The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Memories of legendary pet shop owner Jockie Smith
Singing parrots, strong-armed m o n ke y s and an adventure- seeking nanny goat. These were among the weird and wonderful animals owned by legendary Dundee pet shop owner Jockie Smith.
Jockie, who was known as the “doggy man” by children, kept animals in the days when you did not need to have a pet licence.
Brought up in Hawkhill, Jockie left Balfour Street Public School aged 14 and went to work at the Peter Street pet shop under an old friend, James Hennessy.
After being demobbed from the Navy in 1943, Jockie’s business ventures started with a small pet store on Princes Street where he stayed for two years before he finally settled at the Overgate – which included monkeys for sale.
The Overgate at the time was full of colourful characters but times were hard after the Second World War, with shops selling bread by the slice, and Jockie would give out free haircuts to some of the old men using his dog clippers.
Some of the monkeys Jockie kept in his pet shop were incredibly strong.
Jockie was sitting fast asleep one time and a monkey reached out and picked him right out of the chair.
It then skipped up on to the sideboard and knocked over the radio that was there, which had acid batteries, and the acid fell over into the sugar, which was rationed at the time.
Jockie would advertise for monkeys in The Courier.
One day he received a call following his advert and was offered a monkey for sale which he agreed to buy.
He sent his assistant to go and collect the animal and bring it back on the bus.
Jockie received a frantic call from his assistant who got there to discover it was a chimpanzee in a cage.
Jockie managed to bring it back to the Overgate by crane where it duly escaped and ended up on the roof of the building.
The fire brigade called out to rescue it.
Another time, a nanny goat managed to wander off from his back garden and fell through the roof of the Brown Street School.
T hankfully hurt.
Jockie’s shops became an institution, with thousands of children getting their puppies, gerbils, rabbits or white mice from him.
Jockie stocked mainly household pets as well as canaries, but he liked them so much he never used to sell them, but kept them for years in the shop for himself.
One of his favourites was an African grey parrot called Rabbie.
He was a remarkable it was wasn’ t talker and Jockie trained him to sing all the popular Scots songs of the day, like My Bonnie Highland Lassie and Donald, Whaur’s Yer Troosers, and he could pick up the words in about a week.
Rabbie also used to nag the pet dog Jockie had at the time, telling it to lie in its basket or fetch its ball, and, not only could it imitate Jockie’s voice, but it could also imitate his wife Martha’s as well.
Jockie’s daughter Ruth MacLeish said it was a happy childhood, which also brought its fair share of monkey business!
“We used to keep a pet monkey in the house when I was growing up,” she said.
“I often used to push her up the street in a doll’s pram but she was gone in a few months.
“I went out with my mum one evening and we came back and the monkey was swinging from the lights.
“In those days the radio was powered by an accumulator and she had pulled out all of the wires from the battery.”
Jockie also spent 30 years boxing throughout Scotland and during these tours, he met and became friends with many of the great entertainers of the d ay, including He c t o r Nicol, Chic Murray, Jimmy Logan, Johnny Victory and Lex Mc L e a n wh o wa s described as “almost certainly the last of Scotland’s great music hall comedians”.
McLean once put an advert in the paper, saying that Jockie was looking for an assistant and saying that he would pay the sum of £20 per week plus board and lodgings.
When Jockie arrived at the shop that morning, there was a queue of people stretching right up to Tay Street.
Jo c k i e and his wife Martha had to leave the old Overgate to make way for new developments and they moved to premises in Hilltown.
They moved to a shop next to the Plaza on Ann Street before he moved again to 213 Hilltown where he stayed until retiring in 1985 at the age of 70.
Mrs MacLeish, 81, said there was never a dull moment.
“He enjoyed many happy days working in the pet trade and I know he really missed the children coming in to the shop every day when he retired,” she said.
“He died in 1991 but I’m so happy that he is still being remembered to this day.”