ARNCHORY IN THE UK

A couple of publications I'd have been lost without during the course of doing Retro, were the old Dundee Directories and old street maps.
The directories have been particularly useful because they list all the shops, pubs, schools, businesses and so on - a very handy aid for fuzzy memories!
I have 3 in my collection, 1966, 1970 and the 1974 one in the photo above, which was the final year of their print run.
Having said that, despite the fact that many of us depend on such official publications for research and fact finding, I've discovered you can't always totally rely 100% on what they print.
Take for example, the street map in the photo dating back to the beginning of the 60's. When I was having a wee look around my old stomping ground - Craigie - I couldn't help notice what appears to be a spelling mistake. The road connecting Aboyne Avenue to Balerno Street, I've always known as BANCHORY Road - but they have it down as ARNCHORY Road, as you can see by my red arrow. They also have it listed in the map index as Arnchory as well.
Forward wind 2 decades to their 1983 map and by heck they still haven't sorted it out properly - now they've printed it out as BARNCHORY Road..!!
Looks like the Geographia Cartography office would have benefited by employing a Dundee taxi driver to help them out!

Since writing the above caption, the entire map has been scanned in and pieced back together again.
So if you want to download the 1960 map for your own research, here is the link... 1960 Dundee Map
It weighs in at 20MB and is good enough quality to zoom in and view all the detail up close.

THE SNOWY SEVENTIES

3 shots here that'll make you want to snuggle up in front of a coal fire - all from the 70's, and maybe even the same winter.

Not sure if the guy in the top image is someone in particular, like a well known skier, but I have a feeling that he was an ordinary member of the public who came up with the idea of skiing to work. Which ever it is, he was stopped in his tracks by a photographer up beside the Morgan.

Middle picture, taken along Meadowside, has the traffic sliding tentatively passed the museum.

And the view at Samuel's corner shows that it might have been a better idea to have had a cosy day in that day!

Photos by DC Thomson.

THE DISAPPEARING CORNER - 1980'S

These images were all taken around the corner wedge area where City Road meets Milnbank Road.

Most of the main buildings you can see in the photos have vanished, replaced now with landscaping.

If you want to do a Google Street View comparison, here are their locations.

Top pic - Baxter Street shot from City Road in April 1986.

2nd pic - Baxter Street looking back down towards City Road in March 1984.

3rd pic - Blyth Street on a rainy day in November 1984.

last pic - The back of Blyth Street and Fleuchar Street in February 1985.

Photos by Neale Elder.

3 COWGATE VIEWS - 1970

3 views of the Cowgate area captured before all the demolition began - so 1970ish.

Top one is from near St Andrew's Street junction looking over towards the Wellgate side, with Walsall Conduits sign on show.

Middle image is a familiar view of the Cowgate featuring Wishart Arch.

The wooden business sign top-left of the photo is for Holland House Electrical Co, and the white building next door to it is Mitchell Car Hire.

The bottom picture would have been snapped outside Millett's probably, that's the Gaumont canopy to the right of the image, with the continuation of the Cowgate beyond and King Street curving off next to it.

The Wellgate side of the Cowgate has the Dundee Savings Bank on the corner, and you can just catch a glimpse of the Cowgate Carpets shop sign beside it.

No hint of any boarding going up yet, all premises seem intact and still doing biz!

Click on pictures to enlarge.

Photos from Gordon C.

STURROCK'S AD -1972

Here's a shop I never set foot in - Sturrock's in Panmure Street.

Ad dated 1972.

Not my scene maan!

ALEX SMITHS AD - 1972

It was sale time at Alex Smith's in Commercial Street when this ad appeared in 1972.

For the gals there were things like skinny rib jumpers, mini skirts, mini jumpers and a clearance sale of satin & velvet hot pants (I didn't realise Smiths indulged!)

Amongst the guys stuff were car coats (remember them?), stretch nylon track suits, and it being '72 - good old Crombies!

Click on ad to enlarge.

WHITFIELD'S AD - 1966

This ad from 1966 is for Whitfields' in Crichton Street, who were navy specialists.

Is that the only colour they had then - navy?!!

ATTIC ARCHIVE POSTCARDS

The Attic in Union Street produced a set of postcards that were given out to visitors.

They featured some of the correspondents Pete Horobin was communicating with.

Each postcard has the image of a correspondent made entirely from the content of the letters they wrote to each other. These were done using the original cut and paste method, sentences and words physically cut from a page then reassembled and photocopied into these excellent portraits shown above.

