Teatime Tales From Dundee

by Maureen Reynolds

  Even the names of streets reflected this mass movement of people. Places like Atholl Street, which was called ‘Tipperary’ and another area called ‘The Bog’. They brought with them the customs of the Emerald Isle and although the majority of families lived in desperate conditions and were forever on the edge of poverty, their traditions are still alive in many communities to this day.

  Such was the influx that it was noted in 1830 that there was one Catholic priest for 2,000 Irish people, but ten years later that figure had risen to 7,100 and almost all were working in the linen and flax works. By 1861, the rise in immigration reached 14,366, nearly fifteen per cent of the population, mainly all working in the jute mills.

  Without the skill of these workers, it is doubtful if the jute mills could have coped with the huge demand for their products.

  Another group of immigrants were the Italian families who were also a huge asset to the city. They set up wonderful ice cream shops and the tasty ‘chippers’; fish and chip businesses which fed a great deal of the population and still do.

  They had super exotic names as well. Names like Dellanzo, Soave, Zanre and Fugaccia. Our local chip shop was Dellanzo’s on the Hilltown and their fish, pudding and pie suppers filled many a hungry stomach during the dark wartime rationing.

  I recall after the war when the elderly parents of the Dellanzo family opened their small ice cream shop next to the chip shop. They seemed to appear from nowhere but I think they must have suffered the indignities of internment after Italy entered the war. It would seem that no matter how long they had lived in the country, they were looked on as a threat to national security. Thankfully, they stayed and prospered.

  During the war, ice cream, wafers and cones were in short supply and my husband recalls being served ice cream on a sheet of paper from Nolli’s shop in Strathmore Avenue.

  There was also a big mirror behind the counter and on being asked if the shop had any sweets or cigarettes, Mr Nolli would be very apologetic and shake his head. What he didn’t know was that the boxes stashed under the counter were visible in the mirror.

  Still most shops were the same. They kept the stock for their good customers. I worked for a short time at Primo and Lena Zaccarini’s chip shop in Dudhope Street. It wasn’t a large shop but it did have a seating area at the back and boy was it busy.

  I started at four o’clock on a Saturday night and it was a constant slog of wrapping up cod or haddock suppers. I think they cost one and ninepence each, with the haddock being a few pennies dearer. Then there was the running about serving the seated customers.

  I had an hour’s break from seven o’clock and, as I jumped on a tramcar, I remember the chip and vinegar aroma that clung to my clothes and within minutes the smell would be all over the tram.

  Then it was back to work until midnight with huge queues forming out into the street. I often thought the entire population bought chips on a Saturday. Even the policemen, who regularly patrolled the area from the police box at the foot of the Hilltown, came in for their suppers.

  There was one customer who came in during my time with the shop. I remember she was at school with me but her family had emigrated to Canada. They must have come back for a holiday because she came into the shop with this strange accent. It was neither Dundee dialect nor English. Privately I called it ‘Canadese’.

  Primo asked her about her new home and she gossiped on about how different words were used in Canada. ‘Chips are called French fries over there,’ she said, in Canadese.

  I know the term ‘French fries’ is used all the time now but it was the first time I had heard the words. I couldn’t understand it and was quite indignant. ‘Why are they no called Italian fries?’ I asked.

  Some years later, people arrived from Pakistan, India and China and more layers were added to the tapestry of the city. Many of the Asian community now own small shops and they work long hours and give great service to customers. You only have to look around the streets to see the Indian and Chinese restaurants serving curries and naan bread, spring rolls and fried rice, plus lots more delicious dishes; food that would have been totally exotic, exciting and unknown fifty years ago.

  Meanwhile, the good old fish and chips still reigns supreme, as do the ice cream sliders and cones, but we now have the pizza parlours, which add another addition to people’s diets.

  Nowadays, the city has seen a boom in people from Poland and other Eastern European countries and the University also brings in students from around the world, turning Dundee into a multicultural city.

