What we loved writing and reading this year

Inquirer writers pick their favourite pieces of 2024

While we’ve been looking back on our work this year, we thought you might enjoy doing so too. Over the course of the year, we have produced more than 200 editions of the Inquirer, covering topics as varied as performance poetry, woodland management, Fringe digs, and the crises in social work and the NHS, and much, much more.

In total, that has added up to around 320,000 words, the equivalent in size alone to about four novels (we’ll let you judge the literary quality, but please be kind, it’s still Christmas after all).

Here, three of our main writers pick their favourite pieces from the last year, the ones they enjoyed writing as well as the ones they liked reading most. We hope you will find something to enjoy that you may have missed along the way.

As always, we appreciate the support of everyone who reads the Inquirer. Our particular thanks though has to go to our paying members who make it all possible. If you enjoy and value what we do, please consider joining them. We’d really love to be here this time next year to be able to look back with you once again. The truth is, we can only do that with your support.

David Forsyth

A simple job Euan called it. “Just send me a few notes illustrating your favourite stories of the year. Rules are at least one of your own, and” he added modestly “if you like any of mine then I’m happy to accept compliments privately instead.”

Blow your own trumpet, he says, while he quietly goes about calling the tune.

And then you realise that you’re being asked to pick out a very few examples from an enormous body of work, more than 150 long-read articles covering the past 12 months. No part of this is simple.

The entire culture sector could implode

So, I’m calling Euan out. First up from my favourite pieces, and largely because it typified his own approach, is his finely crafted take on the funding crisis facing many cultural events – particularly literary festivals – exemplified by the pressure brought to bear on festivals supported by Edinburgh financial giant Baillie Gifford, bringing balance and context where both seemed sorely lacking.

The women waging war on the pain of endometriosis

Next up I’d like to commend a piece by one of our emerging young writers, Rebecca Johns, which we published in August and which marked her debut in the Inquirer. Her piece on the pain and distress caused by the oft-ignored health problem faced by a huge number of women of all ages contained searing testimony.

How oysters are returning to the Forth after 100 years

Similarly, Cat Thomson’s October piece on the enormous effort made to return oyster beds to the Firth of Forth caught my attention – and the interest and support of our readers. The multi-organisation Restoration Forth project, involving hundreds of volunteers, is a stunning example of environmental and bio-diverse regeneration, and as long as people like those involved are willing to try, hope remains for our future.

How underfunded NHS Lothian is paying a £124m penalty

Revealed: The £100m a year cost of private finance deals to NHS Lothian

What of my own efforts? If playwright Arthur Miller is correct – and I hope so – then a good newspaper “is a nation talking to itself.” If so, we all need to wake up and start talking – and listening much more carefully - about our National Health Service. That applies as much in the Edinburgh city area as anywhere else, and in two major articles this year I have tried to shine a light on the chronic funding deficiency our local NHS has had to contend with years which is reducing the ability of our health workers to provide us with the service we need. We are being short-changed every year in terms of settlements that do not match the Scottish Government’s own agreed funding formula, and in addition we’ve been continually driven down a private finance funding route for capital projects that massively impacts revenues available. It may all sound a bit, well, “heavy” but until we start to speak up we will continue to be the worst-funded health authority in the nation.

‘On fire from top to bottom, vomiting out flames like a volcano’

And finally, as the two Ronnies used to say, in their own hilarious take on the news, I come to what I most enjoyed writing. I do enjoy writing about some of our marvellous city’s fascinating heritage, and researching and writing ahead of the 200th anniversary of the Great Fire of Edinburgh was really interesting. I remember as a child sitting in the lunch hall of the Royal High primary in Jock’s Lodge, which displayed a portrait of former pupil James Braidwood on the wall. The Great Fire, a tragedy witnessed by some of Edinburgh’s most historical figures including Sir Walter Scott, brought Braidwood to prominence as the founder of modern fire-fighting, still revered around the world wherever men and women risk their lives to save others from the flames. If that doesn’t inspire us, I don’t know what will!

Sarah McArthur

We call it a private garden, but it is our back garden

My favourite of my own articles was on Edinburgh’s private gardens. I was able to shed light on a specifically Edinburgh issue. I also had the opportunity to interview people who I disagree with, opening up a healthy debate between differing sides. It felt like a small example of the kind of debate we have lost.

Inside the UK’s biggest student housing cooperative

I loved Jolene Campbell’s long read on Edinburgh’s pioneering student housing co-operative. Journalism which offers solutions rather than examining the problems is rare and wonderful!

Kernel of an idea that could change Edinburgh's funding

This piece by David takes essentially dull things - money, admin and bureacracy - and shows how they are exciting for people in Edinburgh.

A to Z of Edinburgh’s most exciting creative talent

As a journalist, I know how much incredible culture and creativity the city has; and I'm sad that many residents don't realise this. The article demonstrates just how rich Edinburgh culture is.

Euan McGrory

It wasn’t easy picking a handful of favourites from 2024, so many pieces stand out for different reasons.

Eat your heart out, Rabbie Burns. There are new stars in town

‘Essential and wonderful’ and ‘the only dedicated cancer service in the area’

Two contrasting features by Sarah sum up that variety pretty well - and, in many ways, for me sum up why we launched the Inquirer in the first place. The first is a brilliantly evocative piece about her visit to a ‘poetry slam’. This opened up a new world to me, leading me to discover the Loud Poets and Edinburgh’s inspiring performance poetry scene. Give it a try, you won’t regret it. The second went behind the headlines to explore some of the day to day impact that proposed social care cuts would have on the lives of thousands of vulnerable people around the city. Those cuts were reversed (for now at least) and I believe powerful journalism like this played a part in that happening. This is what great grassroots journalism looks like.

Drinks pioneers taking a walk on the wildside

When David went for a walk in the woods in East Lothian with a pair of entrepreneurs who maintain the birch trees and harvest their sap to make vodka, I knew the results would be worth waiting for. His piece unpeeled the layers on a fascinating project and brought it to life with a beautiful light touch.

Rats, rents and missing data

Will Quinn spent several weeks trawling for data and interviewing Fringe participants about the Festivals’ accommodation crisis. His resulting piece was not only authoritative and wise but funny too.

The 'filthy gold mine' which could be Edinburgh's crown jewel

This was my favourite piece of my own because I felt I was able to get under the skin of a uniquely Edinburgh story. The Royal Mile belongs to us all, even if it can at times feel slighty disconnected from the rest of the city. In writing in-depth about the street and its challenges, I hope I was able to be affectionate, critical and focused on ways in which life and work there could be improved. For particular personal reasons, I also got a kick out of writing It was 60 years ago today, largely because one of the interviewees was my mother-in-law. Talking about her memories of seeing the Fab Four led to a three-generation, family session of playing her 45s. Great fun.