IT is an indelible memory of a simple garden tool, but one that speaks volumes about the history of the changing face of modern Edinburgh.

Willie Black's remembrance is vivid: he and his friends, hanging off the bars of a grass roller in his family's new house in Pilton.

The heavy, rattling roller was a new addition to his world - a novelty in the gardens of their new home in the north of the city.

It was an emblem not only of a new home, but a new life: there were not only gardens, but nearby green fields with haystacks in the late summer - acres of rural space after his family's many years in the overcrowded Old Town of Canongate.

Now memories like those of local historian and activist Black, who was born in 1950 into one of many families moved from the overcrowded, dilapidated environs of the old town to new estates in the north of the city, are being sought by a major new art project in the city.

The North Edinburgh Theatre project, based at North Edinburgh Arts, has begun to record the oral histories of those who moved from Edinburgh city centre to Muirhouse and Pilton from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Mr Black's grandparents lived in Canongate before the family moved to new housing in the 1950s.

Mr Black, who is involved in the project, added: "We never managed to move that grass roller too far, it was too heavy, but the thing was, this was new: rollers in the gardens, and there were awards for the best garden.

"It was one of the big things about those houses, the gardens, growing vegetables, and being surrounded by green fields, seeing the haystacks and the farmers."

He added: "My grandmother was a Canongate girl, and my mother was full of stories of going out in town and meeting Sean Connery and those kinds of things.

"The new housing was a huge improvement compared to where they had come from, but what was lost was that sense of community, that was smashed asunder.

"But we never thought of the estates as a ghetto, we and others had wonderful memories from our childhoods."

Much of the new housing was "built cheaply" and "not fit for purpose", he added.

The new project will work with photographer Elliot Hatherley, musician and storyteller David Francis and be directed by theatre maker Stephanie Knight, and will be called I See Tomorrow.

It will be presented as series of monologues, a film, a photographic exhibition and a programme of radio broadcasts.

I See Tomorrow will "tells stories of survival, hope, creativity, the building of a community of resilience, resistance and reclaiming"

The project, backed by Lottery money, will record and share the experiences of the families that moved into Muirhouse from the 1950s to the 1970s.

'Talking Heads' vignettes which will be filmed and shared on line, alongside the music, stories and still images.

Research phase has begun with the first of a series of events and workshops at North Edinburgh Arts in June.

The first screening of I See Tomorrow is scheduled for late October 2017 with the exhibition opening and radio play completion expected in 2018.

Kate Wimpress, of director of North Edinburgh arts, said: "Being able to share tell this important community story is all the more important as Muirhouse undergoes another period of change with the plan for 700 new homes in the area.

"The learning and research that are inherent within the project will contribute to the regeneration of the area, offering reasons for residents old and new to come together to share the common experience of joining a new community."

Lucy Casot, head of the Heritage Lottery Fund in Scotland, said: “The Heritage Lottery Fund is a key partner in the Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology and it’s our ambition that people of all ages will have the chance to discover something new about the heritage they care about.

"We’re delighted that, thanks to funding from the National Lottery, North Edinburgh Arts will be opening the door to fun, learning and everlasting memories for many people as we celebrate this special year.”