Beechwood

I remember Beechwood, 11 Kingscross well, we moved there 1937 thats going back to when it was just being built. We moved from Rosebank a small cottage with a blackSmith. It was great to see electric light and a loo inside and I remember mare tinnie in the top storie, and I remember Patons Lane well too, in thoses days great daysI have been back often. 

I lived at 20 Kings Cross Road Beechwood up to the early seventies then moved to Kirkton when I was thirteen. I remember a newspaper vendor called Johnny Croll who used to give us a few bob to deliver the telegraph to the industrial estate through the hole in the wall in Beechwood,we also used to collect empty lemonade bottles from the factories then take them to Margi McBains sweetie shop and receive a few pennies for them. Halcyon days indeed.

I recall getting off the bus at Kings Cross Road and walking along Dronley Place when suddenly there was a massive gas explosion behind me.

One of the tenements in Kings Cross Road had the front blown off. I felt like I had just experienced an earthquake as I walked home that day. It must have been about 1975 or slightly earlier.

I notice that there are virtually no shops in Beechwood now which made me think of the names/types of shops that thrived there in the 50s namely:

From left to right Mallow, Beechwood Stores, Andrew G Kidds, The Butchers, Johnston Stores, McBains or Mary's and lastly the chippers. Read more......

I was born in 1946 in Lochee. Unfortunately my father died at 21 and my mother became a widow at 18. We then moved in with my grandparents in the new housing scheme called "Beechwood". This was a lovely friendly place to grow up in. Read more......

When I was 7 years old my dad drove the tram 'up the Blackie and doon the Hackie', he always stopped at my gran's close 'his mums' and I'd jump on at the 'Blackie' and come off at the top and walk back again. This was the 'Blue Mountains' at Brook Street. My dad's name was Joe Fagan.