Brook Street
Penny Buster Stall
Born in February 1942 in Brook Street I came from a family of 10. We moved to Polepark Road and attended Mitchell Street primary school in 1946 until going to Logie High (Penitentiary). Later we moved to Grey Street, Lochee. Many happy times of going down to the penny buster stall in the Overgate and of Greenhills the chemist where our late dad would buy us a saspirrila to clean out the insides. I also remember being pulled out of school and sent to the tattie howkin. We were paid the great sum of 10 shillings. Read more......
Memories of Blackness Road / Brook Street
We lived in tenement at the bottom of Blackness Road / Brook Street. Only gas, no electricity and the loo was on the landing, my mother having to clean her part of the stairs, and as Billy Connolly would say we used an old army greatcoat as an eiderdown. Then the exciting time of moving to St Mary's to a three bedroom house with garden and a great treat of having a loo and bath indoors. Even though I was only 2/3 I remember the journey in the back of a removal van from our old tenement to our new home. Great days, I wish I could rewind and go back to those days (time move on). Read more......
Broughty Ferry Beach
I did not go to school in Perth until I was five and a half years old. I started at Northern District School. Of course I was rarin' to go so I thoroughly enjoyed the daily routine - A for Apple, B for Bottle, counting etc. We used a slate and chalk for writing practice. We had to carry a pad for cleaning our slates. Mine was royal blue velvet. I was very proud of it. Read more......
Dundee and Dundonians
I have many, many wonderful and happy memories of Dundee and Dundonians. My late mother Rita Elder (nee Gillan) was born in Dundee but left in the forties to come up to Peterhead with my father Edward Elder who was born in Carnoustie. My mother was brought up in Brook Street and did in fact work in the jute mills, maybe even the coffin mill. Mother never forgot Dundee and was a frequent visitor coming back at every opportunity. I wish in fact that Mum and Dad had returned to live in Dundee as we seem to spend quite a lot of time going back for weekends and shopping. God bless you Dundee for you have given me and many other happy memories. Read more......
Coffin Mill Scare
We lived at 93, Brook Street during 1941-48 in a converted shop. I remember the Coffin Mill scare when children from the Burn swore to seeing a ghost, reputedly that of a young mill girl, the crowd swelled with Mum's looking for bairns. The local bobby trying to get people to go home. Read more......
Up the Blackie, Doon the Hackie
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.
