As poverty, crime and drug use in Scotland’s capital was ripping forgotten communities apart. Peter Carr was introduced to Jimmy Boyle co-founder of the Gateway Exchange. Who, in his turn introduced Peter to Support Help and Advice for Drug Addiction. The grassroots organisation set up by what Carr calls “two remarkable women” - Heather Black and Morag McLean - as a lifeline and support network for drug users.

This became the basis of Heroin, which over its three episodes reveals a powerful and moving portrait of a community surviving in the face of institutional neglect and contempt from local authorities who would rather keep it out of view.

After four decades, Peter Carr will revisit North Edinburgh for the screenings of his films which will be followed by a conversation between key figures on the making of Heroin and those around North Edinburgh then and now.

Heroin 1 followed by Irvine Welsh in conversation with Zoë Black, April 23, 6.30-8.30pm

Heroin 2 followed by Dr Roy Robertson in conversation with Victoria Burns, April 24, 6.30-8.30pm

Heroin 3 followed by Peter Carr in conversation with Sarah Drummond, April 25, 6.30-8.30pm

An exhibition of production images from the films by Granada TV stills photographer Stewart Darby runs at North Edinburgh Arts alongside Heroin ‘Uncut’, from April 23 to May 17 2025.

Heroin ‘Uncut’ is dedicated to the memory of Heather Black, Morag McLean and all those friends, neighbours and loved ones who took part in the Heroin films. Though they may no longer be with us, their stories live on.

The tenacious Neil Cooper ferreted away and was rewarded with an interview Peter gave to the Irish Times about the films, and he thought it a good fit for North Edinburgh Arts. Kate Wimpress watched the films and introduced him to the Black sisters, who have been crucial to the project.

By this time Neil had a dialogue with Peter, and with the Black sisters and NEA on board, he originally planned an event for the 40th anniversary of the films in 2023. Unfortunately NEA were in the process of building their brand new centre, and things were put back.

Peter sent an essay he’d written in July of that year which will form an important part of the upcoming events here are some extracts:

Surely you mean Glasgow?

In 1982 I made documentary films about Styal prison, an old Victorian orphanage set in benign Cheshire countryside. The regime was relaxed with women working as machinists and gardeners. But one thing that struck me very forcibly was the number who were locked up for drug related offences. One or two were small-scale dealers, a couple of drug mules who had been caught at the airport, but the majority were users. Almost invariably the drug of choice or dependence was heroin.

I went back to Granada Television and told Steve Morrison there seemed to be something of a heroin epidemic out there and that we should look into it. Surely it had to be London? Well, no, actually.

We thought of Liverpool and Manchester but they were too close to our home turf at Granada TV where we could go home at night. We wanted to embed ourselves in the project… how about Scotland? And of course it will have to be Glasgow. Rough old place, Glasgow!

And then somebody told me about Jimmy Boyle (mentioned earlier) who was running The Gateway Exchange in Edinburgh with his wife Sara Trevelyan. I heard that he was deeply concerned about the growth of heroin use in Edinburgh. Surely not! The glittering festival city and Scotland’s capital? I came to Edinburgh to meet him, and he took me on a tour of some of the run down housing schemes in the west of the city, Wester Hailes, West Granton, Pilton and Muirhouse.

My Jimmy Boyle drug tour of Edinburgh included a trip down Leith Walk and the surrounding streets. He pointed out a couple of addresses where drugs were being dealt, and we watched the comings and goings for a while. Once or twice a police car passed slowly by, and when we headed back it followed us all the way through the city and out to Pilton. We arranged a meeting with Detective Inspector John Veitch, at the time head of the drugs squad. It wasn’t a happy meeting.

I remember his irritation above all with ‘little druggies’, whose offending behaviour took his officers away from the important business of fighting crime. He conceded that he’d been aware of my presence, and that for all of our fine words and good intentions, it was clear to him that we were simply engaged in this project ‘for the glorification of Mr James Boyle’.

