70'S AIR SHOTS - 2 KINGSWAY SEGMENTS

The top section of the Kingsway has Maryfield Hospital, bottom right of the image.

The central area is Caird Park golf course with the Kingsway Tech next to it.

Off into the background is Kirkton & Downfield.

The second image is looking in the opposite direction, with the golf course at the bottom.

The main road off the Kingsway, to the left, is Graham Street where you can make out St Michaels School.

And in the distance, top left, are Tannadice and Dens.

70'S AIR SHOT - CRAIGIE / CRAIGIEBANK

The main focal point in this picture is the Kingsway circle.
Branching off from it is Arbroath Road going up to the 12 o'clock position. Running parallel to the plane's wing is Douglas Road & Greendykes Road, and cutting across the middle of the image, right to left, is the Kingsway & Strips Of Craigie Road.
Tucked away at the very bottom right of the photo is Kemnay Gardens cul-de-sac, where I used to live.
The square roof nearest to the roundabout is where Scott Fyffe Motors is.
Aaahhh, but is it?! I have a couple of old photos that show it spelt as Scott Fyfe, with NO double-F, yet their website has a photo with the double-F variant. To confuse matters, my old Dundee Directories have BOTH spellings, as does Google. So come on guys, what the F is going on?!
Moving further up Arbroath Road to the rectangular roof sitting beside the corner edge area of the cemetery, that became a supermarket called Presto.
On the far left of the picture at the end of Greendykes Road is the church I used to go to when I was in the BB in the late 60's. I'd be about 10. I only stuck it about a year though as I wasn't quite so keen on the formal marching stuff. I much preferred playing in the football team and helping out at their jumble sales!

70'S AIR SHOT - STANNERGATE / CRAIGIEBANK

The Stannergate (bottom left area) was a place we'd occasionally hang out and muck about. This was in the early 70's aged 12-15.

You got a good game of Skiffies there. Throwing flat pebbles across the top of the water and counting the bounces!

It was also a place we went fishing.

When it was high tide however, you couldn't get down onto the shore, so we would move further along to the docks area to fish off the pier. To get there, we had to shuffle precariously along the top of a sea barrier wall which was also fenced off, leaving only about a 2 inch ridge to balance on. The wall was around 12 feet up and we named it "The Wall Of Death". If you lost your grip on the wire fence while tip-toeing along, you'd drop into the Tay. Although it was dangerous, you didn't dare wimp out of it, and I'm pleased to report, we all survived to tell the tale! One of us made up a story that if you fell and drowned, your body would be washed ashore, covered in whelks, with your eyes pecked out by gulls!! That was good enough incentive to tread carefully!!

The green patch at the bottom right corner of the picture, we called Craigie Home farm (not sure if that was it's real name), which was just a grassy wasteland kind of zone where we also messed about. It now has houses.

To help get your bearings, the roundabout above it is the Greendykes Road / Craigie Avenue circle.

70'S AIR SHOT - SEAGATE / DOCK STREET

Retro regulars will be aware that I have put up quite a few air shots taken by my brother around 1974/75. Well there were half a dozen or so I wasn't going to bother about because the plane's wing cut across the image and made it awkward to crop. However, I have changed my mind as I reckoned they'd be better on the net than tucked away in a storage box at home out of view. So here's a wee bonus batch...

This one here is really good actually once you zoom into the large version.

On it you can see Seagate Bus Station with some yellow Alexander buses waiting there.

Across the road from the bus station was the Reo Stakis Olde Worlde Inn.

Moving east you can clearly see Allan Street, which at that time, on the corner of Seagate, had the Quarter Gill Bar.

On the other side of the road along from the Quarter Gill was the Tayside Bar. A path which was to be well trodden a few years later!

Further right, is the Corporation Bus Depot on Dock Street, and if you look closely you can see the transition from green buses to blue ones had just started.

Down at the bottom right of Victoria Dock is the Timber Yard.

These are just a few of the sights, I'm sure you'll be able to spot plenty others.

You can click on the photo to view the larger version, and once on, right click to save, then view it using the zoom on your PC.

I have a Dundee Directory from this same period, so can help name places should you be struggling!

CITY CENTRE AIR SHOT - 60'S

Here's a great aerial photo of the city centre, taken around 1966/67.
In the middle of the picture there is Shore Terrace bus station, and you can see that the Littlewoods area of the Overgate was still under construction.
Top left, past the Angus Hotel zone is the Westport area, with the J.M. and so on.
Top right, south of the multi's, you can glimpse a section of the old Wellgate around the Meadowside/Victoria Road bend.
Have a nose around lots of other nooks & crannies in the image by clicking on the photo and viewing the large version.

MID 70'S AIR SHOT - SWANNY PONDS

Taken a bit higher up this time, you can see quite a spread of detail on this shot, with the main feature of course being the Swanny Ponds. Pitkerro Road running along the left and the Cleppie branching off to the right.

A couple of blocks beyond the Swanny Ponds is Maryfield Hospital. The buildings of the hospital were demolished in 1979/80.

You can also make out the pre-fire Morgan school, and tucked away top right you can just catch glimpse of Tannadice.

