Introduction

Our project to welcome in the millennium was to celebrate Women of Edinburgh. We started with the Royal Mile where so many have lived in its crowded closes, rich and poor cheek by jowl. We wanted not only to remember the ones who by their hard work achieved fame in their lifetime, but also those who led extraordinary lives, those who survived against the odds.

The walk which we did in August 2000 took hours, but we thoroughly enjoyed doing it. We then expanded the number of women and turned it into a armchair ‘walk’ with slides of the places that they lived or worked at. The project has not progressed further, but there is no reason why it should not incorporate more contemporary women and women from races and cultures recently introduced to Edinburgh.

Some of our miscellany were incorporated into a booklet which was distributed within the WEA.