Buildings/Structures

I was born in Maryfield  Hospital in 1950 and lived  in Buchanan Street until we got moved to Douglas in 1953. I went to St Vincent school until age 7 when a new school St Pius was built opposite my house  in Balmerino Road. I used to love going to the baths on Saturday morning one week and the Gaumont on another, I used to love going through the Arcade under the  Caird Hall and see the roast chicken turning on the spit. It made me feel really hungry.

The Blue Mountains at the bottom of the Hawkhill on the left hand side were called after an Italian man came to Dundee and lived in that tenement, he was so homesick that he painted the blue mountains on  the wall of his flat to remind him of his home near the Blue Mountains in Italy .

I lived in St David's Lane, West Port, we used to play in the "Blue Mountains" on the Blackie. I have recently heard they were called the infamous Blue Mountains, does anyone know why?

I remember one winter in Douglas when we had no coal for our fire, my Mum sent me over to Douglas School which was just being built (so I would have been about 6 or 7 years old) to collect some of the wood off cuts. A joiner was working late, (I remember that it was very dark) and took pity on me and filled a sack with logs and carried it over to my house for me. My Mum, my three siblings and my self (my Dad was not around) had a warm house and hot water for some nights after that and we will always be grateful to that unknown joiner.

My family moved to Carnegie Tower in November 1967, when I was 10. Carnegie Tower was the first of the 4 tower blocks to be built in Alexander Street. Previously in that area, there had been streets full of old small shops and tenements where families lived, mainly in cramped conditions and sharing outside toilets with neighbours. I was an only child and we had lived only a few hundred yards away in a one bedroomed first floor tenement flat at 76 James Street. Read more......

I note the photograph of the Princess Cinema, I am the laddie on the bike, the photo taken by someone from D.C. Thomson about May 1959. I lived at 88, Hawkhill from 1951-53 and went to Tay Street School. Them moved away to Paisley. Came back in 1958 and lived in Rosefield Street. My mum had a second hand shop and a cafe in Brook Street, bottom of Larch Street. I remember playing in the high landie. Only remember one person from Tay Street School, a lass called Ella McGuiken who loved in Park Row until about 1960. She was a bonnie dancer. Read more......

I note the photograph of the Princess Cinema, I am the laddie on the bike, the photo taken by someone from D.C. Thomson about May 1959. I lived at 88, Hawkhill from 1951-53 and went to Tay Street School. Them moved away to Paisley. Came back in 1958 and lived in Rosefield Street. My mum had a second hand shop and a cafe in Brook Street, bottom of Larch Street. I remember playing in the high landie. Only remember one person from Tay Street School, a lass called Ella McGuiken who loved in Park Row until about 1960. She was a bonnie dancer. Read more......

My grandfather Simon McIntosh was stage manager of the King's Theatre and prior to that of the Palace Theatre. I have his autograph book with some of the 'stars' like Harry Lauder and pictures of that time.

Can anyone tell me what the activity centre in Ancrum Road was originally called. I think it might have been a school?

The Citadel – now razed to the ground
Leaves behind the silent sound
Of Salvation Army Silver Bands
Of tambourines in soldiers happy hands

Songs of praise of “Blood and Fire”
A motto truly to inspire

No last post or bugle sound
As her walls came tumbling to the ground