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THESE haunting images of Scotland’s poverty stricken slums in the 1960s show the horrifying conditions families were forced to live in.

Surrounded by damp and crumbling walls, many families had no choice but to stay crammed together in one room as a housing crisis gripped the country.

Photographer Nick Hedges, who has agreed to show the images in Scotland for the first time, told how the heartbreaking images still hold a modern day message.

The 71-year-old, who spent three years travelling around the country capturing the images for Shelter Scotland, said: “Whilst in one sense these photographs are a piece of social history, in another sense they serve to remind us that the crisis in housing is as significant today as it was then.

“The insecurity, the ill health and the anxieties that young families, the poor and the elderly face is unfortunately as real now as it was then.

“It points to our failure as a society to address the basic needs of our fellow citizens.”

He added: “While the material poverty and the sense of dereliction have disappeared, it’s more a hidden problem now.”

The series of 20 images, which are currently on display in Edinburgh’s St Andrew’s Square, capture men, women and children as they went about their daily business.

Children played in the rubbish strewn courtyards of the derelict tenements with smiles upon their faces, unaware of the battles their parents were facing.





(Image: Shelter Scotland)

One iconic shot shows a teenage mother, pushing her baby in a pram while surrounded by rubble. She had to carry it up three flights of stairs to her Gorbals tenement flat.

Neil explained: “I met her as she was hanging up her washing. They appeared fairly well off, the baby was smartly dressed and was in a brand new pram.

“But once we went into her home, she told us how just days before her and her husband were woken up by the sound of wrecking ball smashing into a neighbouring tenement.

“The demolition crews thought the buildings were in such a state of disrepair that no one would be living there and they didn’t think to check.”

(Image: Shelter UK)

Another image shows children playing in a swing park near the shipyards in Govan which had already been hit by economic decline as cheaper shipbuilding markets emerged.

In Edinburgh, one family of six told Nick how the bedroom floor of their tenement flat was covered in pools of rainwater.

At night they were forced to sleep with the lights on to keep the rats away. One night, they counted 16 rats in the room.

Despite the hardships facing his parents, the youngest son posed happily alongside his parents inside their home in 1972.

The images have never before been shown in Scotland in a bid to protect the identities of the families and young children that feature prominently in Nick’s work.





(Image: Shelter UK)

The open air display will be on show until October 30 but Nick told how members of the public have already associated with the moving images as they face government forced austerity.

He explained: “Rather than viewing them as a historical document, they’re allowing people to understand the kind of pressures people are under in the housing crisis today.

“There may be a difference of almost 50 years but in reality, people are facing the same anxieties and insecurities today.”

Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland, said: “These photographs are a sobering piece of history not only for Shelter Scotland, but the nation as a whole.

“They show us how far we have come in providing safe, secure and affordable housing to the people of Scotland, but also that we must do more for the tens of thousands of families and individuals still desperate for a home to call their own.

“Almost 50 years after these pictures were taken, it is a mark of shame that almost 5,000 children in Scotland will wake up tomorrow homeless, often living in cold, damp and dangerous conditions.”

*The Make Life Worth Living exhibition will feature in St Andrew Square until 30th October. Images can also be seen and shared at www.shelterscotland.org/lifeworthliving