You could understand his frustration. Drug use and abuse was causing a massive increase in shoplifting and housebreaking as well as cheque and credit card fraud. Subsequent requests to film in police stations and prisons were all rejected, although Inspector Veitch did consent to the rather prickly interview we eventually included in the programme.

Jimmy Boyle next introduced me to two remarkable women; Morag McLean and Heather Black. This was in a Pilton portacabin, ironically named The Villa, where they were running a self-help group they had founded. It was officially known as Support, Help and Advice for Drug Addiction, a touch long winded for the informal little set-up, so it was always known simply as SHADA. The two of them, Heather with a background in community work, and Morag, who was a recovering heroin addict, had co-founded SHADA to try and gather support for fighting the heroin epidemic and the accompanying crisis of HIV and AIDS in the city.

It was the New Year, January 1983, The state of the place would break your heart, showing all the scars of urban neglect, forlorn post-war council housing and once grand tenement blocks with boarded up windows, dogs hunting in packs, overgrown gardens and litter scattered like dirty confetti by cold sea winds. It was a place too deprived to have much pride, and hardly surprising that the mostly unemployed young people turned to drugs to escape.

Over the next few weeks, all manner of people wandered in and out as we watched the day-to-day business of the unlikely couple running SHADA. Morag was quiet and gentle, with a rather mournful demeanour, although given to flashes of self-deprecating humour. Let’s go for ‘laid back’ as a bit of convenient shorthand. Heather on the other hand was anything but laid back, a small fiery woman with a history of fighting the establishment for funding and backup from various agencies they had to deal with, including social services, housing, public health and, all too often, the police.

We spent a lot of time sitting in The Villa, occasionally filming the comings and goings. I say ‘filming’ because these were pre-video days. We worked with ten-minute magazines of film, which were expensive and strictly limited in number by the budget. The footage could only be viewed and reviewed after it had been processed days later in the laboratory back in Manchester. It sounds clumsy in these whiz-bang film everything days, but actually, I think it worked in our favour. Neither the workers nor their young clients ever got to see themselves, quickly became unaware of when we were actually filming, and were never tempted to perform for us.

In the same programme, we spent one of our precious rolls of film talking to Morag MacLean and her mother about their story, with poor old dad sitting mute in the corner. When I say ‘you don’t see filming like that these days’, I mean it literally. For ten long minutes, nothing happens. There is no music, no cutting, just Jean McLean talking about the nightmare that her daughter put her through. It’s quite hard to watch, but I think it is a valuable piece of archive.

When the films were broadcast it was to a mixed reception. One review by Hugh Hebert in the Guardian said ‘The second part of Heroin was riveting. Its set piece was a meeting of the support group in which it emerges all the time we have been watching the two of them working themselves into the ground to help addicts, Morag herself has been slipping back into the habit. It is a shattering moment for the group, and for the television viewer who has placed faith in the girl without seeing what the strain is doing to her’.

So many of the characters in the films are gone now. I have a New Year card from Morag in front of me wishing me the best for 1985, and saying ‘Still clean, it’s a year now’ and adding ‘Dad died on 9th December’. She had moved to London at this point and lived on for a number of years before she herself passed away in 1991 from HIV related infection. She was survived by her lovely gentle mother, who wrote to me after her funeral saying how proud she was of Morag, saying ‘she’d been off everything for a few years and used to talk to schoolchildren about HIV and Aids. We are all so proud of what she achieved’.

I have another letter in front of me as well. It’s from Heather Black, and dated 1985. She is also talking about a bereavement, and says ‘I just hope I cope with the funeral alright on 19th July. I thought I’d be able to cope better but I suppose I’m human as well. I bet that came as a surprise to you’. Actually, Heather, it didn’t. Behind that occasionally combative facade, I always found Heather to be a sensitive and caring person. We stayed in touch for a while. I came back to visit and she and Willie brought their three girls down to Manchester to stay for a day or two with me.

That all seems like a very long time ago now, and I was a bit remiss about staying in touch, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss her. Rest in Peace, Heather. ■

Peter Carr July 26th 2023

Info: Eventbrite: Heroin ‘Uncut’ –
The Films of Peter Carr,
northedinburgharts.co.uk