Porty Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Last week, we heard from Geoff Pearson from Porty Central about their ambitions for the Town Hall. On Monday evening, those were discussed at length by Portobello Community Council. There is another proposal from by the Peter Schaufuss company who already run the St Stephen’s Centre in Stockbridge but no-one from that organisation turned up to put their case.  In last week’s episo...

Send us Fan Mail  Hello and welcome to Porty News, which at the moment is an experiment as part of the Porty Podcast. Our aim – and perhaps that of anyone who wants to help out occasionally – is to bring you brief snippets of news from Portobello, Joppa and the surrounding areas as well as useful information from organisations like City of Edinburgh Council, the police and other such bodies.  Let’...

Send us Fan Mail Happy New Year - and let's all hope for better things as this year progresses! Some of you may have seen an email or post from the community group Porty Central in which they explain why they're concerned about the future of the Town Hall. In particular, they are worried that: "We appear to be on track towards yielding the building to a commercial user, with no info...

Send us Fan Mail  Looking back over 2020, the Porty Podcast has made the effort to keep going. But David Calder and his wife Penny both went down with a mild version of CoVid in the Spring which came back to affect them both – hard – during the summer. So in this, the final episode of the Porty Podcast for this year, David looks back, with thanks to everyone who has contributed, at what has been a...

Send us Fan Mail  When you think of Portobello Beach, you tend to think of an area from (say)  the Figgate Burn along to the Swim Centre. But it actually stretches almost two and a half miles from Seafield to Joppa. People tend to be put off using the Western end by a number of factors, not least the caravans at the foot of Kings Place and the air of neglect along the part behind the car showrooms...

Send us Fan Mail In the past month, the RNLI lifeboat from Kinghorn has been called out to Portobello-Joppa Bay a number of times; but the crews have found themselves sent across here more this year than usual. In part, it’s the result of more people taking to the water – such as open-water swimming, paddle boarding and kayaking amongst other individual activities. In the past, there have been fun...

Send us Fan Mail  The past few months have been very difficult for so many people. For long weeks and months, it was particularly hard for those who had to “shield” from possible infection. The “Stay Home” advice was everywhere which, in effect, meant isolation from the rest of the community. It was fine for those of us who had a garden and perhaps a view out over the sea or a park. It was much mo...

Send us Fan Mail You may have noticed on assorted Porty pages online a proposal to bring some light and colour into this rather dark and dismal time of year. That’s especially true when so many of the events which would have taken place in December have all had to be cancelled. The idea is to turn night-time Portobello into one, large art gallery with people filling their windows with all kinds of...

Send us Fan Mail  Porty playwright and producer, Claire Wood, of Production Lines Theatre Co has a new play called ‘Shrapnel’ which opens for a short run online tomorrow night. The play is set in Scotland during the pandemic and is unlike most other online shows where theatre companies have simply taken an already established production and turned it into an online format. A dark comedy, it looks,...

Send us Fan Mail  It’s almost 5 months since the Velvet Easel Gallery came under new management. And this month, the new owner, Jane Grant, opened her first winter exhibition. She’s the first to admit that it wasn’t easy taking over in the middle of a pandemic. But she’s been delighted by the support she’s received from the buying public and the artists as well.

Send us Fan Mail Road safety - the safety of cyclists in particular - was once again headline news this past week. The tragic death of a cyclist, killed by a lorry, brought into focus yet again just how vulnerable you are on two wheels. That complex junction at the end of Portobello High Street has seen more than its fair share of such tragedies over the years. And as David Calder reports for this...

Send us Fan Mail  Today’s episode is rather more serious and sombre than usual. It’s because tomorrow marks the start of a week-long event called “To Absent Friends”. It’s a festival of remembrance – but one that’s very different to Remembrance Day which falls the following week. It’s much quieter and reflective and is designed to give people across Scotland an excuse to remember, to tell stories...

