OLD SCHOOL BUS - 60'S

Remember these?

Well many of you who went to school in the 60's probably do.

They were the buses that used to pick up the handicapped school kids.

The minibuses were grey and had "Corporation of Dundee Education Committee" on the side.

When we went to Balerno primary in the 60's, one of these buses used to pass us daily, down Banchory Road and along Balerno Street, picking up the kids who needed special treatment.

You couldn't help feel sorry for them mind you, while at the same time reminding yourself how lucky you were to have your full health.

Not that us able bodied kids had it all easy.

I remember the pupils who wore metallic callipers on their legs. Then there were some who had the big pink hearing aid. The majority of specs worn were the wire penny roonders, which often had one lens covered up with elastoplast due to their lazy eye. When we did P.E. that's when we discovered some kids had verrucas, ganglions and chilblains. Not forgetting those who had lice or the ones who breathed with snot bubbles popping out and in. There were also guys who would regularly faint, but only when at assembly. I also recall we had our fair share of pee-the-beds and keechy breeks.

Ah yes, it's all coming back now.

And just remember - we were the lucky ones!!

BALERNO PRIMARY PANORAMA

Although this photo of Balerno Primary School was taken in the 80's, it looks exactly the same in the picture as it did when I was there in the 60's.
The headmaster in the 60's was Mr Elrick, and the jannie was Mr Bowman.
One thing I can remember about Mr Bowman was when I was helping him out delivering the milk around the classrooms one day in 1968. When I was picking up the milk bottles outside his jannie's room, he had the radio on, and a newsflash came on about the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. He told me to go tell all the teachers. So when I went around all the classes with the milk, I also had to deliver this gloomy news!
I can't recall where I was when the famous JFK assassination took place, but I always remember his brother's!
The school was demolished in the 90's and now has housing built on the site.
If you want to zoom into a bit of detail, click on the image to enlarge.
Photo by DC Thomson.

PRIMARY SCHOOL PLASTICINE

One of the first materials we used in primary school when it was time for "arts & crafts", was plasticine. At aged 5, we usually just enjoyed rolling it out into as long a snake as possible, sometimes ending up like a 2ft piece of string if the didn't snap during the rolling!

However, I can remember the very last ever arts & crafts session I had there. Now aged 12, and in my final week at primary, which would have been June 1970, I set about making the World Cup trophy. It was approximately the same size as the real one, but in 2D rather than 3D, flat with sculpted details. It was then sprayed gold and mounted onto white card, similar to my wee recreation above.

The World Cup back then was called the Jules Rimet trophy, and just like Brazil who got to take the real thing home for keeps that year, I too got to take mine home.

When I went to secondary school, the material used in art class had changed to "modelling clay". So feeling a bit older at this stage (7 weeks!), the opinion had become - plasticine was for bairns!

MY 60's NECK-WEAR

Here's 2 examples of neck-wear I used to have as a primary school kid back in the 60's.

The top one is of course, my old Balerno school tie.

I remember 3 variants that used the black & yellow stripes theme - the one above, then a black version of it with thin yellow diagonal stripes, and there was also a chunky horizontal striped version, resembling a bumble bee!

The other item, a Paisley pattern cravat, I didn't wear at school, this was only for after school hours and weekends.

I felt like a pop star with it on at the time because many of the groups on Top Of The Pops wore them!

You had the choice to wear it tucked into your open necked shirt, or have it dangling out as a scarf, like the 60's Mods did!

THE SCHOOL FORTUNE TELLER

You'll all remember these paper fortune tellers from your school days. Place your index fingers and thumbs underneath the 4 segments then flip back & forwards.
Here's a reminder of the sequence involved -
FT OPERATOR "Pick a colour"
CLIENT "Blue"
FT OPERATOR "B-L-U-E"
FT OPERATOR "Pick a number"
CLIENT "Three"
FT OPERATOR "1-2-3"
FT OPERATOR "Pick another number"
CLIENT "Eight"
FT OPERATOR lifts flap and reads out what is written underneath the number 8 segment.
At primary school in the 60's we usually had silly things written like "You fancy the teacher" or something. In secondary in the 70's it was the same kind of thing...only X-Rated.!!

