A 1984 documentary revealing the resilience of one of Edinburgh’s most deprived council estates has resurfaced online.
Available on YouTube, the film, Craigmillar: Down But Not Out, originally appeared on STV as a Scotland Today Reports special and featured interviews with Niddrie and Craigmillar residents both young and old.
The filmmakers also spoke with community activists, such as Craigmillar Festival founder Helen Crummy, youth workers and politicians to explore the reasons behind the huge social and economic problems that then faced the area and how they were being combatted.
Reeling from lack of investment and witnessing unemployment levels that were twice the Scottish national average, Thatcher-era Craigmillar was among the most impoverished communities in Western Europe.
As the documentary explains, incidents of violence, theft and fire-raising were alarmingly common in the area in the 1980s. Attempted suicides were three times the Edinburgh average.
Bereft of hope of a brighter tomorrow, many youngsters turned to a life of crime and drugs.
“It’s a scheme of zombies,” says youth worker Richard D’Arcy in the film.
“I’ve never seen nothing [sic] like this and I’ve stayed here all my life.
Community activists fought hard to improve conditions in Craigmillar in the 1980s, eventually managing to set up a new library and arts centre, and pushing for regeneration.
Sign up to our Edinburgh Live nostalgia newsletters for more local history and heritage content straight to your inbox
Councillor and Craigmillar Festival Society co-chairman David Brown is one of a number of voices in the film adamant that Craigmillar’s plight is part of a deliberate local government policy to run the area down by moving problem families there rather than spreading them throughout the city.
He tells interviewers: “I’m convinced there is an actual systematic running down of the area, which, if it is true, is quite scandalous.”
This allegation is put to Conservative councillor Ralph Brereton, who quashes the idea and controversially suggests that the area’s ills are down to the existing residents.
He says: “We [the council] don’t deliberately create ghettos, but there’s no doubt that if an area acquires for itself a bad reputation then the people who would be most useful in that community won’t go there.”
One of the most fascinating segments of the 25-minute-long film is when the microphone is put forth to a group of local teenagers, who are asked questions about crime and drugs.
Speaking candidly, one young male says he and his friends face prejudice and are barred from a lot of places because of the bad name their area carries.
Pressed on why a recent riot had occurred, the boys unashamedly explain that such incidents are inevitable in Craigmillar due to a lack of things to do in the community.
“It would happen all the time, if we had the chance,” reveals one boy. “Any chance you get, you’ll break into something,” says another.
Asked about drug misuse, one of the teenagers gives a disturbingly honest answer: “[Heroin] that’s just as big a problem as glue-sniffing the now”.
Richard D’Arcy is similarly upfront when it comes to examining the reasons behind the rise in anti-social behaviour, saying: “[The kids] are glue-sniffing, they’re breaking into houses, breaking into cars - breaking into neighbours houses, which is worse. Y’know, they’ve no’ got any scruples or principles now.
“[It’s] unemployment and not enough money. They’ve no clothes and are not provided for by anybody, so they go and steal. I’m no’ condoning them stealing - it’s no’ right them stealing - but they go and steal because they’ve got nothing.”