Send us Fan Mail  Bross Bagels is a Portobello success story. From the one outlet on Porty High Street, the company has now expanded across Edinburgh. And the next stage in its story is about to begin as they plan to move into the former premises of the Royal Bank of Scotland on the main road. But founder Larah Bross is not funding this in a conventional way. Instead, she has launched a crowdfundi...

Send us Fan Mail  Within the past few days, Public Health Scotland has published a report which stresses the importance of getting out walking, cycling or wheeling if people are to get through the current pandemic. It’s good for our mental health as well as physical and it can also help those suffering the longer term effects of a Covid infection. However, there’s also evidence that many are being...

Send us Fan Mail You may have noticed bags filled with gravel outside Bellfield recently, at least on one side of the building. It’s currently being prepared for a new community garden by a group of volunteers. The idea was first proposed over a year ago – but progress drags slow when there’s pandemic. But now it seems, the first moves are being made to create a garden underneath the flowering che...

Send us Fan Mail Last weekend saw an unique event – the Portobello Book Festival Online. It was very much a question of necessity being the mother of invention as the organisers had really no choice in the matter – go online...or cancel! In the event, it was more successful than anyone had hoped. People are still catching up with any of the features they had missed. Two weeks ago, we heard from Jo...

Send us Fan Mail You may have seen an appeal from the local Rugby Club for funds to help the Portobello Hornets, the club’s junior teams. Thanks to the lockdown, the club, like every other sports organisation, has (as you’ll hear) been hit by a massive reduction in income. So they have resorted to crowd funding in order to raise the money to buy new kit for the growing number of young members, not...

Send us Fan Mail Next weekend, the 12th Portobello Book Festival will get under way; you may already have looked at the excellent programme on the website (link below). However, it will all be very different from those of previous years – the pandemic has seen to that!  Like so many other events across the world, technology has come to the rescue. People will access every session online from the c...

Send us Fan Mail For much of the summer, the waters of Portobello and Joppa Bays have been quiet. The rowing and sailing clubs, the kayakers and others had to remain on shore as the country remained in lock down. It’s only relatively recently that we have seen them return in any numbers, led by paddle boarders and open water swimmers. The last to return have been the rowing clubs – and they have h...

Send us Fan Mail This weekend, you will see more tartan than usual out and about because the annual Kilt Walk is taking place. This year’s event is rather different – instead of people walking en masse, they’re choosing their own routes around Scotland. The idea is to raise money for assorted charities, clubs and others good causes. So what motivates them? Porty Podcast Producer David Calder has m...

Send us Fan Mail It's September - which means it's time for Art Walk Porty. However, these are not usual times. Some of us seriously wondered if there would an event at all. Those fears were thankfully unfounded - but it is a very different event to that of previous years. There are no Art Houses, for example, and everything is having to be managed to suit the rules on social distancing....

Send us Fan Mail For some people, one of the escapes from the pressures of lockdown has been their ability to get into their allotments much more regularly than before. They are lucky – there are many more people who want an allotment than there are allotments available. And if you are fortunate enough to be given a place on the waiting list, you may have at least five years to wait.  At the Craig...

Send us Fan Mail How much do you remember of life when you were growing up? How many remember a time before computers, the internet and mobile phones? Since lockdown began, a podcast produced by the Living Memory Association has been looking back to bygone eras and hearing about life from people who were born long ago. It’s based in the Wee Museum of Memory in Ocean Terminal where they also have a...

Send us Fan Mail Wander Women is a business based in Joppa. It was set up by Anna Neubert-Wood to encourage women to get out into the open, to get some (as she calls it) green therapy. As you’ll hear, she takes out small groups, introducing them to wild swimming, nature walks in the countryside and even wild camping on overnight adventures. It was working well. She had clients not just from Scotla...

Send us Fan Mail As we’ve heard through the weeks, many organisations which work with young people have struggled to keep going through the lock-down. They’ve turned to the Internet to keep in contact with their students, be it theatre, film or dance. In many respects, dance has proved the most difficult.  The teachers try their best by making videos for YouTube or by demonstrating the lessons the...