Summer, Fort Kinnaird – ‘friends and connections' 

“During High School I never really made many connections, never had many friends. I was coasting through by myself. Then I realised that I didn’t really need other people to find fulfilment and enjoyment, and after that I became more confident within myself. My own company was enough for me. Through experiencing those challenges, I've now been able to go to college where I’m studying Events Management, I’ve created my own floral design and events styling company and I’m part of an international dance team that has taken me abroad and brought me so many friends and connections, because I'm now confident enough to speak to people.”

What style of dance do you perform?

“I’m a Highland dancer. My mum was a Highland dancer, and I started when I was three; so I’ve been doing it for seventeen years now. I’m with the Debra Ann School of Dance and with the International Tattoo Highland Dance Company. I go to the World Championships and to lots of different competitions in America and Germany. I’m going back to Bremen very soon and I’ll be in the Edinburgh Tattoo next year, so that'll be a good opportunity for me as well. Yeah, it keeps me really active and I enjoy it. I'm quite into running as well, so I do that as well to keep up my fitness.”

What advice would you give to your younger self?

“Probably just to not care what people think. Everyone's so involved in their own life, they're not actually really that bothered about what you're doing. So, just be your own person and just accept people as they are.”

Nazeer, Kirkgate Centre, Leith – ‘marriages then were all arranged’

"I came from Pakistan in 1969. I had just graduated in Political Science, but my English was very poor and so I prioritised work over education when I came to Edinburgh. I needed to earn money too for my family, so I worked as a bus conductor. 'Fares, please!' was easy to learn."

How much of a culture shock was it?

"I think marriages were the biggest thing for us. We come from an Islamic culture where marriages then were all arranged. It sounds strange here, but they were, and still are, often successful."

How was a marriage arranged in practice?

"The two families came together to consider the suitability of the boy and girl as a potential couple in terms of things like their backgrounds, personalities and finances. It is a very different culture, of course, but it was usually a matter of pride to the couple that they were paired together. They're not forced to marry. If they really do not want it, that's OK. But they usually did. 

I think the reason these marriages were often long-lasting is the support they receive from their wider families. If they have a serious problem, then relatives come together with them to mediate and help them to find a solution. If that's not possible, then they can separate for three months. Then everyone comes back together to try to resolve the issue. If that doesn't work, then they may separate again for three months. After that there's a final attempt at mediation. If that fails, then divorce is permitted. But they cannot then remarry each other after that.

In Pakistan today this is much less common. Girls outperform boys now in education and have much more independence, so this system is not as widespread as it was. But, really, there are things about it that helped young couples."

Angela, Dalmeny St. Park – ‘it’s all about mindset’

“I’ve always been passionate about environmental issues and animal rights. I was once carted off by the Police aged 12 for sabotaging a fox hunt. We were chucking eggs and what-not. They just gave us a flea in our ear, but we thought hunting was the most atrocious thing. Later I campaigned on climate change and anti-vivisection and joined Greenpeace.

I studied biochemistry at Glasgow Uni., then worked in sales and marketing. I made big bucks but felt I lost my soul. So, at 29 I gave it up and went to Madrid to teach English. I earned a third of what I earned before but was more than three times happier! Then I did a master’s in sustainability at Stirling Uni. That’s guided my path ever since.”

What do you do now?

“I work for East Lothian Council in what is called Community Wealth Building. I work with anchor organisations - usually large public sector bodies - that have spending power, a lot of employees and sometimes land and assets. We aim to get the most out of these organisations for the local community to give local people a stake in that economy. Scotland's the first nation to pass legislation supporting this. If we get it right, we can shake up our capitalist model and make society work for everybody. We’re screening a film called ‘Purpose’ at Leith Depot on 15th April if anyone’s interested in this.”

What’s your biggest challenge?

“In my work it’s the lack of financial resourcing, the complexities of red-tape and the non-local bias of national frameworks. In my personal life I’ve come into disability after a hip operation that’s left me with pain and restricted movement.

But it’s all about mindset.

I started going to a meditation class that has changed my mindset into one which can keep itself positive. I’m not a Buddhist, because there are tenets that I can't accept, but it has been transformational for me. It has a spiritual element, but it’s also about implementing what you meditate on. It’s gold dust.”

Darragh, Forth View Crescent, Danderhall – ‘a thousand new experiences’

"I grew up in a very remote rural community where things did not change much. But growing up there I developed a love of reading, and that brought a thousand new experiences into my life that would never otherwise have been there. Books open your mind to new worlds, to new possibilities, to other people and their views. To this day, apart for my family, reading is still the thing I enjoy most."

Dave, Figgate Park – ‘treat every day as if it’s your last’

What do you enjoy most in life?

“As someone diagnosed with cancer in 2021, and after two and a half years of treatment, it's about trying to stay as healthy as possible.”

What’s your prognosis?

“They've told me that I've responded to treatment as well as they could have hoped, but they don't talk about cures or remission anymore. They talk about you living with it basically. So, I'm as good as good is. I exercise a lot. I walk about five miles every day and I do set exercise routines every week. I’m on my way to the GP just now, but I’m getting exercise in the park here first.”

What would you say is the most important lesson you've learned from your experience?

“Well, it changes how you think. Every morning when I wake up, I say to myself, ‘It's a good day. I’m alive. This is a good day.’ That's my philosophy now. Some things you thought were so important before, now don’t seem important at all. But I appreciate my life, nature, the health I do have, and especially my wife, my sons and my friends as never before. That’s what matters. Strange as it may sound, one of my challenges as I adapt to this reality is not to allow myself to slip back from this high level of appreciation into the old complacency.

Perhaps the biggest lesson for us all is to treat every day as if it’s your last.”

And is there anything that particularly inspires you?

“The thing that inspires me to want to live as long as I can is my grandkids. I've got a three-year-old grandson and a one-year-old, so they give me lots of joy.”