MID 70'S AIR SHOT - HILLTOWN TO BLACKSCROFT

This view takes in an area of the Hilltown, and goes down to as far as Blackscroft.
Some of the main streets to be seen are - Alexander St (with Jamaica Towers & Wellington Towers) - Ann St (with primary school?) - Wellington St - William St - Dens Rd - Lyon St - Victoria St - Victoria Rd - Princes St - Constable St - Blackscroft, plus a few others in between.
The photo shows the demolition clearance that was taking place at the time, and although many (probably most) of the buildings have since disappeared, one or two of the old buildings did survive, for example the jute mill building down Princes Street was converted into flats in the 80's.
To have a look around the area, click onto the image to enlarge.

MID 70'S AIR SHOT - SEABRAES

Ready for take-off....and on with another mid 70's flight over Dundee.
This is the view looking across town just as the plane leaves the runway. Still too low down to make out any particular street detail other than the Seabraes area, where Perth Road meets the Nethergate.
Seabraes has since been tarted up a bit, but this is how it looked when we were on our Perth Road pub crawls in the 70's & 80's. We used to stop off at Seabraes for a couple of joints when going from McGonagall's to Chequers..!!
Also recall occasionally doing a spot of sunbathing there on those hot summer Sundays!

WESTPORT IN THE 60'S

Gonna be out & about around the Westport area over the next few days.

So to start with, here's a reminder of the general area I'll be covering, the photo dating from October 1969.

To help you get your bearings, The Globe Bar is in the centre, with Hawkhill going North to the top of the picture and the Blackness Road forks off to the right. South Tay Street is bottom left and North Tay Street (now Marketgait) bottom right, with the JM Ballroom beside the car park.

That should help set the scene for the following set of photos which are from the 70's & 80's, and will probably have you backtracking to this shot for reference purposes, because you wont be able to refer to the area as it is now!

MID 70'S AIR SHOT - LONGHAUGH QUARRY

Don't Panic!!!....the plane wasn't a bomber...this huge crater is in fact the Longhaugh Quarry, located at the "border" of Fintry and Whitfield. I recall being told the quarry had been there before Fintry was built, so it was obviously doing business for quite a few decades. It is now completely filled in.
The 2 schools in Longhaugh Road would be Longhaugh Primary and St Lukes.
At the bottom left corner, in amongst all the trees is Longhaugh Hotel. For a while, the staff in the lounge/bar would dress up as cowboys and had a kind of Western theme going on there, long before dressing up for line-dancing became a craze. The hotel was another victim of the bulldozers and has since been flattened.

MID 70'S AIR SHOT - KIRKTON

The basic layout of Kirkton is the same now as it was back here in the mid 70's.

Today most changes to it would be more noticeable from ground level than the air, however, a couple of obvious changes from this picture are the schools.

The one at the foot of the photo I'm fairly sure is Gillburn Primary School, which if it is, then it has since been demolished. The other blue/grey building to the left of Balgowan Avenue I'm pretty certain is Kirkton Nursery School, which I also reckon no longer exists. Kirkton High School which has survived, albeit with a new name, is just visible top left in the hazy distance.

You can also make out the shops near the centre of the photo no problem.

A piece of trivia from this era of Kirkton I can add is that, back in 1979, the place was featured on BBC TV.

This was a show called "Roadshow Disco".

The quirky thing about it was that when the show visited other cities around UK, they all had the programme broadcast from proper discos and nightclubs, but when they came to Dundee, they ended up doing the show from Kirkton Community Centre!

As well as the local disco dancers that were filmed, Dundee funk act, Rokotto, were the band supplying the dance grooves.

THE BAXTER PARK DISPLAYS

On one summer weekend each year in the 60's and 70's, Baxter Park put on a display that attracted hundreds of visitors. All the entertainment and action took place in front of the Pavilion, and around the edge of the cordoned off square, they had Army vehicles, Air Force tents, food stalls, ice cream vans and so on.

Performing in the square would be things like motor cycle stunt teams, a dog handler's obstacle course and the highlight would be the Red Devils sky-diving team. They would drop from the sky wearing their smoke flares and land dead centre on a cross marked out in the middle of the square.

I remember one time in the late 60's they ended the show with an old fashioned biplane that flew extremely low over the pavilion, over the crowd and off down across the Tay. A few people in the crowd even ducked by instinct, but it wasn't as low as that!

(By the way, in the late 60's, psychedelic rockers Jefferson Airplane released an album called "After Bathing At Baxter's" and had an image of a biplane on the cover.
However, theirs wasn't about a trip to the park, but more to do with a trip on LSD..!!)

Anyway, one of the quirkier side show attractions was a 6 ft robot that claimed it could answer any question you asked it. I wish I had asked it how it worked!

The above photo was taken on 22nd July 1976. Not much of a crowd for this one though compared to earlier shows. The sky-divers on this occasion are from the Golden Lion Team. The 2 guys are, Jim Conway from Mid Craigie and Mike Colligan from St Marys.

Below you can see the original Red Devils in action that may bring back a few memories of this Baxter's annual event, although it wasn't filmed there.

Photo by DC Thomson.Tints by GG