THE MOULTON

The Moulton is now considered a design classic, but seeing the bike's wee wheels when it first hit the scene in the 60's, did make it look quite comical.

It didn't take long for the novelty to wear off though, and was quite a common sight on the roads as it became more popular.

One of the unique features of the design was the inner telescopic front suspension with outer rubber spring. Without this, the small wheels would have made it a bumpy ride!

Talking of which - I remember getting a backie on a Moulton once. Not recommended. I was actually sitting on the back area where the bag goes, and because it was so low down, I had to rest my heels on the wheels axle bolts, which in turn lead to my knees sticking up in the air like a frog. Not very cool!

The footage below shows a couple of variations Moulton managed to come up with.

THE REVELATION AND RSW 16 - 1966

Possibly for the first time in decades, bicycle designs changed when we reached the fab 60's.

Moving away from the old traditional standard bike frame, in came a new look - the low centre of gravity frame, made famous by Moulton.

Other bike manufacturers soon caught on to the Moulton design and came up with their own versions.

Here's 2 examples from 1966 - the top one being a Royal Enfield "Revelation" and the one underneath it, Raleigh's "RSW 16". Both models had the modern low frame design as well as the innovative quick release levers for adjusting the height of the saddle and handlebars.

Although I never had any of the 2 on show, I do remember seeing both of them whizzing around Craigie in the 60's.

The original Moulton was still the most popular, but I actually always preferred the RSW because of the chunky white tyres!

DUNLOP ADVERT - 1966

Dunlop managed to pass on some cycling advice in this ad of theirs from 1966, explaining how to overtake a stationary vehicle safely.
I don't think they were so concerned about dishing out driving instructions in their car tyre ads though because I was once knocked off my bike by a car overtaking me.
The car was towing a caravan but didn't leave enough room as it passed and so when it banged into me, I went flying!!!
You may need to click onto the ad to read it.

HALFORDS ADVERT - 1968

Off we go cycling in the 60's now for a few days, this being an era when the only safety gear used was bicycle clips!
Starting with this 1968 ad for Halfords in the High Street, a shop that was probably Dundee's most well known stockist of bikes.
Other bicycle dealers who were on the go in the late 60's were -
CUTHBERTS - Hawkhill
PT JACKSON - Victoria Rd
LINDSAY BROS - Victoria Rd
JR NICHOLSON - Arbroath Road
ROBERTSON BROS - Strathmartine Rd
JAMES A RODGER - Tannadice St & Clepington St
WESTERN CYCLE DEPOT - Hawkhill
WOOLER'S - Lochee High St
I can remember looking in the window of Nicholson's shop quite a lot around this period as a schoolboy, staring at the rack of racers they had on display and thinking to myself..."maybe one day"...but nope, never did get one!!
(cue quivering bottom lip!!!)

THE SEEVIN WEEKIES POEM - 1972

Not quite the 7 weekies, but my wee break was enjoyable just the same.
Time to get back into Retro mode again though!
Talking of summer breaks, here's a neat little poem on the subject of school holidays called "Seevin Weekies", written by local journalist & author David Phillips. He used to write using the Dundee tongue in publications such as Peoples Journal and Scots Magazine. DP also published a few books in his time, with this poem taken from a 1972 book of his titled "Oor Dundee".
7 witty verses to make you smile.
You should be able to read it ok as it is, but if you're you're struggling, click on the image to ENLARGE.

RETRO SUMMER BREAK

Time for a wee break now.
Not quite the 7 weekies, but I should be away from Retro Dundee for around 3 weeks or so.
I'll still be able to answer emails but I wont be posting anything for the duration.
Plenty more top notch material to display when I return.
Those of you who are new to Retro, you have 2 years worth of goodies to catch up with. Just click on the dates in the "Blog Archive" down the left side of the layout, or if you are looking for something specific you can try the search box top left. To drop a message, click onto the "comments" bottom right of each item.
I've put the Retro Dundee email address on the image above, so if anyone wants to contact me about anything, or send some Dundee based items from the 60's, 70's & 80's, feel free to get in touch.
A big thanks once again to those of you who have contributed material for sharing, appreciate the effort. I'm always amazed at what some people have tucked away in the loft!
So, ending the recent sweetie theme, the badge above dates from around the early 70's and is of course referring to the well known tv adverts from back then for Cadbury's Fruit & Nut.
Finally, another tasty treat from my childhood years is this classic piece of bubblegum pop below, the original cartoon of The Archies mega hit from 1969, appropriately titled "Sugar Sugar".
8 weeks at number one!!
Cheerio!!

TUCK SHOP #4 - 70'S SELECTION

Room for a few more...
A 70's bundle of goodies to choose from here, with the likes of - Dipped Flake - Swisskit - Buttersnap - Texan - Ice Breaker - Bar Six - Waifa - Welcome...etc etc.
Click on the image to enlarge and see which ones you'd by off your dinner money!!

TUCK SHOP #3 - 60'S SELECTION

Choc-a-block with 60's sweets here.
Far too many to mention, but naming just a few, we have - Mintola - Medley - Mint Cracknel - Skippy - Nux - Poppets - Super Mousse - Tooty Frooties...and on and on.
Although the photo is a bit blurry when enlarged, it's still good enough to have a nose around and get a reminder of all the original wrappers.
See if you can spot your favourites by clicking on the image to view.

