Whose Town? Selma Ahmad

Whose Town? was an educational resource built on the heritage collections of the City of Edinburgh. It was developed by Edinburgh City Libraries in partnership with Edinburgh Museums and Galleries and Edinburgh City Archives. The resource was launched in 2011 and unfortunately is no longer available in its original format, however, we have created exhibitions here on Capital Collections to provide schools with access to even more material and to allow a wider audience access to the fascinating stories told in Whose Town?

We are also working on recreating the life stories as digital trails on Our Town Stories.

Whose Town? looks at Edinburgh from 1850 - 1959 to discover the city's past through the lives of the people who lived there. We have used people who lived in Victorian times, at the beginning of the twentieth century, during the Second World War and in the Fifties. There are fourteen lives to discover as well as exhibitions about each of the four eras.

With a Scottish mother and an Indian father, Selma Ahmad had an early awareness of a wider world. Selma's exhibition captures her as an eight year old girl. Selma attended Tollcross Primary School and her father worked at the St Cuthberts Co-operative in nearby Gardners Crescent. She had a happy childhood but not an affluent one and her exhibition includes some evocative images of children playing outdoors.

Find out more about life in Edinburgh in the 1950s.

Whose town? was supported by funding from The Heritage Lottery Fund.