“Jawbox” was known as a “bunker” here

CRAIGIE READER Betty Jack called aboutThe Cottage, where Mary Shelley stayed for some time.

“My mother and I used to go on incredible walks,” she says. “I can remember when I was in my teens, walking up quite a steep hill and on the right-hand side was The Cottage, which was actually a sizable building and probably had about six or eight rooms.

“The windows had green shutters and along the front was a balustrade with fretwork. The front door was quite dilapidated and it was unoccupied.

“My mother wouldn’t let me go in to have a look, but as we carried on our walk, we met a man who told us that that was the house where Mary Shelley had penned Frankenstein.” ED THOMSON of Broughty Ferry emails: “Mr Dorward’s photograph is, of course, the Den o’ Mains looking east towards the western edge of Fintry before Mill o’ Mains was built.

“I moved to Fintry with my family in 1953 when only a few months old. I think the photo may have been taken in the early 50s. The houses you see on the centre left are the Orlit houses which have been removed recently due to some “BROUGHT UP in a Dundee council housing estate in the 1930s and 40s, I knew what a jawbox was because I read ‘The Broons’ in ‘The Sunday Post’ and stories from Glasgow police courts, but our more modern houses built in the late 1920s and early 30s did not have this arrangement,” writes a Craigie regular.

“Our flat had a bunker in the ‘kitchenette’where the coal was kept. I remember the weekly visits of the coalman when he used to empty the coal amid clouds of dust into the bunker. Much later, my parents construction issues. They had flat roofs and were made of precast reinforced concrete.

“The Gelly Burn ran through Kirkton and came through the two ponds in upper Den o’ Mains and I think it ended in the Dighty just through the small bridge in the middle of the photo.

“About a mile downstream the Dighty ran under the bottom of Pitkerro Road and there was a bleach/dye works which was always smelly and it, too, also used the strong flow of the Dighty for business purposes.

“As youngsters we spent our free time in the Den o’ Mains and it was always busy at week ends.

“Kids fished for ‘gubbers’ in the ponds and we played our football in Caird Park which is followed the trend and installed an outside bunker at the back door. The bunker was then used for storing our pots and pans.

“I was nevertheless familiar with the tenement arrangements, as several of our relatives lived in tenements throughout the city. Great-aunt Barbara lived in a tenement flat at the top of Strawberry Bank and she had a jawbox, but it too was called a bunker. She was a tailoress with D.M. Brown’s department store and she was quite posh.

“Her little flat was immaculate, but up the hill and adjacent to the Den.

“We had a happy time in Den o’ Mains and it was like a magnet to all the kids in the surrounding schemes.”

Many thanks to Craigie readers Morag Walker, Ray- she still had the bunker by the sink in the kitchen window overlooking the back garden.

“When there was a family gathering there, we children had our meal standing at the bunker. A Dundee joke at the time was that ‘pan-loafie’ folk (posh because they bought the more expensive pan bread rather than the cheaper plain) had their tea at the ‘binker’(sic).

“All but the poorest had the coal bunkers and kitchen sink in the window arrangement.” mond Low, Kenneth Dickson, Ged Cashley and Brian Christie for emailing in with similar information about the photograph.

Mr Dorward’s picture appears to have brought back happy memories. “I WAS most intrigued to see the picture of Fowlis printed in your column,” emails John Stewart. “My paternal grandmother, Mary Meiklejohn, was born in 1892 in Fowlis and was still living there with her family in 1905.

“The Meiklejohns were a local family in the area at the time. My great grandfather, Robert Meiklejohn, was a roadman and actually died at his work cutting grass with his scythe, not far from Fowlis, in 1905.

“That was in the days when the roadmen travelled on their bikes to keep the ditches and grass verges clear and tidy.”