Cavalry Park is fifty-plus acres of grass, trees and playing fields in the south of Edinburgh. These days it's a pleasant recreation area, but there's rather more to the story of this place. It had brief but important roles to play during both World Wars. But for over 10 years after WW2 it was the site of some of the most desperately needed but most deplorable housing in the city. This talk looks at the community of "tin huts" that briefly occupied the park, an address so undesirable that residents were reduced to denying they even lived there.
Andy Arthur is a local historian and founder of Threadinburgh, a project dedicated to exploring the more obscure, unusual, and irreverent historical stories of Edinburgh and Leith. Fragments of such tales are all around us: lurking in memories, hiding in old newspapers or the sheets of maps, commemorated in street names and any other number of unexpected places. From forgotten transport schemes and eccentric characters to architectural quirks and more sober social history, Threadinburgh re-assembles the pieces and brings these stories back to life.