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Lives in a Landscape

Factual: Life Stories

Documentary series telling original stories about real lives in Britain today

Lives in a Landscape: Series 9

Lives in a Landscape: Series 9: Episode 3: Craigmillar's Caravan Converts

Episode 3

Episode 3: Craigmillar's Caravan Converts

Series 9

Craigmillar's Caravan Converts

BBC Radio 4 - Lives in a Landscape, Series 9, Craigmillar's Caravan Converts

Alan Dein is in Edinburgh to meet evangelical travellers surviving amid decaying estates.

Alan Dein meets the evangelising travellers of Edinburgh who live amid the decaying remains of the city's Craigmillar estate, and those Craigmillar dwellers who still hold it dear.

In a 1930s art deco building on an industrial site in Edinburgh's Craigmillar estate, a group of evangelical travellers meets every Sunday and Thursday in the Life and Light church. Alan Dein meets Violet and other members of the church as they mingle with former heroin addicts, and joins them and Pastor Alister as they go 'witnessing' on Craigmillar.

Once a thriving community, today Craigmillar lies two thirds empty, with promised re-development on hold. For the last twenty years Craigmillar has been in a constant state of flux as one housing project after another has been flattened and entire neighbourhoods moved from one end of the estate to the other. 

In contrast, the travellers' site has been isolated from Craigmillar's ever changing landscape. Through their church they have created a bubble in which to live. It's a small pocket of life, pretty much self contained and contrasts greatly with the fragmented estate next door. 

Venturing into the heart of a housing scheme rife, so say the travellers, with drug dealers, Alan is not sure what kind of reception they will receive. On the estate he meets Heather, Craigmillar born and bred, who takes him to a wasteland. Once her home, it's now an eerie landscape with the roads and street lights still there but the houses gone. 

Violet and Heather: a story of a small patch of inner-city life with two very different perspectives...

Producer: Kate Bissell.

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Series 9

Episode 3: Craigmillar's Caravan Converts

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