Dundee in the Sixties

So many memories of Dundee in the sixties ... being a teenager at that time was brilliant ... going to the Marryat on a Saturday night was the highlight of the week. Dancing to the likes of the Beatles, The Searchers, Swinging Blue Jeans and many more - then leaving there to stand and blether to your pals before getting the last bus home along the Perth Road because if I wasn't home on the last bus then woe betide me because my father would be waiting for me and I would get a lecture that would last for 15 minutes or more. Even before that I remember my grandma taking me to nearly every picture house in the town. The first one being the Wizard of Oz at the La Scala then going home on the tram. Oh how I loved the journey along past the Seabraes where I could look across the water - great days that stick in your mind forever.

I was born at No 3 Peddie Street in 1948. My dad was a butchers boy on the Perth Road at the time. Then he joined the RAF and we moved to 249 Hawkhill my grandmothers old tenement. My memories of that time when I went to the Joeys was walking along the Hackie to the sound of Cairdies mill and hearing the sound of the machinery and wondering what on earth was going on inside this huge place. Then as I got older I remember going to the washie in Miller's Wynd with my mother and taking an old pram with all this washing in it and my mother wearing a scarf tied turban style on her head just like all the other women did at the time - along with the compulsory peenie. What an adventure that was ... oh how things have changed.

Living on the Hawkhill in the sixties was great fun. Saturdays were spent wandering down from Peddie Street to the West Port lookng in all the shops along the way starting with the raggie at the top of Pennycook Lane and all the second hand shops that seemed to be dotted from Millar's Wynd the whole length of the Hakkie. Going in to Birrells to try on the shoes was compulsory as was having a sasparilla and going to the market. My mother used to buy all sorts of chalk ornaments usually animal ones there and without fail by the time we got home they were chipped to bits so it would be the same story the following week and the same thing would happen but how we laughed about it. Somehow the Overgate Centre just doesn't have the same appeal and I'm sure anybody who remembers the Old Hakkie will agree.