No ordinary sheds

“Reading Thomas Brown’s memories of Bankfoot prefabs each having a circular tin shed, takes me back to the start of married life and the purchase of Gleniris Cottage, Padanaram, in 1965,” emails George Robertson of Forfar. “The cottage had one of these sheds and it probably still stands there to this day.

“These were no ordinary sheds – 1.5 million were manufactured in 1938 and named Anderson Garden Air Raid Shelters. They were made of heavy corrugated steel in a half-circular shape and were built on a strong concrete base with tie brackets, sometimes with a few rows of brick to give extra headroom. They held six adults.

“The government handed them out free to all those earning less than £250 a year. If you earned more than that, you were charged £7 in time for the Second World War in 1939. You were quite a lad if you earned £250 a year at this time!”

Stunning building

“With regard to the future of the Customs House building in Dundee, perhaps readers could suggest development possibilities for this architecturally stunning building,” comments Kenneth Miln of Monifieth.

“For example, a maritime museum displaying ship-building, whaling, importation of wood from northern Europe and Russia is one possibility.

“DP&L Dundee/London by sea and how these commercial activities contributed towards the development of Dundee is another. The objective would be to offer something different to visitors, while preserving one of the city’s great buildings.”

Prisoners at Perth

“I enjoyed the recent excellent article about French prisoners of war and the depot which became Perth Prison which housed them,” says Donald Abbott of Invergowrie.

“In his 1923 book Romance in Gowrie, the Rev Adam Philip of Longforgan Free Church tells of ‘the French prisoners’ and explains that ‘the depot in Perth (built of Kingoodie stone) was meant to contain 7,000 men – 6,000 in the prison proper and about 1,000 petty officers and invalids.

“The first detachment of 399 prisoners arrived in August 1812. They were brought to Dundee on the transport Matilda. They had halted overnight at Inchture, arriving at Perth at 8 am.

“He explains that: ‘at the depot the prisoners slept in hammocks suspended from rails and posts, the sick being accommodated with cradles.

“During certain hours of the day, the prisoners were allowed to sell their

bijouteries to the public from whom they were kept separate by an iron railing. They were allowed also to purchase the necessaries and some of the comforts of life.’

“The book says that, while moored in Dundee, the skipper of one of the Kingoodie quarry barges which transported stone to Yeaman Shore in the city, Captain Mustard discovered two French prisoners on board.

“They had undermined the wall of the Perth depot, escaped, and had been living on turnips from the fields. They were returned to Perth, but the skipper refused the reward for their recapture on the grounds that the government would have simply recovered the monies from the prisoners’ allowances.”

Change of clothes

“My father, who worked on a farm in Banffshire, always spoke about his ‘scuddlin’ claes’ when he changed out of his working dungarees and jacket,” says a Forfar reader.

“My Scots dictionary refers to ‘scuddlin claes’ as one’s second best

clothes and he would don them to go an errand on his bike to the village, or on a visit to a neighbouring farm or to cheer on The Villa , the local football team.

“His best clothes would have been his funeral or wedding suit with a sports jacket and flannels for a less formal occasion.”

“Andrew M. Gibson, almost certainly from Arbroath, was a dispatch rider in the Royal Signals in France in 1916,” says the Angus reader who sent in the photograph. “Can anyone tell us about the motor cycle?”