Turning the town red, orange, yellow, green and blue
Emma Newlands meets the woman behind the city's unique Umbrella Festival
It started with an “obstacle course of buckets and wet floor signs in the corridor every time it rains”.
The particular challenges of maintaining a rather grand, 130-year-old church building will sound familiar to communities across the Capital. The seemingly endless work that goes into keeping its doors open for the steady stream of musicians, fitness and exercise groups, parents and toddlers, Brownies and Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Girl Guides who traipse through its doors every week, not to mention the congregation of the church.
But the way in which Morningside Parish Church responded must be unique.
Next week, it will welcome a riot of colour and music as part of a grassroots festival which has won the backing of supporters as varied as best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith and The Proclaimers.
The Morningside Umbrella Festival will officially launch on Saturday, May 30, in the hope its eclectic programme hoping of events will collectively raise enough money to undertake essential repairs to the leaking church roof.
The target is £50,000 with the fundraiser behind this quirky addition to the city’s festival calendar making an appeal for “everyone to rise to the challenge”.
And rise to the challenge they have. "I just thought it was something that would catch people's attention and imagination - and it certainly seems to have done that,” says Kerry Watt, a member of the church and the driving force behind the festival.
From Africa and the West End
Billed as a ‘spectacle of colour and creativity’, the Umbrella Festival will run for just over two weeks. However, fundraising activities have been taking place since the start of the year, yarn bombers have been decorating a post box in the area with a stitched version of the church, and more than £40,000 has already poured into the fundraising piggy bank.
As well as the celebrity backers, support has come from as far afield as Australia - from an Edinburgh expat - and Africa, with a family based in Kenya and holidaying in the Capital among the attendees of a fundraising ceilidh after seeing it advertised on social media.
“People have been incredibly generous, not only of their money, but of their time as well,” says Watt. That includes several local firms stepping up, including Spruce Garden Services, and SH Jewellery, to help the event bloom and sparkle.
However, she admits other church members initially took some persuading to get on board with what she calls the “unique” fundraising concept, which includes the church being decorated for the duration of the Festival with more than 150 brightly coloured umbrellas.
The umbrella was chosen as the Festival’s talisman, she explains, as it serves not just as a symbol of keeping water out of the church - but it also honours the building's role as a sanctuary for the community.
The church is busy throughout the week all year round as it plays host to a wide range of community groups.
“There's also a big push that the church does on working with individuals and families that are affected by dementia,” says Watt. Such efforts come under the umbrella of Morningside Hope, which offers dementia-friendly concerts, with the next one taking place on the first day of the festival.
Other performers include an acapella group, a Clarsach player, and a 12-year-old piper, as well as local singer-songwriter Chord Ellis. He told The Edinburgh Inquirer it will be his first public performance in more than a year, adding: “I thought this would be a good opportunity to start performing again - and I like to help charities and organisations where I can.”
The Festival pulled off a bit of a coup by securing the talents of Keith Jack, a West End star who many will remember from his appearances on the hit BBC talent show Any Dream Will Do. He is performing on Friday, June 12, after answering the call from festival organisers.
“He is an Edinburgh lad, so we asked if he would come back and help us, and he said yes. To get a West End Star to come up and help us has been incredible,” says Watt.
One of the founding principles of the festival was that it should be inclusive. Local schools are taking part, including special needs school Oaklands, whose pupils have been making umbrella decorations, tying in with sensory needs.
Elderly residents also have a key role, and an umbrella-themed knitting project saw Watt phoned by a woman to “thank me for the fact that her mother is in her 90s and [this] got her knitting again”.
Praying for a rainbow
The financial target is obviously the key driver of the Festival. But Watt also sees it as a great opportunity to put the church on the map - and showcase its own starring role in the community.
“Everybody is welcome, and hopefully they'll see how friendly everybody is [here] and what else the church can offer them.” She also hopes it will boost the congregation - which currently sits at a little more than 300 - and the Morningside area as a whole, which has seen high-profile business closures in recent years as spiralling costs continue to bite, even in an area as prosperous as Morningside.
It is too soon to commit to more similar events in future, says Watt. “This has kind of taken over my life since Christmas.”
Morningside Parish Church dates back to 1895, and is in fact something of an umbrella organisation itself, having been created through the amalgamation of five churches, a process that concluded in 2003.
But it is now showing its age. “The roof has been leaking for a good number of years, so it's the case now that we need to protect the space and make sure the damage doesn't become worse, and then start to affect the people that could use the facilities.”
The sum for a full repair had been mooted at six figures, but ways to reduce this are currently being closely examined. “We've now got a couple of new companies that are looking at alternative ways to solve the problem with the roof,” explains Watt, who adds the church has not sought public funding.
And as for how she feels about the chances of hitting the £50,000 target, she says that if about 1,000 people pay £10 each to have a miniature umbrella affixed to church railings, with a view to creating an “umbrella rainbow”, the target “seems reachable”. All comers and donations are welcome, however, and the festival will close on June 14 with a family ceilidh in the bright shadow of the umbrella decorations.
The hope is that “the rainbow will come out as the rain is stopping and the sun's coming out, and the roof is fixed… we're hoping that the weather might brighten up in another week or so - and the sun will shine on us.”
