Reasons to be cheerful in 2018

Sir, - I was somewhat disappointed to read Dr Anne Smith’s letter (Courier, December 21) bemoaning the fact that there will be other buildings around the V&A, spoiling the view, but, along the way, castigating our local authority for ‘short sighted stupidity...lack of imagination...being pathetic’, and suggesting that ‘Dundee is seen by other Scottish cities as down-market and unworthy of the V&A’.

Well, Dundee may well be seen as such by other Scottish cities, but it is certainly not seen in that light by the prestigious American business newspaper the Wall Street Journal, which recently described Dundee as ‘Scotland’s coolest city’, and placed it at number five in its list of ‘must visit places in the world’ in 2018.

Nor was it seen in such a way by the judges of the UK City of Culture award 2017, which had Dundee in its final shakedown, where it was only pipped at the post by Hull, a decision widely seen as based on the fact that Dundee was so far ahead in the cultural stakes that it didn’t really need this recognition.

Nor indeed was this a factor in Dundee’s bid to be 2023 European Capital of Culture, where it would have been a very realistic candidate if the UK’s entries hadn’t been disqualified on the basis of Brexit.

It was also in the top seven most intelligent cities in the world identified by a New York think tank in 2008.

Dr Smith tells us that she arrived in Dundee as a student in the 1960s, and talks about the terrible state of the city at that time: I too came to Dundee as a student in the ’60s, and well remember getting off the train for the first time and being appalled by the state of the city – derelict buildings, piles of rubble, like London after the blitz, with a demolition contractor as lord provost.

If anybody had suggested then that Dundee might be recognised by the world in the ways I have mentioned above, they would have been laughed at.

So, I would suggest that Dundee City Council, along with their partners in Dundee’s renaissance over the decades, have done a very good job of revitalising what was then a poor and unappealing place – a better job, I would say, than those other cities which Dr Smith suggests look down upon us.

And, talking about renaissance, I remember the first time I visited Florence, where the highlight of my visit was seeing the wonderful Cathedral, set in its square, surrounded by buildings.

I turned a corner, and there it was – a vision I will never forget, filling the end of a dark, shady street with its golden, sunlit beauty.

Such might be Union Street and the V&A.

Les Mackay. 5 Carmichael Gardens, Dundee.