ALEX SMITH'S - COMMERCIAL STREET

Apart from being taken there with my parents in the 60's, the only reason for visiting large department stores on my own at schoolboy age would be for clothes or toys.
In the case of Alex Smith's in Commercial Street, they had quite a decent sports department I recall buying a few items from.

Photo by DC Thomson.

DUNDEE - EUROPE - DUNDEE - 1983

I started using Inter Rail cards in 1980, and this one from 1983 was my 4th and last year of travelling this way. I chose to go to Greece going through the former Yugoslavia (despite lots of advice not to take that route). So the place names on the card are - DUNDEE - LONDON - DOVER - CALAIS - PARIS - NICE - VENTIMIGLIA - MILAN - VENICE - TRIESTE - BELGRADE - BAR (near the Albanian border) - THESSALONIKA - ALEXANDROUPOLIS (near the Turkish border) - ATHENS - KALAMATA - PATRAS, then pretty much the same route back up to VENICE. The trip from VENICE to LONDON was the direct Orient Express route through Switzerland. Then of course, back home to DUNDEE.
Click on the image to enlarge.

THE TRAIN LEAVING DUNDEE

It was good to get away from Dundee from time to time. I enjoyed travelling by train, so in the early 80's I pounced on the chance to get an Inter Rail card, which allowed unlimited travel around Europe for 1 month. Dead easy to use. Just write the destination on the card and away you go. No need to queue for tickets.
Unlike nowadays, when most people tend to choose their own holiday dates, back then most folk were stuck with the "Dundee fortnight". On the Friday everybody came off work, it seemed like half the town teemed down to the rail station to depart!

HUGH FARQUHAR AD - 1976

By the early 70's, Dundee was trying to move away from the traditional old style barbers and get into more modern "hairdressing".
Farquhar's in the High Street was probably the most obvious example, this being the place to go for feather cuts, tints, Bowie cuts and so on.

ROBERTSON'S - VICTORIA STREET BARBER

Robertson's in Victoria Street was the barber's I used to go to in the 60's when I was Primary School age. I remember the barber's used to put a plank of wood across the top of the barber chair's arms for kids to sit on because the youngsters would otherwise be too low down in the chair for barber's to reach.
Styles began with the basic "short back & sides", then progressed to the "neckline" and ended up with just asking for a "trim" as hair got longer towards the end of the 60's.
Photo by DC Thomson.Tints by GG.

CHURCH PUB #2 - ANGELS

Angels was Dundee's 2nd city centre church pub. It opened in the mid 80's and was located on the corner of Ward Road & Rattray Street. I remember it had a water feature above the bar and its constant trickling sound seemed to make you want to visit the loo more than usual!

You can see in the photo it had a rather grand entrance area.

There was also another part of it on the Rattray Street side (you can just make out the doorway) - a bar called, Heavens Above, which ironically, was downstairs in the basement!

CHURCH PUB #1 - CLOISTERS

This building on the corner of Meadowside and Bell Street, was Dundee's first church to be converted into a pub.
Sometime around the early 80's it opened as Cloisters.

The top photo shows the main doorway on Meadowside, which was directly opposite Foreigners.
The middle picture is a shot of the interior, which was taken from the raised floor area where bands sometimes used to play.
I recall seeing Altres play there in the mid 80's - complete with eye-catching slide show!
The pub interior was very spacious, with the bar plonked dead centre and despite how roomy it was, Fridays & Saturdays were still usually choc-a-block.
I remember they sold "venison burgers" and I jokingly commented to the bar staff that they were a bit too dear (deer!).
The third picture was the pub's other doorway situated in Bell Street.
Later around the mid 80's it changed its name to Gabriels, then in its final years became known as the Café Club Bar, until the place was destroyed by fire in June 1991.
The original building itself now no longer exists.
Viewing it again though after 3 decades, I reckon it could have made a perfect pub for Goths!
Below, is a tiny moment of footage showing how Meadowside looked in 1980 - church left, Foreigners (black frontage) right.