So as a wee memento from Retro's recent visit to the Attic, here are the people in the cards above - Chris Horobin (Pete's brother) - Jack Saunders - Stefen Szczelkun - Susan Young - Mark Pawson - Philip Pilkington - Karen Strang - Barry Mitchell.

There is a good 2 part video up on Youtube made in Budapest showing the mountain of material from the Attic Archive they have in storage in the Artpool Gallery.

Boxes and boxes of stuff from Union Street being dipped into!

They go under the title of "From A to A - New Directions" (2 videos).

Here are the links -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUUsa5EQjYE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HppxEPH42c

Courtesy of The Attic Archive.

GOW'S FISHING BOOK - 1962

Not sure if yesterdays location was a place to go fishing but in 1962, Gow's in Union Street, brought out this catalogue showcasing the fishing equipment they had available at their shop.

The book had the full range of gear you'd expect - rods, reels, flies, waders, and so on, plus they also had a few gift items such as tankards, wallets, cigarette cases etc.

There was a brand of fishing equipment on the go at the time called the "Tayside" range, which included the Tayside Fly Rod, Spinning Rod, Artificial Bait, Sprat & Prawn Tackle, Cast Book, and the example shown here being the Tayside Bag.

While I was at it, I thought I'd stick on the Tayside Fly Rod section because it had an amusing error, detailing a "19ft" rod, when it should have been 10ft.

19ft?....what a whopper!

At the back of the book they list all the nearby rivers and lochs you could visit to indulge in the sport.

The book was also published locally - by David Winter.

CITY CENTRE BALLOONS - 1980'S

A glimpse along the High Street on 25th July 1985 caught this wee lad in the top picture carrying a couple of large balloons.

They don't appear to have cheered him up any mind you. Still girnie!

And a glimpse along Reform Street in the mid/late 80's caught these 2 characters carrying a heap load of balloons.

The balloons were used to advertise McEwans Ale who were sponsoring the Jazz Festival, the balloons being placed around all the venues where the gigs were taking place. So being snapped in Reform Street means they had just dropped a few balloons off at the Old Bank Bar. You can also see a jazz banner hanging above the duo in the middle image.

Colour photo by Neale Elder.

B&W photos by The Bear.

STOP THE BUS!

Buses feature in all 3 of these city centre pictures from the 80's.

Starting with the top one of the High Street and the Dryburgh bus outside McColl's.

This was taken on 2nd June 1986, just as World Cup fever was kicking in. You can see on the news board on the pavement, The Scottish Daily Express had the headline "Mexico 86 - We're Shouting For Scotland!" As usual, Scotland never made it past the first round in a group containing Denmark, Uruguay and West Germany.

The bus heading for Fintry seems to be popular in the middle shot which was taken in Reform Street on 25th July 1985.

These blue local buses were Volvo-Ailsas.

Back to the High Street for the third image, snapped from the city square on 23rd April 1988.

The bus in the Jaffa Cake colours is a recycled London Routemaster operated by Strathtay Scottish.

The board in the square was reminding folk that there was an Antique Fair going on at the Caird Hall that day.

Now, all 3 buses themselves have become an antique fare!

Photos by Neale Elder.

ALEXANDER STREET MULTIS IN THE 80'S

Not everyone had the opportunity to look down onto the tap o' the hull, but some of those who lived in Butterburn Court did, because the top image is a view from that particular block taken on 30th July 1985.

The bottom half of the photo shows the Hilltown clock junction, while the central part of the picture has the same wasteland area as yesterdays but from the opposite direction, ie - the Caldrum Street/North George Street location, and in the background are 2 of the Alexander Street multis.

The other image is of Carnegie Towers taken from Jamaica Towers, with a rather sparse play park in shot too.

Little did we know, that when the photos were captured, their time would be up a quarter of a century later, these being the multis that are due to come crashing down tomorrow.

Photos by Neale Elder.

DERBY STREET MULTIS IN THE MID 80'S.

Love them or loath them, those of us who grew up during the 3 retro decades are the ones who lived with multis most. There were none before that period, and since that time many have come a tumblin' down into oblivion!

The ones in the photos here are the Derby Street multis, themselves due to be demolished next year.

The top picture makes a very satisfying abstract image to me and is of Butterburn Court, snapped on 2nd April 1985.

