VICTORIA ROAD - SHUT SHOPS

A photo showing a section of the area in the previous picture I put up.

From right to left you have - The Lion Bar (a pub, not a confectioner!) - Roadcraft School of Motoring - Crown Wallpaper & Paint Stores - Tosney Fish Merchant and again the stripey shop is B.G. Forbes music shop.

Forbes sold instruments here with pianos a specialty, but upstairs they run a music school and I used to go here for guitar lessons around 1967/68 when I was aged 9/10. I only lasted a few months though as I ended up leaving due to "musical differences!". He was trying to teach me basic "Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do" stuff that I already knew, but I was wanting to learn chords like I heard on The Beatles "I Am The Walrus", so I took a strop one day, declared he wasn't up to the task and ended up learning to play guitar myself at home.

You can view another shot of this area when it was doing business in the 60's in my November 2008 Archives. Just stick Forbes in the search box.

Finally, the car parked on the right is a Ford Anglia and the one up from it I think could be a Zephyr.

VICTORIA ROAD AWAITS ITS FATE

 Looking a bit on the grubby side, this snapshot of Victoria Road in the mid 70's shows this section has been vacated and is ready to be flattened.

The boarded up business nearest to the camera on the right is Clark the Optician, with the notice saying that they have moved to Panmure Street.

2 up from Clark's is the Vic Bar, another Vicky pub I have never been in.

On the far left with the protruding shop sign is B.G. Forbes a music shop who specialised in pianos.

 

CLOTHES ENCOUNTERS OF THE NERD KIND

In 1976, when punk fashion first started to generate a stir with people who didn't understand the style, I too wore a garment that triggered an adverse reaction.
I bought this T-shirt (illustration above) which featured the slogan "I Love Unorthodox Behaviour" on the front.
The slogan is nothing now of course, but back then it seemed to annoy certain unenlightened blokes.
I didn't buy it specifically to trigger this response, but every time I wore it, the damn wording would always attract these nerds over who would then get het up just because they couldn't make out what it was all about!!
They'd desperately try to tag me as a punk, or a lefty, or rebel, or fascist, a loony, coming out with all sorts of nonsense like this.
Having a good sense of humour however, I was always amused by these encounters, especially seeing the stroppy state some of them would get into as a consequence of me knowing something they didn't know.
But the good news is (and this reveals the difference between being musically aware and being out of touch) I did experience one instance when someone DID know what the wording was referring to.
I wore it once when I was shopping in Forbes record shop on the corner of Commercial Street, and when I went over to the counter, Rob Adams, who worked there, as calm as you like said "Oh, I like your Brand X t-shirt".
For that is what it was!
This was the only time someone knew what the wording pertained to and at long last, no hassle to accompany it!!!
Yes I bought this t-shirt from a music paper mail order company back in '76.
Brand X were a jazz-rock band that had just released their debut album called "Unorthodox Behaviour" - and I thought it was an excellent LP, so I decided to get the merchandise to go with it.
I also reckoned there probably wouldn't be anyone else wearing the same t-shirt in Dundee, knowing that they were not available in any local shop, so I liked the obscurity aspect of it too.
That's all it was though, just a t-shirt with an album title on it.
But blimey, talk about getting a reaction - "Never Mind The Bollocks" was like a wee kiddies record in comparison!!

B.G. FORBES - VICTORIA ROAD - 1968

The building in the yellow & blue stripes in the picture is B.G. Forbes, the music shop up Victoria Road.

The ground floor sold musical instruments, sheet music and so on, while upstairs, (as you can see by the big PIANOS sign) they had the Music School.

There were different rooms for different instruments and I used to go to guitar lessons there every Saturday morning when I was primary school age - in fact it would have been around the same era this picture was taken, that being 1968.

Photo by DC Thomson.Tints by GG.