SUSAN CHILDE AKA YVONNE J

Susan Childe was the stage name she adopted when she joined the Flamingos. As Susan, she also did lots of solo work including many TV shows in the 70's & 80's, in UK and abroad.

In 1984 she married and has since lived in Spain, Puerto Rico and USA where she is currently residing in Tucson, Arizona.

Known now as Yvonne J, she has continued her life in the music business getting plenty of recording sessions done, for solo work and backing vocals for others. She is still continuing with live gigs too, having worked with such soul artistes as Billy Ocean, Rose Royce & Eddie Kendricks along the way. On a recent trip back to Dundee she even managed to squeeze in a couple of gigs at The Bond!

All that achieved from just a wee night oot at the JM back in 1972!!

Oh yeah, and she also went to the same school as me, Balerno.

Yvonne J also has a website link (below) that is worth dipping into.

 

http://www.ourstage.com/fanclub/yvonnej

Big THANKS to Yvonne.

A WORD IN YOUR EYE...

Sometimes, what was on the outside of your school jotter was more interesting than the content inside.
We used to scribble our favourite pop groups and football teams in various styles. I can recall 3 lettering styles in particular we used in the late 60's at primary.
The top one has balloon-like letters, each one slightly hidden behind the next. They were often used in hippie designs such as albums & badges, or crop up in pop magazines like Fabulous 208.
The middle style needed a bit of working out. You started with blank squares - 6 in this example - then you'd fill them in using just a simple straight line to represent the gaps in letters. Some letters were pretty tricky to do though - T, P & Q - I didn't like them! This grid system was also used as a puzzle in some comics, like in Beano's "Teaser Time".
The bottom technique with the words bursting out from infinity, was seen in pop graphics too, such as The Beatles "Help" poster and a more psychedelic version in the Magical Mystery Tour film.
As for remembering the stuff inside the jotters - DUHHH!!!!!

MID 70'S AIR SHOT - DOUGLAS

To end part one of the aerial photo sequence, we now fly over one of my old hangouts, Douglas.
Another 2 schools on show here that haven't survived the passing of time. Bottom right is Balerno Primary, my school. The wee hoose to the left of the school in Balerno Street belonged to the Janitor, Mr Bowman. He was a friendly chap. Always good fun when he picked you out to help carry the crates of milk around all the classrooms.
The other school, centre right, is the old St Pius.
At the middle left of the photo, you can make out the flat roof of the shops in Ballindean Road. Been on top of there a few times, mostly to get our ba'. Borzoni's chippie was one of the shops we most visited.
Although I lived in Craigie, a lot of my schoolmates lived in Douglas, and one quirky thing I can recall from Douglas in the early 70's when we were secondary school age, was Dundee's "Magic Circle..!!". A mob would pick out a victim (usually a mate!), the mob would encircle him...and then commence to rough him up. The victim wouldn't get his head kicked in, but he would be on the end of kicks up the backside, dead legs, knuckles on the head, that kind of treatment. Although it ached, the victim would accept his fate without a fight, then once the ordeal was over, he would dust himself down and join back in with the mob. I've been on the receiving end and have dished it out. Organised bullying, with no damage done!

THE TUFTY CLUB

It's getting a bit on the rusty side now, but here's the original Tufty Club badge from the 60's.
The Tufty Club's road safety campaign started up in 1961. To help promote it they had Tufty teams visit schools, including mine, Balerno Primary, and dished out badges & booklets.
The Tufty Club has another link with Dundee, although not related, this being the name that was given to an under 14's disco they had in the early 70's at the JM Ballroom. I never heard of any kids being run over on their way to the disco, so at least all that 60's road sense paid off!
I remember even into the 80's when there was an under 14's disco at the Barracuda on Sunday afternoons, that too was referred to as the Tufty Club, but I think by then it was a patronising term spouted by older clubbers, rather than by those who went there.
And as a wee reminder of what triggered it all off, here's the original tv ad below.

WHAT'S THAT IN OLD MONEY?

Found these coins the other day.

It's the old £SD currency we used before 1971.

