Anna Hutchison
Local Community Activist
Anna’s activism began in 1973 after a family tragedy.
When I was 21 I lived in a Council house, it was a high rise flat and I was asking the Corporation to come and fix the windows and they never ever did. And my son fell 180 feet to his death, he was only three year old.
Three years later Anna and her husband were still pestering the local MP’s and the local councillors to get repairs done and to stop them housing family’s in these high rise flats.
They achieved the right for people who have children not to have to take a council house more than five storeys up in a multi-storey building. This is still the case today.
Prior to this remarkable achievement Anna succeeded in preventing two things. Firstly, her sister being evicted because Anna and her family were living with her in her council house straight after the tragedy, andsecondly, Anna had to overcome the council’s decision for them to go back and live in the same multi-storey flat.
Before the tragedy Anna was waiting on an exchange because of being overcrowded,
I had three children and then of course with my son being killed I wasn’t entitled to a three bedroomed house, it was back to a two bedroomed house, which I already had and they wouldn’t move us!
Six months later, Anna’s family moved into another council house.
Anna’s local community activism continued. Anna and another campaigner, Jenny Marrow, successfully campaigned against the Edinburgh stock transfer of council housing. Anna has since been part of a wide range of social and political campaigns, community groups, and tenants groups in Royston, Wardieburn, Granton, Muirhouse and Pilton.
Anna returned to education, age 50, completing a degree in History and Politics at the University of Edinburgh in 2004. Anna was the first in her family to gain a degree.
She was also part of a group of locals that undertook weekly voluntary research for over two years to discover and record the history of local community activists’ campaigns and achievements in North Edinburgh since the housing estates were built in the 1930s. This was to encourage other people to campaign too. It resulted in a 52-page book and a DVD Never Give Up - A community's fight for social justice.
Anna is still very active. She was involved in the recent Scottish Independence Referendum, and is a member of the Royston Wardieburn Community Centre Management Committee. More recently Anna is part of the anti-cuts movement opposing Edinburgh council budget cuts, as a member of the Royston Wardieburn Community Centre Women’s International Group (WIG).
We had a deputation to the City council about the cuts. They also protested about the way the staff in Community Learning and Development were being treated, We are still fighting that today.
WIG also works to bring local women together, to enable women to have a voice, to look at childcare issues, to stamp out racism and to encourage local women’s political participation.
Dorothy Khoury
Sources:
Hutchison, Anna. Interview 2015
Pickering, Dave. Council agrees £22 million Budget ‘savings’. North Edinburgh News, 13 th February 2015.
Pickering, Dave. Never Give Up! – Social History Group launches book on North Edinburgh activism. The Edinburgh Reporter, 24 th June 2011
Stanistreet, Paul. Spaces of Hope: Adult Education and Democracy. The Learning Age - A blog about adult education and learning, 4 th December 2012
