Book festival launches search for tales from the old infirmary
It played a crucial role in the lives of Edinburgh folk for more than 150 years. Now stories connected to the city’s historic royal infirmary are to be brought to life when the building itself is reborn this year.
The personal reflections of writers, former workers and members of the public will be performed inside the building on Lauriston Place when the newly developed Edinburgh Futures Institute becomes the new home of the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August.
The Words from the Wards project is expected to reflect on moments of “hope, fear, joy, and grief ” from the previous life of the A-listed building, which was designed by architect David Bryce and opened in 1879. It was closed to the public in 2003 when a new royal infirmary opened at Little France, in south Edinburgh.
Organisers of the festival have instigated a “mass-participatory” writing project that will see recollections of experiences at the hospital brought together for an online “time capsule of memories”.
A selection of these will be read by members of the public, alongside new work commissioned from leading Scottish writers, at a series of special book festival events in one of the converted wards.
Noëlle Cobden, the festival’s communities programme director, said: “It is where many local residents took their first breaths, and its walls have witnessed uncountable moments of hope, fear, joy, and grief. We want to capture and honour the experiences, relationships and memories that people connect with the building’s previous life as the festival becomes part of its future.”