The top large one is One Penny.
The small silver one is Brian May's plectrum...er I mean a Sixpenny bit (tanner).
Bottom left is a Ha'penny (hupnae).
Next to it is a One Shilling (bob).
The brassy one with the straight edges is a Threepenny bit (thrupnae).

In the 1960's, these were the coins we got our pocket money in and spent on things like the penny tray and comics.

We'd play pitchy with them in the school playground too.

They also got chucked out of cars at wedding scrammies!

If something cost 2 Shillings it would be written 2/-, and if it cost 2 Shillings and sixpence it would be 2/6d.

I can clearly recall when I was in my last year at Balerno Primary school in 1969/70, we got lessons teaching us how to convert old money to the new Decimal currency which was on the horizon. Us kids got the hang of it pretty quick but the older generation struggled at first when prices in the shops changed from old to new. So when people were trying to figure out the prices when shopping after the transition took place, that's when you would hear the phrase "What's that in old money?".

The big change-over - "Decimal Day" - took place on 15th Feb 1971.

LOCHEE BATHS - ST. MARYS LANE

Lochee Baths is where I learned to swim. This was back in the late 60's when my primary class used to visit there once a week for lessons.
The entrance was up a wee side street called St Marys Lane, just off Lochee High Street.
The interior layout was very compact, in fact there was actually hardly any room to move around the edge of the pool.
When we went there it was only the girls who got to use the perimeter cubicles, us boys got chucked in the communal changing room around the back.
I remember we all started off using arch shaped polystyrene floats before any attempts at proper swimming commenced, but it didn't take long before the whole class could swim.
The upside to the trip was, because we attended Balerno school in Douglas, it meant a lengthy bus journey, so we kind of viewed the 3 hour day out as a bit of a skive from class, what with the all-round excursion using up a full morning.
The downside to it was, our class was booked during the winter months so I can also recall the miserable return journey when we were all damp haired, freezing and shivering waiting on the bus back.
Still to this day, anytime I happen to catch a whiff of bleach, I always get a flashback to the Lochee Baths!
Photo by DC Thomson.Tints by GG.

WAYFINDERS - 1966

I remember a lot of us wearing Wayfinders at Balerno school in the mid 60's. They appealed to primary aged kids because they were shoes with 2 novelties for the price of one. The first obvious one was the animal track soles for identifying various animal footprints. The second not so obvious novelty was a hidden working compass in the inside heel which needed the wearer to lift a wee round lid to get to it. The idea behind them was to encourage kids to have outdoor adventures, but the problem was, in order to see the animal tracks we had to stomp around in the mud which then lead to a bit of bother from parents when we came back home with messy shoes! Ok for snow unless they were bought in summer which usually meant the sole would be worn away by the time it snowed! Still good fun though.
I also seem to recall they came with a free wall chart or a booklet all about animal tracks.

1960'S SCHOOL BAGS

Every kid in the 60's when first starting primary, wore a SATCHEL (A). This was the standard school bag starter for infants. It had a small window frame where we would place our name into.
Next was the DUFFLE BAG (B). A more casual bag. This was a popular choice with us kids because as we were getting more sporty, these bags were ideal for keeping your swimming gear and sannies in. They had a drawstring design for quick access.
As we progressed, around longers wearing age, it was time to carry the HAVERSACK (C). A rougher canvas bag that most of the seniors used. It was pretty handy for fighting too I seem to remember. A wallop on the head really hurt!
By the end of the 60's a new design hit the scene, the SPORTS BAG (D). These were colourful, trendy and had zips. They became even more popular in the 70's when they designed the bag in football team colours with club badges printed on the side of them.

BALERNO SCHOOL - R.I.P.

The corrugated iron rooms of Balerno School no longer exist.
It closed down in the 80's, was demolished in the 90's and now has new housing on the site where it used to be.
Rust In Peace.

Photo by DC Thomson.

IN THE BEGINNING

What better way to get the ball rolling than to take a trip back to Primary School.

I went to Balerno in the 60's, located on the fringe of Craigie & Douglas. Not exactly a cutting edge design architecturally speaking. Corrugated iron structures cobbled together like large air raid shelters, but despite it's basic construction, it was quite quaint and lots of fun was had.

The above shot shows the school's position on the corner area between Crathie Place and Balerno Street - with the picture taken around 1974.