Porty Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Both the police and the City of Edinburgh Council are keen to encourage people to take part in ‘active travel’. That means walking or cycling to work, walking or cycling to school. A substantial amount of the transport budget is already devoted to improving the infrastructure to let this happen. The 20mph speed limit was one part of it; the creation of dedicated cycle lanes or cyc...

Send us Fan Mail Over the last few days, you may have seen great changes at the Seafield end of the Prom. The wall at the back of the Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home (EDCH) had been covered with graffiti and frankly looked an embarrassment! All of that has now been covered with white paint and a huge 25m (80ft) mural has been installed as well. It’s a joint venture between EDCH and the Edinburgh Shorel...

Send us Fan Mail Portobello has a new community police officer. PC Gemma Knox started here at the start of the year, following on from the excellent work done by Matt McPherson who’s moved on to become a School Link Officer. The job is becoming more challenging. The police station in Porty is no longer permanently staffed – PC Knox is based out of Craigmillar – and, for most of the time, she has t...

Send us Fan Mail We’ve discussed the Edinburgh Shoreline Project before on the podcast. This weekend, volunteers from the Seafield Shoreline Group will be out planting saplings in the embankment from the Dog and Cat Home along towards King’s Road. The idea is to increase the diversity of plants in that part of the Prom which should, in turn, increase the diversity of wildlife in the area. At prese...

Send us Fan Mail The Edinburgh Tool Library has become a popular feature in Portobello. Its workshops, within the building run by Tribe Porty in Windsor Place, are filled with the kind of top of the range tools that cost a small fortune to buy. The concept is simple and works just like any other library – except, instead of books, you borrow all the tools you need for a project (and perhaps some o...

Send us Fan Mail How many of you were given roller skates as a child? And how many gave up after falling over a few times? There is a company based in Portobello whose mission is to change our minds and get people, adults as well as children, back on skates again. United Sk8s is run out of Tribe Porty and is the brainchild of founder, James Hunter. He insists there’s a lot more to this sport than...

Send us Fan Mail Tomorrow morning, a group of intrepid cyclists will head out from Portobello High School, escorting Gordon Barclay as he sets out on a 500 mile ride to Portobello Road in London. The aim is to raise money for research into Motor Neurone Disease (MND). It all began on his 50th birthday. A friend from his days at Porty High, Ian Henderson - now a councillor in London, told him the t...

Send us Fan Mail This coming week, the Portobello Drama Group celebrates its 50th anniversary. It started off in a small way as the Drama Group for St Philip’s (now Portobello and Joppa Parish Church). But it quickly grew in numbers and ambition, moving from one-act plays to musicals. For this anniversary year, the company has revived one of its own creations: Brodie – the Musical. It’s the story...

Send us Fan Mail You may not have realised it but we’re just at the end of Fair Trade Fortnight – and it was marked by a special event today in Portobello Town Hall. Fair trade producers were represented along with the shops which sell those goods both locally and across the city. There is still time to get along. It closes at half past three this afternoon. There are lots of activities, including...

Send us Fan Mail The Greek island of Samos may seem a long way from Portobello. Some people may have been there on holiday, enjoying the sandy beaches and the warm waters of the Aegean. But the island is just a mile from the Turkish coast, which makes it a target for refugees fleeing war zones and trying to find a haven in Europe. There are now around 5,000 of them, housed (if that's the righ...

Send us Fan Mail There’s an open invitation on Monday to come along to a workshop at Bellfield. The aim is to start thinking about – and planning – a Big Lunch in Portobello at the start of June. The Big Lunch is an idea which came out of the Eden Project; you may have seen television programmes about this, a popular attraction in Cornwall. Located in a reclaimed china clay pit are two huge biomes...

Send us Fan Mail HiFi Corner was founded almost 100 years ago, though not under its current name which first appeared in the 60s. What has been consistent however has been its commitment to supplying the best quality equipment - from gramophone and wireless to the latest amplifier and home cinema. Until now, its home has been in the centre of Edinburgh. But this week, it moved to Joppa Road. Porty...