 

Exterior photos by DC Thomson.
Interior shot by The Bear.

DUNDEE'S FADE FAD

Back in the early 1970's, before Pre-Faded and Stone-Washed jeans were in circulation, the denim bought then was as stiff as cardboard when new and the shade of denim at it darkest. It would take months of wear and washing to get them worn-in properly.

To speed the process up, a couple of homemade techniques were used.

One was bleaching, although that sometimes just made the denim blotchy.

The other was to use sandpaper.

Smoothing the jeans with sandpaper greatly increased the fade as well as making the denim more comfortable. This then lead to the "Fade" itself becoming the fashion, not the pricey jeans, and the way Dundonians showed off their fade was to rip off the brand labels, revealing the original untouched dark blue denim underneath, thus highlighting the extent of the fade.

In some extreme cases, they totally removed the back pockets!!

The fad was pretty short-lived and eventually FADED out when manufacturers got wise and you could buy such denim ready to wear in the mid 70's.

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!

THE FAT SAM'S SWIZZLE-STICK

Here is one of the original Fat Sam's Swizzle-sticks that we used back in the 80's when cocktails were on the increase in nightclubs.
Not that I needed one for my pints of lager mind you!

FAT SAMS - SOUTH WARD ROAD -1980's

Fat Sams opened in December 1983 and very quickly became a favourite with local clubbers.

One of the main reasons for this was because many of the best night's in Dundee in the 80's were the ones under the "Dance Factory" banner.

Dance Factory organisers had been putting on gigs in town since 1982, but they never settled on a specific venue for these events. Sometimes it was Teazers, other times it was the Marryat Hall and they even tried the Barracuda a couple of times, but when Fat Sams cropped up on the scene, this then became their venue of choice.

The first manager was John MacDonald, and Dance Factory promoted the "alternative" music scene in the main.

Some of the acts I can remember catching here in the mid 80's were - Frank Chickens, Bhundu Boys, Shriekback, Jonathan Richman, X-Mal Deutschland, Divine, The Higsons, John Peel, The Associates, Bo Diddley, Jesse Rae, Paul Haig, plus a whole heap of others who's names now escape me!!

The above photos, which were taken around the mid/late 80's, give you an idea as to how the exterior & interior looked back then, as does the video clip below, also from the same era - with Billy MacKenzie your host.

DUNDEE'S AMUSEMENT ARCADE - 1970's

Around 1970, another Amusement Arcade was proving popular in Dundee - this one was in the Wellgate, and on 2 levels.

The ground floor of #34 (on the corner of Baltic Street) had all the slot machines & games, and upstairs there was a mini dodgems track.

I remember it had the first ever primitive computer screen game, it was called PONG and based on table tennis (ping pong).

Spent quite a few bob at the arcade there Saturday mornings - Pong in particular.

Photo by DC Thomson.

DUNDEE'S AMUSEMENT ARCADE - 1960's

Probably most of Dundee's kids paid a visit to the Amusement Arcade in Shore Terrace in the 60's. It had the usual kind of stuff, slot machines, rides & shooting games, but the one I liked best was "Torpedo". You looked through a submarine periscope to view ships passing on the horizon. You then had to calculate when to fire the torpedo to hit the ships. It did take 2 or 3 seconds to travel through the water, so it was a bit hit and miss. The path of the torpedo lit up and when you did make contact, the whole consul flashed on & off along with the sound of the explosion. No computer screens then, these were in 3D depth.
Photo by DC Thomson.Tints by GG.

THE JYNX WIN BAND CONTEST - 1970

Back in summer 1970, there was a Pop Festival took place up in Fraserburgh.
Actually, it was a "battle of bands" contest, rather than a festival concert.
It was open to any group from the North East area and it attracted 13 bands.
Most were from up north but Dundee band The Jynx answered the call.
Heats ran for 5 nights until it was whittled down to 4 finalists - in which The Jynx won, and the £100 cheque was on it's way back down to Dundee!
The Jynx line-up was: Eddie Quinn, Dave Paterson, Fred Houston & Bob Carson.
The band were a rock outfit, in a Deep Purple kinda style, and seemed to play more often out of town than locally, but they did gig at places like Dundee University, the Palais and Camperdown Park.
The article above was published in July 1970.

