tales of the Gallus Women”. These “Gallus Women” are those who, in their day, made a significant impact on their communities but whose lives and influence have largely been forgotten. The show has been brought together by Anne Dignan who founded the local storytelling group here in Portobello. David...

In the last few days, the City of Edinburgh Council has launched a consultation about how to turn Portobello into a 20 minute neighbourhood. Over the next six week, local people will have the chance to express their views on how to make local services – shops, cafes, the local surgery - more accessible by foot, cycle, wheelchair or public transport. It hopes this will help people share their ideas about how to make the town centre ...

This coming Thursday, the Portobello Timebank has arranged a talk at Bellfield to mark to 100th anniversary of the public broadcasting in the UK, which took place at the end of last year. They’ve enlisted the help of Tom Stevenson, a retired professor of Microelectronic Technology at Edinburgh University. His talk - The Story of Early Radio – tells the history of radio from the birth of an idea in the mid-19th century to the creati...