Send us Fan Mail One of the great things about living in Portobello is the wide range of clubs and activities you can get involved with. Take ‘Fun Fiddle’ for example. It started a little over 15 years ago as a small informal group of adult learners. Since then it has grown and today offers classes to children and adults, from absolute beginners to experienced performers. Porty Podcast Producer Da...

Send us Fan Mail The Portobello branch of Amnesty International was founded a little over 40 years ago, about seven years after the creation of the organisation. You may have seen their stall at the regular market in Brighton Park or at the annual Village Fair. When lawyer Peter Benenson first set up Amnesty back in 1961, the idea was to win an amnesty for prisoners of conscience all over the worl...

Send us Fan Mail Calling all budding thespians and their helpers. Edinburgh Graduate Theatre will be staging a new production of Saint Joan – Joan of Arc to you and me - and, perhaps for the first time, it will be held in what is now known as the Celebration Hall at Bellfield. Although ‘The Grads’ – to give them their popular name - have a number of regular cast members, for this production the co...

Send us Fan Mail Brighton Place - Setts! It’s an argument that won’t go away, even though the decision was final and the work is well under way again – the street has been closed again after the Christmas break. Towards the end of last year, we carried an interview with the ‘Stop the Setts’ campaign. But that prompted comments that it had been one-sided and that we needed to redress the balance. T...

Send us Fan Mail Yes, it's that time of year again - a time of contrived jokes, Porty references galore and lots of excited children screaming "he's behind you!"...and they're just in the cast! For the first time, the Panto - Snow White - will be in the Main Hall of Bellfield where the final rehearsals are currently taking place. For the final podcast of 2018, David Calder...

Send us Fan Mail The Porty Street Fest is now an annual tradition. But this year, it takes on a special significance with the closure of Brighton Place. There may be signs insisting that Porty is ‘open for business’ but the High Street is quieter than usual at this time of year. Traders are hoping that the event this coming Thursday will attract people to shop locally – and to bring in extra custo...

Send us Fan Mail And the BAFTA goes to… Porty’s own Shauna Macdonald. Shauna has been an actress for some 20 years, working in film, television and theatre. But this year, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts rewarded her dedication. Officially, the award went for the film White Chamber but she sees it as an honour for her perseverance in one of the toughest industries around. Porty Pod...

Send us Fan Mail OK! Christmas, I know, is still about 6 weeks away. But it’s really great to hear about someone who’s not focused on the selfish, commercial aspects of the season. Instead, a young lad has been so successful in raising money to help other, less fortunate young people that he’s won award after award, the latest being the prestigious Diana Award. And although he’s raising money for...

Send us Fan Mail Democracy Matters is a consultation currently being run by the Scottish Government. On Saturday, people gathered at Bellfield to discuss how this community should respond. It was, inevitably, a self-selecting group of those who were enthusiastic enough to come to a meeting on a sunny afternoon. However, some of the suggestions were interesting – and perhaps not what the Government...

Send us Fan Mail This weekend, much of the world remembers the carnage that was the First World War. At the time, it was hoped that this would have been “the war to end all wars”. It was not to be. As you’ll hear in today’s episode, the historian Trevor Royle argues that the War marked the practical start of the 20th century which ended in 1991 with the collapse of communism; and all through that...

Send us Fan Mail Today, the Porty Podcast celebrates its 100th episode. It has reported on people and places as well as the assorted events that punctuate the year in Portobello. In this retrospective, the podcast’s founder and producer, David Calder, looks back on some of the highlights – and how the Podcast came about.

Send us Fan Mail Saturday is Apple Day in Portobello’s Community Orchard. It’s one of only two special events held there each year, the other being the wassailing of the tress in January – we featured this last year. Apple Day is a relatively modern ‘tradition’ having started back in 1990 and can be celebrated throughout October. The objective was to remind people that there are many more apple va...

Send us Fan Mail One of the pleasures of living in Portobello is being by the sea. How many of you come down to the beach on a quiet day – and just ponder, looking out at the far horizon and letting your mind wander. It’s a great way to deal with mental block. However, we know that there are people who used to live in Porty – but now live far away, some of them far from the sea. There is in broadc...