Climbed the pulley pole

Glen Findlay has been in touch and says: “With reference to the term ‘pulyshee’, and following the response from Alf Small, I can confirm it was a common word used in most of the tenement houses in Dundee where a washing rope was attached to the pulley pole to allow residents on the first, second and top floors to dry their clothes.

“The pulley was called a ‘Dundee pulley’ and was specially made by some of the local foundries in Dundee. As a young joiner, I often had to climb the ‘pulley pole’ to replace broken ropes.

“The ‘greenie pole’ referred to was used by the ground floor tenants to hang their washing.

“When wet, the top ropes had to be slackened by the tenant otherwise the rope tended to pull the pole over.”

A retired conveyancing lawyer has also commented on the subject and remembers making reference to pulleysheave poles, as being part of the common rights when a tenement flat was sold ie common close, roof, back green and said pole.

“The name is self explanatory – the pulley is the rope, the sheave the part attached to the pole, through which the rope came and went.”

Reader Anne Couper has provided this photograph taken in the Botanic Garden, Dundee. It shows a trillium, which Anne explains is the national flower of Ontario, Canada.