The Scone Shop

“The article about the miners and ‘griddle’ scones brought back memories,” emails Don Duncan. “My parents both had farming in their backgrounds and these were known to us as ‘farmhouse’ scones.

“Having finished his apprenticeship at Goodfellow and Steven, my father decided to branch out on his own and opened a shop at the top of Benvie Road, Lochee. Here he developed his own version of farmhouse scones on a domestic gas cooker.

“The scone was about 15 cm round and two cm thick. His recipe used buttermilk – my mother’s cousin was John Kerr of Balfield Dairy who, at the time, was making his own butter and had a residue of buttermilk which my father decided to use for his scones.

“After initially selling from the shop and gaining some regular customers, he took on his first employee while he set off with a board on his head laden with about six dozen scones. He supplied his regulars in Gardner Street, Kenmore Terrrace etc.

“My earliest memory is of accompanying him on his round at the age of four, when I was usually sent with the scones to the customers on the top floor of the tenements.

“Just before the war started in 1939, he had built up sufficient business to buy an old dairy in Cleghorn Street and convert it into bakery and shop where the signboard proudly proclaimed The Scone Shop.

“By the end of the war, Saturday mornings were the busiest with orders taking production over 100 dozen scones and I was helping to bake them, standing on a soapbox to reach over the hotplate to turn the scones.

“As was standard in these days, teabread and scones were sold at 1d. each or 4 for 3d. and these farmhouse scones were selling for 4d. each or 4 for 1/- ( 5p.)

“Latterly, as sales began to dwindle, T.D., as he was generally known, developed a smaller size, about the size of the English muffin. These could be produced mechanically and for some years were supplied in packets to all Scottish M& S stores with food outlets.”

“Reference was made to the Alexandra fountain in the column the other day,” says Jim Howie, a member of the Postcard Club of Tayside. “Here is a postcard of it that may interest your readers.”

“The photograph shows work going on in 1972 to reclaim land for Sea Oil Services at Ferryden, Montrose,” says reader Andrew Pryde of Ceres. “The digger operator is the late David Elder of Ceres, and the picture was taken by Kenneth M. Hay of Montrose.”