Whilst on the subject of the dole, here is my DRCU concession card from 1986.
This entitled me to discounts from selected shops, clubs & services in town. For example, I remember using it in places like Willie Low's, Manifesto, Fats Sam's, and on buses too I think.
The top image is the back of the card which reads - Dundee Resources Centre for the Unemployed. 2 Hilltown. Dundee - and the office hours.
On the flip side it had a mugshot and name & address. You had to visit the DRCU each month for them to stamp and validate it for the following month's usage, as shown in the 2nd image.
This was my final year in Dundee as I headed South in January '87.
It's good to recall I was still going to Fat Sams to catch live bands, right to the end!
DRCU also put gigs on too.
I missed out on this example here, a weekend programme of visuals and audio called Vaudio.
Bands, video, film, performance art and suchlike, all put together by tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCe, A Conspiracy Of Feelings, Pete Horobin & co.
This was in July 1988.
Great place, full of loonies like myself and did much more than discounts even gave me a job when nobody else would.
ReplyDeleteShame it could only last 7 years due to EEC funding restrictions.
It started off in Crighton St, move to Hulltoon then died a death in Reform St.
Hundreds of people used the facilities every week. There were language groups, creche facilities, womens groups,[not just knitting] welfare advice,band nights, legal advice, computer groups photography (DPW),library,militant group, printing [offset litho] and one or two graphics artists who would do the art stuff surprisingly. Organic gardening project, free furniture project [thanks to the single payments being stopped by the then DHSS was a life saver ]
I could go on for weeks :), the main drawback of the place was certain co-opted managment committee members and lack of funding, but great memories.
The Bear
Yes , this was a great place to go to and also gave me a job!! we put on exhibtions , gigs , but mainly it gave unemployed people somewhere to go and even to just make a coffee and have a blether whilst having access to computers or just playing with computers (we had a few spectrums and a BBC Acorn) getting advice on welfare , benefits ..learn about photography , use the art facilities , later on we got 5 "real" computers and were able to offer rudimentery word processing so people could at least have a printed CV.
ReplyDeleteAlso home to the first Fungicide gig !
p.s. forgot to say ...Retro , what were you doing at Manifesto if you were on the dole !! you could not get a carrier bag out of there for a weeks money !!
ReplyDeleteForey from the Quick Spurts done well out of that shop!!!
I only ever shopped at Manifesto the once, and I think I managed it because of Christmas money I got that year. I wanted something trendy to wear for my new venture down South!
ReplyDeleteI was also offloading tons of albums to Rockpile then, and so sometimes did have a spare bit of cash to splash.
Paying bills was bottom of my list of priorities by that time!