The People’s Story Museum in Edinburgh is a part of the city’s cultural fabric whose name says it all: a museum and archive, opened in 1989 and located in the 16th-century Canongate Tolbooth, that takes in just about every aspect of working-class life in the Scottish capital from the 18th century to the late 20th century. Its exhibits include recreations of a bookbinder’s workshop, a wartime kitchen and a jail cell; the artefacts it looks after span work, leisure, politics, protest and more.
In a city long since transformed by gentrification and tourism, there is something brilliantly defiant about what the museum does. But after months of erratic opening hours, the People’s Story was recently closed without warning, thanks to what one councillor called “staffing pressures and a need to manage expenditure”. Last Thursday Labour, Tory and Lib Dem councillors voted to keep it shut for seven months – with an “update” in December – so they can try to pare down costs across the city’s museums and galleries: a small but very symbolic element of a drive to put through £26m in spending cuts across the council’s budgets.
