GREENIELAND - 1973

An amusing postcard from Greenieland...or is it the North Poly...either way, it's aroond the backies at my old hoose in Craigie, 1973.
The main feature is the snowman my wee brother made which, if you look closely, ended up with a polar bear's head! Pot luck by the way, but quite appropriate.
This was taken from Kemnay Gardens looking over towards Douglas Road. The fir trees are the ones on Douglas Road at the Electricity Sub Station.
Back then, most of the back greens still had an open plan look with "imaginary" borders. These days however, everyone has their own individual space partitioned off and so the area in the picture doesn't bear any resemblance to how it looks now.
You can see at the corner of the house on Douglas Road the old style metal bins we all had - remember the corrugated design with rattly lid!
Why they should have THREE coal bunkers is a bit odd though. Maybe winter that year was quite a severe one and they decided to stockpile their fuel!
Having said that, the son of the family who lived there may have been inspired by the snow because he went on to live in Norway, and the last I heard, still lives there with his own Scandinavian family.

WASHING CLOTHES IN THE 60'S

LUX - OMO - TIDE - FAIRY SNOW - OXYDOL - DREFT... just some of the washing products that were popular in the 60's, but now I think all have disappeared.

I have 3 items relating to the subject here, so starting first with the photos above.

These are some of the greenie poles aroond the backies in Kemnay Gardens where we lived. They were standard council installations that everyone in Craigie had in the 60's. However, none of the ones in the snaps exist anymore. All the garden areas have been partitioned off from each other and everyone uses whirligigs now.

With old style tenements, many had pulley systems outside the windows on the upper floors which were attached to a large main pole that held many clothes lines.

Which brings me to the 2nd item. Some examples of these pulleys crop up in a short film I have (below), the footage of which was taken around various locations in Dundee in the 60's.

But before we go on a retro tour of the backies, item 3 is a wee reminder of how washing powder was advertised on tv in the 60's, with the one below being for Fairy Snow, who's slogan some of you may recall... "Forces Grey Out - Forces White In!"

FUTBA IN THE CULDEE - 1960's

This is the cul-de-sac in Kemnay Gardens where many a football game was played as a lad in the 60's. Usually it was 2-touch or shootie-in, depending on how many there were.

Three doors along from me was a house which was an official Guest House connected to Dundee Football Club. This was the 1960's to 1990's period, and out of town players would reside there for a spell until they got their own place.

One such player, in the mid 60's was, George Ryden.

I remember on a few occasions when we were having a kick about in the culdee, George would join in and teach us a few keepy-up skills & tricks. He even managed to do all this fancy footwork wearing winkle-pickers.

I was always half expecting him to burst the ball with those pointed boots of his!