Saturday 8 August 2009

MID 70'S AIR SHOT - ARDLER

Built on a section of the Downfield Golf Course, this photo of Ardler doesn't bear much resemblance to how it looks nowadays. The main streets are still there, but that's about it.
Bottom left has the prefabs running along the length of Harrison Avenue. All appear to be lived in judging by the washing hanging out!
The school in between the white blocks of flats cutting diagonally across the photo, is Blackshade Primary School. The other school in front of the multis is St Fergus.
The image does remind me of how stark the place looked back then, this being how I remember it when visiting relatives who lived in the flats off Turnberry Avenue. In fact, one of the relatives I visited then still lives in Ardler. My Auntie Bette, who this year received Dundee's "Citizen of the Year" award for her work helping transform the area into becoming the award winning Ardler Village as it is now known. A more visually appealing place to live these days, in comparison.

9 comments:

  1. the school cutting across ardler was blackshade primary which i went to, the schools top right are ardler and st fergus side by side.do you have any pictures of the fieldy as it was known locally the football pitches further down .keep up the good work .oh the memories.

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  2. Thanks a lot for the info. I have tweaked the caption to put in the school info. Being away at the other side of town to where I lived, I was a bit rusty on the details!
    I do indeed have a great shot of the fieldy. It also seems to have a kids play area or something in a crater in the corner of the ground! I wont be putting that one on view with this present batch as the last in the sequence ends tomorrow. If you would like a copy of it though, I can send it to you as an attachment if you want to email me using the Retro address. GG

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  3. that picture is very early 70s around the time I started at Blackshade Primary. I lived on Turnberry Avenue, top of the pic aside the golf course. The Ardler shopping centre and community centre were stll be built. And there are nae hooses yet built on Dalmahoy Drive - the open area at top of pic between the walk ups and the golf course. And Blackshade School got its extension built in the playground around 1973.

    Great pic, Ardler was a great place to grow up, close to the countryside so great adventures as a bairn to campy,clatto, the golf course, tempy woods and a wee bit further to Bridgefoot (briggy to us) and the Sidlaw Hills(Siddies)

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  4. I have been searching for old photos of Ardler for seems like an age. I moved to the top of Rosemount Road 1970, a brand new house with a golf course view. Rosemount road houses (Even numbers) are located on the left of this photo and Turnberry Ave (Odd numbers) to the right, the Turnberry Ave Road is to the right of the flats and to the right of the road there is a row of trees, well that is the Gelly Burn, the council of the time thought wise to pipe the burn and cover it over.
    I went to Blackshade School, Mrs Brodie was our Head, scared the you know what out of me, the Janny was Mr Edwards (Froggy Edwards)teachers I remember are Mrs Dalzel, Mrs Duncan, she also taught my Wife at Brackens and also taught my Sons, another I remember are Mrs Cameron, Mrs Vulchar.
    I think every kid in Ardler bought a tennis racket during Wimbledon and we used the carpark lines as our court. During the summer I worked up Camperdown helping Mr Robertson clean out cages and so on, if you got there first in the morning you got the Peacocks feathers that had come out during the night.
    Ardler used to have a grocer van going about the scheme, Dows it was called, we also had Andrew. G. Kidd bakers van and Nicol and Smithert baker van, we had Cabbies Ices (Cabrellis) and Freds Ices.
    In between Turnberry and Rosemount at the top of the photo you can see two roads side by side, well those are roads left from the prefab days, here the parks dept would have the bonfire on 5th Nov, one year a rocket landed in the back of an Parks dept moggie minor van and set off all the fireworks in the van, what a panic as everyone ran. I remember raiding the box rooms looking for salvage for our own bonfires. Cracking photo, although my close is just out of shot, ahh the memories of childhood.

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  5. Wow! this is well cool I lived in ardler for 22 years and the house I lived in is not even there on the pic it was the houses above the shops across from the community centre which is also not on the pic I loved growing up in ardler pity they had to change it I liked it the way it was!

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  6. did anyone here go to ardler primary between 72 and 79 ? i grew up in wentworth court and went to ardler , would like to here from anyone still around , im dane conway by the way incase anyone sees this and remembers me

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  7. Does anybody remember what the name of the chinese takeaway next door to charlie doras chippy was called - theres a 50p bet at stake! :)

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  8. the golden pearl and the waiter was called tommy

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  9. i now live in leeds but i lived at 12b wentworth ct.great memories remember how the boys who were only a couple of years older than me grant kinnear(budgie)the bolam brothers ,tommy stevenson started a fitba team and wore the leeds strip.i went to st.fergus and grant used to take me.my pals were davie mcgurk,terry and kevin fallows and colin judge.remember playing mammoth games of kerby with john robertson who i was friends with and his brother barry. his mum sheena was great friends with my mum liz and both worked at the timex.remember the day they opened the shute swings and sandpit at wentworth i was there and i think grant conway was there.freds ice cream van cabarellis ardler community center great days was known as steven caffray then but took my stefathers name oconnor when my mum remarried if anyone remembers me im on facebook its steven oconnor no picture of me but a picture of a can of irn bru please will be in dundee this weekend 28/01/11 will have to take my daghters to ardler.this site has brought back many memories.just remembered how me and tommy bain were taken home by a gang of lassies after they caught us playing in the gelly burn in our underwear.dundee4ever.steve

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