Once homeless in Edinburgh, now they show tourists their home city

Edinburgh, one the most visited cities in Europe, is offering tourists the chance to see it from a different angle – through the eyes of tour guides who have slept on its streets.

“When you’re homeless, people don’t look at you. They look through you,” the founder of the Invisible Cities initiative, Zakia Moulaoui Guery, says.

Sonny Murray, 45, knows this only too well. He came to Invisible Cities after a spell of being constantly in and out of prison.

“It was brutal, to be honest. Because I was addicted to drugs and stuff,” he says.

Sonny Murray leads a tour of Canongate Kirk, a 17th century church in Edinburgh where notable people are buried including Scottish economist Adam Smith and 18th century poet Robert Fergusson. Photo: AFP

“I was shoplifting … when I wasn’t in prison, I was coming back out and I was homeless on the streets, just like a revolving door.”