So the coal lorry on yesterdays photo got me raking around for a few related items, because many of us who were brought up in the 60's/70's had coal fires or relatives who did.
Oor hoose in Craigie did, complete with coal bunker for our weekly delivery, and the wee indoor accessories like scuttle, poker, brush and fire-guard.
Above are a few reminders from those days.
Smith Hood & Co, the coal merchant, was on the corner of Union St & Whitehall Cres, with the photo of their premises taken in 1960.
James Hood was also in Union St, a few doors up at #28. He dealt with solid fuel, oil based fuel and chuckies! Their ad is from 1968.
The T.Muir, Son & Patton ad is also from 1968 and are highlighting the fact that they have moved away from the old horse & cart days onto a new modern lorry fleet. The photo of them in action in the ad was taken across from the Queens Hotel.
Ingram's place was in Kings Road on the corner of Whitton Street. They came up with a puntastic slogan - "The GRATE Corner". They weren't a coal dealer but they made your fireplace surrounds, installed your boiler and so on. 1966 is the date of the ad.
One of the aspects of having a coal fire was that it meant you had to have your chimney swept regularly, and chimney sweeps were quite common in the 60's. They would cover the fireplace with a big black cloth, stick their bristly brush through the cover and would add extension poles to it until it eventually poked out the top of the chimney pot. Because of all the soot involved, most of the guys looked like they were in the Black & White Minstrels!
However, I managed to find a wee ad in a 1972 Tele that would seem to do away with chimney sweeps - a product called "Imp Soot Destroyer". It says you just drop a packet onto a burning fire. No idea what happened after that!
Probably the majority of Dundonians had changed over to alternative heating systems by the 80's, so not much call for coal from then on.