Edinburgh resident Sara Parvis emailed us with her experiences of Saturday's Make Poverty History march. Read Sara's story below, and email us with your Edinburgh tales here.
"Our church, which is very near the Meadows, was due to set off for the march at 12. There were about forty of us there. The large numbers streaming out of parked tour buses and heading in the same direction showed that we would by no means be the last to arrive, though many of them will have left home at 5am to be here. The usual suspects were all around, lined up in groups behind their banners- the Trades Unions, the churches and other faith groups, the Aid agencies, the socialist and anarchist groups, CND. The SWP types were, as usual, trying to radicalise the rest of us. But as well-meaning blue rinse churchy types, we weren't exactly their ideal customers.
"The groups were even more easy to tell apart than usual- the Socialists were wearing red, the anarchists black, the rest of us white. The police can identify the marchers most likely to stir things up from miles off.
"I knew we'd be overshadowed by Live 8, but I was counting on our being the second item at the top of each hour: 'Thousands of marchers have also gathered in Edinburgh to make their voices heard.' The arial money shot at 3pm of white-clad individuals circling the centre of Edinburgh, which would be beamed around the world - that was what we were there for. It was a numbers game.
"We heard the march numbers estimated at 200,000, a conservative estimate, I would have said, once I'd had a better view of those still queuing three hours after the march had begun.
"We went off for that splendid Scottish cafe delicacy, chips and cheese, an listened at a safe distance to a few speeches, observing that bad preaching is just as prevalent in secular as in sacred circles.
"One set of placard were, nonetheless, few and far between. Since the Stop the War march, newspapers have cottoned on to the free advertising potential of printing up placards with appropriate slogans for marchers to carry. There was a great big stack of Sunday Mail placards strategically placed near the start of the march, but few had been taken. One protester had even mocked up a placard from two of them to read "Make the Sunday Mail history". The Mirror had done slightly better, but not much.
"Once we got on the march proper, our spirits soared - the whole centre of Edinburgh belonged to us, and it was a gorgeous day. The castle was flying a huge Make Poverty History banner. Where the route allowed, we could see the endless stream of people ahead- up George IV Bridge, along Princes Street, up Lothian Road.
"Back in the Meadows at around 5.45, shattered but happy, we had a quick look round the tents and went to head off home and catch the rest of Live 8, but were stopped on the way past by something unmissable- an offer of a G8some Reel. It's a complicated dance, the eightsome reel, but most of the people who went for it seemed to know it (most were probably Scots by this stage, as the coaches would be leaving for the rest). I never heard how many they got- they were trying to break a record of over 1,200 dancers, and seemed to think they had.
"We wonder how the run-up to the G8 will now be handled- Saturday was very organised, and there are lots of organised small events to come, but it would be good to have one last successful push on Wednesday that didn't just peter out. And what do Gordon Brown's words in his various interviews mean? Is there likely to be a significant move forward, or is what's already been announced just going to be repackaged and respun?
"It is great to see the press being positive and taking on board some of the complexity of the aid agencies' analysis at last, but will this really be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity made good? Or will it just be a huge disappointment?"