TUCK SHOP #2 - VARIOUS - EARLY 60'S

Here's a variety of sweets from the early 60's.
A few of them were introduced in the 50's, but were still available in the 60's, and even beyond.
So for "search" purposes I'll name them all - Bounty - Sky Bar - Opal Fruits - Picnic - Giant Crunchie - Munchies - Punch - Galaxy.
You're probably now starting to hear one or two TV advert tunes pop into your head!

TUCK SHOP #1 - AZTEC BAR

So, after being at school the past few days, time now to pay a visit to the tuck shop!
Retro sweets galore coming up next...
To start with, here's an Aztec bar to whet your appetite. On the go from 1968 to 1977.
The Aztec badge of mine dates from around the early 70's, although the 2 items are not to scale!

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.

MID CRAIGIE SCHOOL - 1960

This image of Mid Craigie School comes from an advert for Bett Brothers, the builders, dated 1960.
In the 60's, the school's head teacher was Norman Reid, and the jannie was Mr Taylor.
The last time I looked, the school's windows were all boarded up, although I don't know if it was about to be done up or demolished!

THE PENCIL PENCIL CASE

Around the late 60's/early 70's, this novelty pencil case hit the shops and proved popular with school kids.
The big, rounded, soft plastic, pencil shaped pencil case had a zip near the top for access and you'd usually just end up tipping the contents out onto your desk, a common sight in class first thing in the morning. You'd also be considered quite cool if you had one, like a lot of fads.
I couldn't find an image of an original from this era on the net, so I knocked out this computer image of one, just as a reminder.
Before that, the normal kind of pencil case was like a big floppy purse, and before that it was the traditional wooden box with sliding lid, a creation which seemed to be on the go since the 18th century! That's probably why the big pencil design looked ultra modern when it first cropped up on the scene.
The late 60's/early 70's was also the era when school kids started putting gonks and rubbery monsters on the top of their pencils!

A VISIT TO ST. COLUMBA'S - 1970'S

This image is of a travelling museum visiting St. Columba's in Kirkton. I'm guessing it must have been some kind of trailer that toured the local schools. It appears to be displaying items about Scottish history.
The photo was taken around the mid/late 70's.
So those of you who have good memories - feel free to fill in a few details about it.

SUBBUTEO ACCESSORIES - 1972-73

Some amusing accessories were available in the early 70's to customise your Subbuteo pitch layout. Photographers, ambulancemen, police, TV crew, fans, in fact just about everything you can think of - apart from a streaker!

I had to scan the page in 2 sections, so poor old Ken Baily is split up the middle!

SUBBUTEO CATALOGUE - 1972-73

It was my wee brother who had the Subbuteo football gear, not me, but in the early 70's I was the one who came up with the idea of having a European League Table for us to indulge in at home. So along with Dundee, we had a few of the top Euro teams from that era in it - Ajax, Ujpest Dozsa etc, and I had the job of organising the fixtures, recording the results and writing out the league positions in my wee notebook! Good fun.
Looking back at the 1972-73 catalogue again reminded me that I have no idea how you went about playing Subbuteo Cricket, Rugby or Angling!!!

SHOOT LEAGUE LADDERS - 1969/70

Getting the Football League Ladders free with "Shoot" magazine each summer was always something to look forward to as a schoolboy in the late 60's/early 70's. It fired you up with enthusiasm for the start of the new football season ahead.
However, once the League Ladders board was pinned onto the bedroom wall above the bed, it didn't take long for all that pre-season excitement to ebb away.
The first two or three weeks were fine, the fun of rearranging all the team tabs into position after a couple of opening games. Then, because the tabs were a bit fiddly, tabs would get knocked off the board while changing them, and down the back of the bed they'd fall. Not so bad if they were from lower English Leagues, but after a few weeks passed, lots of other tabs joined them down below. So it would be at this point I'd give up on them, remove the board from the wall and chuck it in the cupboard!
Not once did I ever complete a full season, and yet I'd get all excited again the following summer when it was time to get another batch of Shoot League Ladders, only to go through the same sequence one more time!!

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!

SUNSPAN AND COKE ADS - 60'S & 70'S

Here's me thinking Sunspan was an "Orange only" drink, but there's the evidence on the ad from 1970, that it was also available in Lemon and Cola. Sunspan Cola??!!!

All those fizzy bubbles must have given me the bends and affected my memory!

G & P Barrie were located at 191 Albert Street.

The last of the soft drinks ads is dated 1968 and is for the Coca-Cola Bottling Plant at 181 Clepington Road. This place had a window where passers-by could see inside the factory and watch all the bottles snaking around on the conveyor belts being filled.

The plant was closed down in April 1983.

All together now...

"I'd like to teach the world to sing,

in perfect harmony,

I'd like to buy the world a Coke,

and make redundancies!"

POLA-COLA MEMENTOS

Bridie was quick off the mark sending in these 2 photos, so I've been able to squeeze them on before the next items and keep the Pola-Cola theme going a bit longer.

The top photo with the wall mural ad was taken in Maitland Street.

This was just a stone's throw away from Barrie's in Albert Street, and quite a distance away from their own place in Corso Street. Just wonder if they put it there to taunt their city rivals?!

And great to see the Pola-Cola ad in colour on the tray. There can't be many of them on the go these days.

A wee observation - this was also a good few years before Cresta came up with the idea of using a polar bear to advertise their soft drink. Remember the "It's Frothy Man" TV commercials?!

Big thanks to Bridie