Tram Times

My first recollection of the trams in Dundee was when we live in Lochee and I would watch them from our window. During the General Strike in 1926 my mother took me downtown in a tram. She said it was driven by blackleg drivers (all the transport workers were on strike). I went to the front of the tram to see these 'blacklegs'. However the driver was in a civilian suit with a policeman sitting beside him.

The next well-remembered episode was a Sunday School picnic from St Mary's Parish Church to Reres Park in Broughty Ferry. Two Broughty Ferry and District Tramway Company Trams with open-top decks were hired, turning off at what is now Craigie Drive and running through fields across a private Right of way to West Ferry. I lost my school cap when a tree branch swept it off my head, and we all laughed to see people stepping off the kerb to board the trams in spite of the Destination Boards reading 'Private' and we drove on leaving them looking bewildered.

The decorated tram at Christmas time ran on all the routes and having moved to the East end we would go to the Baxter Park Terminus on Arbroath Road to await its arrival - a sight to behold as it came round the bend at Eden Street with bands playing on the top deck. I think the bands were the RNVR, St Margarets and the Forfar Instrumental Band. The tram I remember most of all had the Royal Arch in lights on either side.