Change to seafront

Colin McLeod of Dundee sent in the photograph on the right and says: “There was shock when recent storms caused the sea to break through Broughty Ferry’s sea wall and undermine part of the road.

“This photograph, taken around 1960 on Broughty Beach just west of the Lifeboat Station, shows how much the seafront has changed in 60 years.

“On Fisher Street, Bell Rock Square was built in 1973 between the cottages and the tenement in the background.

“The beach itself shows even greater changes. The sloping shingle that once protected the sea wall from wave action has been eroded away to the extent that flights of steps have had to be built to give access to the shore.

“There is no longer a local fishing industry, but if there was, the loss of the shingle means there is now no beach for fishermen to haul their boats safely above the high-tide mark.

“And any residents who tried to hang their washing on the beach today would find their washing-lines draped with seaweed after every high tide!” latest episode; that means it was set against the background of life in the 1960s. I cannot remember doctors and nurses puffing at cigarettes then as much as is portrayed in the series.

“Lots of people smoked at the time, but there were many who did not, especially among doctors, nurses and teachers.

“Besides, the midwives in question are supposed to have been working for a religious order and even the lay midwives would not have been so desperate for a cigarette that they would have smoked in front of the nuns.

“At school in the 1930s and 40s, we were taught about the dangers to our health of smoking and alcohol. I still have a school prize book I won in a 1941 competition for an essay on drinking.

“I have found quite a few anomalies of this kind in the series. Having lived and worked through the 1960s, I find some of the depictions of widespread hardship and poverty, together with poor living conditions and a lack of social and medical support, exaggerated, to put it mildly.”