  Yes, we have a lot to be thankful for, that all these people from different countries decided to travel the roads to Dundee, staying and bringing up their families and bringing new ideas and talents into the melting pot of the city.

  11

  Piggyback Flying

  In the autumn of 1938, a flying event took place that has never again been attempted. My grandad stood along with thousands of people at the King George V dock in Dundee to witness this event.

  According to the story told to me years later, I should have been with him but, at two months old, my mother wasn’t keen for him to carry me in my shawl and stand around along with hordes of spectators.

  Not that it matters because I wouldn’t have known a thing about this world attempt but by all accounts it was a wonderful sight, this ‘piggyback flight’.

  It was the time of the Munich Crisis and superiority in the air was gaining ground. Also, there was the difficulty of delivering mail to the far-flung countries of the British Empire.

  One solution to the flat-rate Empire air mile service were the piggyback planes, The Mercury and The Maia, which consisted of the main seaplane, The Maia, with the smaller flying boat, The Mercury,on its back.

  Maia was to take off and at a certain height, which I believe was 11,000 feet, Mercury would then disengage and fly towards her destination.

  Although Short brothers built the plane in the south of England, Dundee was chosen for this thrilling flight, not because James Chalmers had introduced the first postage stamp, but because of the long distance record. It was to fly non-stop to Cape Town.

  It was becoming an increasingly uneasy world with Hitler’s Nazi Party in power in Germany and the Germans were already trying to fly planes from the decks of ocean liners. The Soviets had also completed a flight over the North Pole, a journey of 6,306 miles. The Air Ministry, determined not to be left behind, backed the scheme and the two planes landed in Dundee on September 1938 where they were berthed at the Catalina Flying Boat Station in Woodhaven.

  It was to be the start of delays and bad luck due to the weather and technical problems. However, on 6 October with an Australian pilot called Captain Bennett at the controls and his co-pilot and radio operator First Officer Ian Harvey, Maia with her piggyback companion Mercury sped across the waves of the River Tay and slowly rose into the air. Then, in the skies over Angus, Mercury took off alone for South Africa.

  Bad luck stayed with the two pilots as they flew over France, North Africa and the Sahara Desert. Ice on the wings over the South of England forced the plane to drop height, an engine cowling panel was lost and a combination of severe weather and strong head winds all contributed to the flight running out of fuel.

  Before this, however, the two pilots had the scary experience of having to crawl out onto the fuselage to pump the fuel by hand.

  The plane eventually landed on the Orange River, which was 350 miles short of Cape Town and sadly, a mere 260 miles short of the Soviet airmen’s achievement.

  The Mercury had however broken the German record of 5,215 miles by flying 6,045 miles in forty-two hours. It was a wonderful flight by the two pilots and the gutsy seaplane and this record has never been beaten.

  What a great day it must have been for the plane’s creator Robert Mayo, who was an aeronautical expert with Imperial Airlines. His dream of launching a piggyback plane had proved successful, but whether it ever became a viable commercial success, I don’t know.


  What I do know is that history was made on that cool October day in 1938 on the River Tay, and the thousands of spectators who saw it must have gone home with this knowledge. I know my grandad did.

  12

  A Ghost Story

  During the autumn and winter when the evenings were dark, a few of us girls would gather in someone’s close and tell stories. Sitting on the cold steps I could feel the dampness seeping through my frock and in this ideal setting with the feeble gas lamp casting long, flickering shadows, I would tell my ghost stories. Each story got more bizarre, but I had a captive audience who would visibly shiver and keep turning around as if some spook was coming behind them.

  Later, when it was time to leave, we would all be scared out of our wits and all running for the safety of our houses.

  One day, one of the mothers complained to my mum about me scaring her daughter. ‘Meh lassie wis that feared when she came hame. Said the ghost was efter her.’

