A “Thorny” laddie

Recent news items about the demolition of the tenement on Blackness Road, Dundee prompted Ian Malcolm to send in memories penned by his late father, James Ireland Malcolm. The following is an abridged version, but I am happy to send the full article to anyone interested.

James writes: “I was born in 1898 in the reign of Queen Victoria, and was just six months old when my parents moved from 52 Peddie Street to Thorn Place/219 Blackness Road.

“Where Logie housing scheme is now was agricultural land on which cereals were grown and the corncrake heard on a summer’s evening. You had to have tough feet to walk on the stubble after the corn had been cut, but you could make decorations of plaited straw for your buttonhole to compensate.

“I was in the army during the Great War and when I returned from India in 1919, I had been away for three years. I was much surprised to see that roads had been cut in the lovely fields.

“To the south of Blackness Road, a dyke stretched from near Peddie Street to Seymour Street. A huge grassy park was on the other side of the dyke, with all kinds of trees – from mulberry to oak – dotted over it. There were often cattle in the field and on its far side stood Blackness House, the residence of Prain, the mill owner.

“The young laddies loved this park. Of particular interest was a huge oak tree which we called our fort and which we climbed into by means of the knots on its trunk.

“There was rivalry between streets in those days, and, one day, some lads from another street saw us in the fort and belted us with sticks and stones. But we were ready the next time they came.

“At the entrance was North Lodge Dairy, so named because the North Lodge of Blackness House previously stood on the site. There was still a house, but occupied by Mr Smith and his family who owned the dairy. James Patterson (Jeemie Petterson), another dairyman, stabled his horse there.

“At the back was Geordie Isles’ lovely one-storied house with its back garden. Geordie owned a great deal of land in the district – a field to the west of Seymour Street, all the land between Blackness Avenue and Shaftsbury Road and between South Seymour Street and South Hyndford Street; all built on now.

“Potatoes and other vegetables were grown and laddies and lassies of ‘Thorny’ were employed to gather in the rhubarb crop. To earn the handsome sum of one penny, we had to fill three boxes about three feet long, two feet broad and eight inches deep. And, not only did we have to pull the rhubarb, but shaw it as well.

“Auld Geordie must have had his money buried under his floor because all the pennies paid to us were green with mould. We got our own back on the auld miser one day by putting the leaves under the lair of rhubarb stalks. You should have heard him the next night!”

Tom Handy of Crieff has sent in this photograph of Crieff Junior Secondary School which he thinks was taken around 1954. “Yours truly is 6th from either end in the back row!” he says.