Khaki-hued memories linger

It was sometimes put to Dundee’s visitors of the recent past that they should not be surprised if they found a high proportion of the city’s senior residents could speak Hindi.

It was the textiles trade that firmly established the close ties that developed between Tayside and Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, as the 19th Century wore on.

Going back more than 170 years, the population of Dundee started to swell with migrating workers who arrived on Tayside to work in the city’s jute mills, which relied upon imports of the raw vegetable fibre from the West Bengal metropolis.

It was only when a steady decline in the Scottish jute mill industry occurred from the 1870s onwards that many indigenous east coast workers started to migrate to the southern regions of Asia where the Scots still held sway.

However, following India’s independence in 1947 the Dundonian diaspora’s grip on the native population was loosened and they had to learn to work alongside the Indians, rather than as their colonial masters.

Inevitably, the Scots attempted to learn Hindi in order to communicate with their workforce, hence the settlers who later returned to Dundee brought back jargon and turns of phrase that they picked up in the former British-held territory.

It is an era that is rife with nostalgia for Angus Craigie reader Kenneth Miln, who was brought up in Calcutta in the 1940s. He writes: “I must admit to being something of a bogus Scotsman, despite my late jute wallah parents having originated in Dundee.

“I was born in South Africa in 1937 and spent much of my life on the Indian

subcontinent and in Africa – I spoke Hindi before English, taught by my dear old Indian ayah, my Scottish accent being, mostly, an acquired affectation.”

Counting wives and children as well as the exclusively male jute wallahs – engineers and mechanics – the Monifieth resident estimates there were around 800 people from Dundee living within a 30-mile radius of Calcutta when he was growing up.

Reminiscing on his many years in South

Asia, Kenneth says: “As I sit sipping a cup of hot Darjeeling tea while looking-out over a ‘muddied’ Tay estuary on a bright, crisp morning, long past memories flood in of my early life in India – many of which could be described as ‘khaki-hued’.

“The Hooghly water, our jute mill compound bungalows, the mud-walled village bustees (dwellings) prowling pariah dogs and even most articles of clothing, including sola topees, or pith sun helmets.

“It is, therefore, quite fitting that the following observation is woven into a fabric of khaki – not far removed from the colour of jute! Calcutta was the adopted city of my parents and many other ex-dundee jute wallahs between 1850 and 1960.

“That vast exotic metropolis of suffocating heat, high humidity, singular smells, bright colours and clamouring crowds of strangely attired people – all with a unique vibrancy.

“‘Cal’, as it was known to us jute wallahs, had many salubrious establishments where excellent fare and entertainment could be enjoyed at no great expense. However, as in every large city, there were also a few places to keep well away from – the details of which are best left to readers’ imagination!”

This picture taken pre-second World War shows the interior of one of Caird (Dundee) Ltd’s jute sheds. The firm ran the Ashton Works in the Hilltown and Craigie Works on Arbroath Road. If you have an interesting link to Dundee’s jute past we would love to hear about it.

Thanks to Tricia Brown from Meigle for this picture she took of the dusk sunlight at the man-made Backwater Reservoir in Glen Isla, in north-west Angus.