Middle photo was taken from the corner of North George Street & Church Street, and captured on 20th September 1984.

It features a hotchpotch of Hilltown housing, from the corner cottage at the front, to the derelict tenements on the right, with the multis at the back of it all.

Quite a lot of wasteland in-between as well, but one place that was active in amongst all this, was the cream coloured building - The Ladbroke Social Club.

The bottom picture is of the same area but from higher up, this being the view from Carnegie Tower on 30th July 1985.

You'll notice the rough bit of land beside the corner cottage has become modernised, and in fact wipes out half of Church Street.

The road running from the bottom-left with the empty tenement, is Caldrum Street.

It's good to view these Hulltoon humdingers on a grander scale, so to bring up the enlarged versions, just click onto the pictures.

Photos by Neale Elder.

LOCHEE HIGH STREET - 1987

Traipsing further up along Lochee Road to the High Street, here's a reminder of how the scene looked on 6th July 1987.

Apart from the church, most of the buildings are still around today, although not necessarily as the same businesses that are in shot. For example the amusements have gone, the bank on the corner has changed and I'm sure there will be one or two others.

To zoom in and have a closer look, just click the pic.

Photo by Neale Elder.

B.G. FORBES IN COMMERCIAL STREET



Here's some ads pertaining to BG Forbes, a shop that sold records and musical instruments.

First though, the photo is a good wee reminder of its location - right on the corner of Commercial Street and Dock Street.

I shopped in here quite a lot in the 70's because it had a really cool selection of jazz vinyl that other record shops in Dundee didn't have - a fine array of ECM albums for example. Some I recall buying were - Terje Rypdal, Jan Garbarek, Pat Metheny, Eberhard Weber, these kind of acts, although I must admit I also came home with a heap of pretty obscure albums from this place too. Names that spring to mind are Pacific Eardrum, Opa, Stomu Yamashta, Passport, Brand X, Casiopea, Shakti, Turning Point, PFM, Milton Nascimento, Nucleus, Marscape, Solution, Azymuth, UK, Nana Vasconcelos, White Noise, Isotope....and plenty others of this variety.

Why they stocked records such as these was probably down to the fact that the guy who ran the shop, Rob Adams, was himself a bit of a jazz-rock aficionado. In fact he was also in a couple of local bands called Europe and Head, acts influenced by the likes of Weather Report.

Anyway, getting back to the above items - the first ad that's making a "note" of the name, dates from 1978.

The small ad under it is from a 1972 Telegraph and the next one is from a 1977 Telegraph - both displaying albums that were more commercial than the kind I usually bought from there.

The 2 yellow items date from 1980 and were adverts that cropped up on the reverse side of tickets for gigs on at the University. The idea being that if you took the ticket stubs into Forbes you got £1 knocked off the price of the related albums - these here being for Peter Gabriel and Mike Oldfield.

We'll just have to ignore the fact that the Uni got the address wrong on one of them!!

Top photo by Neale Elder.

ANN STREET ACTIVITY - EARLY 70'S

These 3 pictures were all taken along Ann Street in the early 70's.

The top image is the calm before the storm as it was snapped just before the main part of the demolition commenced.

The Heatherbell Bar was still open for business in January 1972 but by 1974 all these shops and tenements had disappeared.

The middle shot is further along the street where you can see an old building being demolished behind the modern block. If you go back to the top photo, it's still standing.

Photo 3 is looking back along Ann Street in the other direction with Ellen Street corner behind the JCB that has just reversed into a shop!

Photos from Gordon C.

WELLINGTON TOWERS IN PROGRESS

Here's a couple of rare colour photos of Wellington Towers caught during and after construction.

The top one was taken in the 60's from Cotton Road near the junction of Ann Street (going off to the left) and Hillbank Road (straight on).

The second image from the early 70's is taken from virtually the same spot and shows the work on the multi complete, with an additional block added to the Hillbank Road section.

Photos from Gordon C.

GOODBYE MID STREET - 80'S

It's not just only buildings that disappear, sometimes it's the entire street, and here we are in the 80's bidding farewell to Mid Street.

Mid Street ran from the Dudhope Street/Hilltown junction, through to Constitution Road.

Top pic is from the Hilltown fork, Dudhope Street off to the right, Mid Street being demolished on the left.

The other photo is from Mid Street looking back over at the Hilltown.

It was time for it to go to make way for the Marketgait tunnel.

Photos by The Bear.