  I got a stiff telling-off but as the girls always demanded another ghost story, who was I not to oblige? But comeuppance comes to us all.

  After one deliciously gruesome story, I set off for my close. As was my normal practice, I would call up to mum and she would open the door, letting the light spill down the stairs. I was on the point of calling up to get mum to open the door when an apparition loomed out of the darkness.

  My screams must have been heard in Fife and I took off down the Hilltown with the ghost and its companion chasing me. I was almost at Victoria Road when they caught me.

  It turned out to be a young courting couple who had been standing in the darkness of my close saying goodnight to one another. The girl was wearing a white chiffon scarf around her hair and it was this luminous object that had given me such a fright.

  Of course, the couple were apologetic and escorted me home where my very irate mother was waiting. In fact, she wasn’t so much irate as blinking well furious.

  ‘Eh’m sorry we gave the wee lassie a fricht,’ said the young man, handing my mother a thruppenny bit. ‘This’ll buy her a sweetie.’

  Of course my mum refused the money. ‘Gie her a sweetie, eh’ll gie her mair than that for waking up half the street, the wee toerag.’

  Then the couple went on their way, a romantic long goodbye spoiled by a toerag. Well my mother went on and on, even when we were in bed.

  The next morning, along came one of our neighbours. ‘Eh’ve telt that lassie o’ yours no tae tell her damn ghost stories. Meh lassie never slept last nicht. She kept saying there wis a ghost in the room.’

  Mum said she understood and said, ‘Eh think ye’ll find thit there will be nae mair stories. It wisnae jist your lassie thit got a fricht eh can tell ye.’

  And she was right. My brush with the ghost lady with the chiffon scarf certainly put me off ghosts for a long time.

  Well, maybe for a month or two.

  13

  Making a Living

  Long before the advent of the Welfare State and National Health Service in 1948, trying to make a living could be very difficult, more so in times of recession and unemployment.

  Dundee had its share of street hawkers and itinerate folk all trying to ‘mak a bob or twa’ – or in most cases ‘a maik or a penny’ – and what wonderful characters they were, trying to survive with only the basics in living accommodation and wares to sell.

  One of these street hawkers was ‘Pie Jock’ who died in 1863. During his life he sold pans and jugs but was also a purveyor of hot pies. In these days of health and safety, it is inconceivable that he carried a hot oven fired by coal on his shoulder.

  A Mr Peebles who had a shop in Perth Road made the pies and Jock would carry his oven around, calling out ‘hot pehs, only tuppence each.’

  He managed to eke out a living until pies became available in some shops and the bottom fell out of the portable hot pie business. Mr Peebles stopped selling pies to his wandering vendor and poor Jock was left to try and earn another living by selling small items.

  Jock was described as being short and bent to one side. No doubt by having to carry a hot oven day in and day out. It’s a wonder he wasn’t scorched, or worse, badly burned.

  Another character at the turn of the twentieth century who tried to earn an honest penny or two was the man who kept a wee coble in the Earl Gray docks. Nicknamed ‘Tarry Dan’, he got this name because of the liberal amount of tar he would slap on his boat every year. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the boat was all tar and no wood.

  This redoubtable character would ferry men, women and children around the Earl Gray and King William docks when the dock gates were open at tide times, at the cost of one penny for the round trip of fifteen minutes.

  Before the bridges were built at the docks, people had to go round by the Royal Victoria Arch if they wanted to catch one of the many steamers which plied up and down the river. It wouldn’t have been a long walk and I can’t imagine any long-skirted women climbing into a tiny boat, but that is what they must have done because Dan seemed to make a living out of his mini cruises. However, children on their way to the swimming baths would find this a bit of an adventure.

  Of course, the docks and wharves have all gone now to make way for the Tay Road Bridge which was built in 1966. This wouldn’t have affected Dan’s trade, as he was long gone by this time.