2 STUDENT'S UNION GIGS - 1980

Here are two of my Students Union ticket stubs that have survived the passage of time.

The promoters for these Dundee gigs were AIRLIE PLACE ENTERTAINMENTS - organised by Stuart Clumpas.

Peter Gabriel appeared there on 27 Feb 1980 and he began the show by making a surprise appearance at the hall's main door where the students enter, then made his way through the audience shining a hand held spotlight on the crowd as he advanced up to the stage.
The support act was Random Hold.

The Mike Oldfield gig took place on 13 Apr 1980 and I remember one local newspaper report describing the shows acoustics with the comment - "The sound was so good, it was just like listening to a giant hi-fi in your living room!"

801 GIG - DUNDEE UNIVERSITY - 1977



The Dundee University Student's Union in Airlie Place ( top picture ) put on a variety of interesting gigs during the 70's & 80's.

My first venture there was in 1976 to catch National Health play.

An example of some of the other acts I can recall seeing there were, Peter Gabriel, APB, Mike Oldfield, Misty in Roots, Bow Wow Wow, etc.

Plucking out one of the gigs I've attended to accompany the piece, I have chosen the 801 concert which took place in November 1977.

801 were a short-lived act created by Phil Manzanera & Eno when Roxy Music had a temporary break in the mid 70's.

They were quite an experimental, arty kind of band, using lots of electronic gadgets to achieve a compelling array of sounds.

I still have the original music press tour advert for the gig which I've included above.

CRAIGIE HIGH SCHOOL HOUSE BADGES - 1970's

It wasn't until around 1973 that Craigie High School introduced "Houses".

They were all named after Scottish "Firth's".

So it was PENTLAND - MORAY - DORNOCH - SOLWAY.

I was in Pentland, but the team to beat were Moray, who dominated years 73/74.

We had enamel badges made too, as above.

CRAIGIE HIGH SCHOOL UNIFORM - 1970's

Craigie High School's uniform didn't appear on the scene until many months after the school opened it's doors in 1970.

It was actually a team of teachers from CHS Art Dept who helped design it.

We got to see the school badge artwork develop as "work in progress" during its design stage.

I remember head art teacher, Mr Higgins, explaining that the school badge image consisted of the Law Monument to represent Dundee's highest point, the River Tay, representing Dundee's lowest level and both connected by an abstract "Tree Of Knowledge".

There were also 2 different shades of green used for the blazer - a dark version which was the more deluxe option, and which tended to be worn by kids who used a briefcase rather than a schoolbag.
The example above was the economic version, and although it was a more lurid green, it was the most common.

The uniform wasn't compulsory back then and I reckon less than half of the pupils chose to wear it.

The clash of colours was interpreted light-heartedly by pupils at the time as Green for Catholics and Orange for Protestants.
Back then it was a mixed religion school and we all got on fine.
Then they built St Saviours in Whitfield and so triggered an exodus of Catholics.
Religion not being part of any learning process!

60's CLACKERS

One of the most popular fads of the 60's, were Clackers. They took Dundee, and the rest of UK by storm. There was probably no street or playground where you couldn't hear the CLACK,CLACK,CLACK blasting out back then. The noise annoyed adults so much that they invented a story about them being dangerous and banned them.
Here, below, is some outlawed footage of the treacherous toy in action!!

McGONAGALL'S - PERTH ROAD - 1984

For those who indulged in pub crawls along the length of Perth Road in the 80's, you may remember McGonagall's, roughly the halfway marker.

The pub was really 2 in 1 because downstairs in the basement was "Sammy Cahn's", who funnily enough was another wordsmith, but from across the water...and I don't mean Fife!

Photo by DC Thomson.