No horsing around from three gallant young men

Anyone who witnessed Dundee’s industrial heyday will recall young women streaming out of jute mills arm in arm.

Judging by photographs they took over entire roads, a happy swarm of humanity, hundreds strong. Most were teenagers enjoying the thrill of a first job and a pay packet without the cares of family life to come later.

It was on a boisterous and joyous crowd like this that a horror was visited in 1934.

The girls piled out of Baxter Brothers’ Dens Work on the afternoon of September 19 and began promenading down Princes Street.

Unbeknown to them, a drama was stirring in the mill yard behind. A horse pulling an empty lorry took fright and bolted with terrifying speed towards the rear of the crowd. Those at the back first heard the apocalyptic thunder of racing hoofs on cobbles and turned to see the beast and lorry hurtling towards them.

Their screams of panic alerted the girls at the front and the crowd parted. Despite its bulk, the horse threaded its way past the mill workers and down the street, weaving in and out of trams and other vehicles.

But on to the scene came three young men keen to impress the ladies. They laid hands on a nosebag and managed to slip it over the horse’s face. This restricted its breathing and slowed it down enough for them to snatch the reins.

While this incident ended without injury, a Dundee scaffie was on the receiving end of a savaging by a horse 20 years earlier.

The man was sweeping in Royal Exchange Lane when he came close to a parked horse and cart.

As he stooped near the animal, it unleashed a bellicose whinny before tearing the man’s vest from his back with its teeth.

It knocked the scaffie to the ground and tried to give him a kicking but the man was too quick and scrambled to safety.

Carter John Wright, 19, 65 Hill Street, had only had the horse for three weeks but admitted to the court he had an inkling it was ill-natured because it had already attacked him. He was fined 40 shillings.

A Dundee scaffie was on the receiving end of a savaging

Chris Ferguson