  Going to the swimming baths in the 1950s, my friends and I regularly made our way under the Royal Arch or ‘Pigeon’s Palace’ as it was also known, carrying our ‘shivery bite’, a wee sandwich or biscuit to eat after coming out of the freezing cold swimming pool.

  Oh yes, it was an appropriate name for a snack as I remember being blue with the cold and covered with goose pimples after a session of swimming – or not in my case. I never did get the hang of taking my feet from the bottom of the pool and to this day I still can’t swim. That is why, should Tarry Dan still be offering his services, I would have gladly given him a penny just to keep my feet on terra firma.

  Thinking about these poor people and hundreds more like them who tried to make a living makes me feel so sad. They must have lived their lives from one financial crisis to another and it was a hard world where no money meant no roof over your head or food to eat. Many of them must have ended up in the poorhouse, which is awful.

  My final character, however, was a different person altogether. William Mallachan, who was also known as Tommy Dodds, was a mere four feet in height but what he lacked in inches he more than made up with his intelligence, independence and a quick tongue. Tommy died in 1930 aged seventy-two but he had a fulfilling life. Employed by the boot and shoe emporiums as a messenger he would regularly flog ‘the strongest bootlaces ever made.’

  He was by all accounts a feisty chappie. A teetotaller, he was often offered drinks by patrons of a local bar, but the barman would put the price of the drink under the counter and Tommy would get it later, in the shape of money. There were no flies on Tommy.

  He was also fond of the police force and often, if there was trouble in one of the overcrowded streets, he would give a blast of his police whistle, making sure no one saw who blew the whistle.

  The story I love about him was when he met another dwarf in Castle Street. The other wee guy was mesmerised by seeing a double of himself but Tommy took exception to the man’s stares and asked him what he was looking at.

  I don’t know what the man said but there was a boxing bout between the two. A large crowd gathered and it was seemingly so comical to watch. Even the local bobby stood and watched as Tommy emerged the winner although this was because he gave his opponent ‘the heid’. Afterwards, no doubt battered and bloody, the man took himself off, back to the Acrobatic Quartette that were performing in the People’s Palace.

  Tommy, however, was too intelligent to play a comical dwarf for people’s entertainment.

  On his seventieth birthday, his good friend T. Campbell, who had a hairdresser shop in Gellatly Street, put on a party for him and he received numerous p
resents.

  One of his ploys was to get someone to lay a line of coins on either the floor or the pavement and he would pick them up in his mouth and all done without him bending his legs. I expect he kept these coins as payment for his expertise.

  He was a wee man but he never let life make him a victim. That’s what I like about him, he may have been a wee man but he was a wee man with attitude. I just wish I had known him.

  And a final word on the swimming baths. One night a friend and I went to visit them, only to be told the last group had gone in for the night and no one else was being admitted. On seeing our faces, the woman on the ticket counter said we still had time to visit the baths.

  This must be another swimming pool we thought but we were escorted up the stairs to a row of wooden doors, behind each was a white bathtub. Well we had paid our money so we had to make the best of it.

  The laugh was we put on our swimming costumes to get into the bath and although I said nothing at the time, I enjoyed my bath in lovely hot water with a big bar of soap and a lovely towel.

  It certainly beat the cold water of the main swimming baths by a million miles, especially when the entire hour had to be spent pretending to swim.

  14

  The Tay Whale

  On one of our many trips to the Albert Institute Museum, my brother and I loved looking at the skeleton of the humpback whale which was caught on the east coast of Scotland in January 1884. Why it travelled into the North Sea is a mystery but it certainly made one big mistake by leaving the deep polar oceans and coming within sight of land at the Tay estuary.

  Dundee was the centre of the whaling trade and ships like The Balena and Terra Nova would sail off to the icy Antarctic in search of whales and seals. At that time, there wasn’t the same emphasis on conservation and I’m sure, should a whale appear offshore now, there would be a considerable army of people all trying their best to guide the mammal back out to the deeper waters. But, sadly, not then.