VIEW MAGAZINE - 1978

This is the very first issue of View magazine, a free Dundee arts guide, published in 1978.

I've put up the foreword to give you the general gist of the mag content that outlines their coverage of local exhibitions and plans for the future.

Along with reviews of the main art centres in town, it also gives the lowdown on the 2 galleries shown above - the Dudhope Arts Centre and the Forebank Studios.

The Dudhope Arts Centre in St. Mary Place had workshop facilities for drawing, print making, painting etc, as well as it being a place putting on exhibitions, concerts, dance performances, that kind of thing. In addition, their coffee-bar area would be used for one-man shows.

The Forebank Studios in the Hilltown started up in 1976 when a group of local artists moved into what was an empty school at the time, and with a little help from the Scottish Arts Council, the Dundee Group (Artists) came into being.

The studios were both an artists workplace and exhibition space.

The exhibition advert for Forebank Studios was published in the Scottish press in Feb 1978.

There is also mention in View about a new film theatre that was due to open in 1979.

That was the Steps Theatre, which as we all know, opened AND closed down, ironically, because of the DCA springing up!

ROOFTOP VIEW FROM THE LAW - 1970'S

A moody dusky evening shot looking over the rooftops at the base of the Law.
This was taken around the early/mid 70's, and snapped just at the moment of lighting-up time.
You can see the top section of Kinpurnie Place in the foreground, in the middle distance is St John's school and in the background are the Ardler multis.
The Law Hill area was like a 2nd playground to me when I was a wee schoolboy because my grandparents lived in Byron Street, so when the adults wanted to have a blether, me and my brothers would nip out to play for a while, with the Law being like an extension to their backies!
I also remember mucking about at the Kinpurnie swings because they had a Witches Hat there, something we didn't have at home at the Craigie swings, so that would be the first thing I'd make a beeline for!
If you want to see if you can spot anything else, click onto it to enlarge.

VIEW FROM CHS CLASS - 1982

Here's a view from Craigie High School, taken on 19th May 1982.
It was taken by Neale Elder, just shortly before leaving CHS.
However, he can't recall now whether it was taken at the Met Station or from the window of Mrs Meakin's English class. Either way, you can tell it's from 3 decades ago by the Caledon shipyard cranes and Carolina Port chimney stacks in the background.
Not that much of a difference though with the school ground and nearby area, apart from the trees being bigger now.
I have a hazy memory of using this small athletics area only once, one summer period. A bit of hop, skip & jump and some shot-put! In the main though, all our PE stuff was done around the other grassy areas.
I also remember painting a view almost the same as this image when one day we were allowed on the roof for art.

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 - CITY CENTRE

In the mid 70's, my brother went on a flight around Dundee. Luckily for us he had his camera with him and managed to capture quite a lot of the city, some of which looks much different to how it is now. I must have around 40 aerial shots from the session but I'll just put up 6 over the coming days to give you a reminder of how the toon looked back in the day.
So settle down in your seats and get ready for take off...
Starting off bang in the centre of town, where you can see by all the workers huts around it that they were still putting the finishing touches to the new Tayside House at the bottom right of the picture. The most obvious observation though is the giant gap where they demolished the old Wellgate and South side of Victoria Road.
The fact that the photos were taken out of the plane's window means they are not going to be high definition clarity but they are still good enough to make out where you are and what's what, so I recommend for those who would like to do a kind of Retro Google Earth on them, to click on the image to get the large version, then right click to "save picture as" and save it onto you pc, and then you can use your zoom & pan to have a wee nosey around.

BIDE BY THE LAW

Decided to put this photo up because it's not very often you see an image of the Law from the other side, so to speak, it's usually snapped from the river Tay area.
The picture was taken in the early 80's and quite a few changes have taken place since then of course - so click onto the image to view it larger or download it to your pc and zoom in to see what changes you can spot.
At least it was a nice day anyway, plenty of washing hingin' up roond the backies!