Whom Dykes Divide

 

Written by Helen Crummy

ISBN 978-0-9546397-4-7

Designed by Shirley Anne Murdoch

Illustrations by Andrew Crummy

Edited by Carmel Daly

Small and Crummy Publications/Paperback/117 pages/ Language English

This can bought for £7 plus P+P

 

It is a novel telling the story of the Niddrie Coalbearers. It is Helen Crummy's her third and final book charting the history of Craigmillar, Edinburgh and its people. Whom Dykes Divide is an historical novel tracing the history of two mining families in the Niddrie and Newcraighall area of the Lothian Coalfield in Scotland. The main purpose of the book is to explore and highlight in a way that has not been done before the extreme poverty and the appalling working conditions of Scotland`s collier families and the manner in which they were tied to their pits by deprivation and legalised slavery. The principal characters are fictional (except the landowners) but the social and historical setting is based on fact. An authentic backcloth for the events described in the book has been provided by the author’s research into the history and development of the Niddrie and Newcraighall areas over the last six centuries. This book is dedicated to the memory of Agnes Moffat, a ten year old coalbearer.

 

WHOM DYKES DIVIDE is the final part of three books that document the history of Craigmillar.

 

The other two are OUT OF PRINT

 

LET THE PEOPLE SING Paperback: 240 pages Publisher: Craigmillar Communiversity Press (April 1992) Language English ISBN: 0951859307 Having sold 2000 copies since its publication in 1992, an essential and recognise classic in Community Arts and Community development. Helen Crummy documents the positive social change through the communities’ own creative intervention in Craigmillar, Edinburgh, Scotland. A story of divided Britain, focusing on Helen Crummy - child, then mother and activist - from Craigmillar in Edinburgh, one of Scotland's most notorious and maligned public housing schemes. She describes how the community came to question and take charge of the forces that shape their lives.

 

MINE A RICH VEIN Craigmillar Communiversity Press (10 Oct 2003) Language English ISBN: 0954334841 Book Description The follow-up to ‘Let The People Sing’, Helen Crummy’s definitive book on the social history of Craigmillar and positive visions for it’s future. This book gives a history and vision for Craigmillar.

 

About Helen Crummy

Here is an extract from a Joan Bakewell article

"Helen Crummy (1920-2011 ) was born in working-class Craigmillar, Edinburgh, a tough and intelligent woman who didn't like it when, on asking at her son's primary school whether he could learn the violin, was told that it took teachers all their time to teach the 3 Rs. She set about founding the Craigmillar Festival, an enterprise that brought creativity into the lives of a run-down and neglected enclave of Edinburgh the tourists never see. She first galvanised other mothers, then the entire community. Councillors and bureaucrats sat up and took notice. To everyone's surprise but her own, the enterprise flourished. Her book Let the People Sing has gone round the world and in 1992 she was given an honorary doctorate at Heriot-Watt University."

 

 

Other publications include:

Arts The Catalyst Exbition, Catalogue (editor and article), A seies of essays, 2004

The Heritage and Arts Trail for Craigmillar, 2009

Edited with Douglas Galbraith: Craigmillar Gold: Community Musical songs, 2004

Newcraighall, the Village that refused to die: A short history of its mining heritage, 1995