The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Sadness over family home now a ruin
Apensioner whose grandparents once lived in a now precarious Lochee ruin has said the images have left her “heartbroken”.
Annette Young says she has fond memories of the Burnside Street property, which was recently branded a danger to the public.
It has been neglected for decades and this month a large stone fell from the front on to a narrow pavement.
The 65-year-old regularly visited as a child in the late 1950s and 1960s and said the images left her both sad and nostalgic.
She said: “I wish something could have been done with it.
“I don’t know who owns it now but if the roof is missing, I’m not sure there’s much they can do other than knock it down.
“It’s such a shame because it was a big house with a lovely garden.
“It is heartbreaking really.
“I knew straight away when I saw the pictures.
“I said ‘That’s my granny’s house!’”
The house belonged to her grandparents Winnie and William ‘Siddy’ Sutherland who lived there in the mid-20th Century.
They moved back home to Portknockie on the Moray coast in 1966 after a wing of the property was purchased by Michael Mckenzie.
Mr Mckenzie transformed it into the Lochee Pet Store, a business
that became a mainstay of the area before closing in September 2009.
The pet store has not been used since, while the rest of the house has grown ever more ruinous.
Annette, who grew up in Edinburgh, said she recalls her handyman granddad created a “beautiful” garden and vegetable patch at the back.
However, the same plot is now severely overgrown with weeds and the structure is now roofless with 15-foot-high shrubs growing from within.
A bulging sidewall also looks ready to collapse.
Housebound Annette, who now lives in the Pentland housing estate in Dundee’s West End, says she remembers sitting on
the front doorstep watching locals go by more than 50 years ago.
She said: “My granny would call us to come and watch folk come out the dancing at the Star Ballroom, run by Bob and Betty Barty. They would come out with different partners to the ones they went in with – she used to say ‘That’s Lochee for you.’”