The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
MATTER OF DISCOVERY
As we edge towards life after lockdown and the opening of the Night Fever exhibition at the V&A, Rob Adams remembers a time when he proved to doubters that this really is the City of Discovery
Dundee has long been associated with discovery, from the actual ship itself to the many medical and technological innovations to come from the city over time – beyond just the first wireless radio broadcast and the inventor of the adhesive postage stamp. Now, with lockdown restrictions easing, and Dundee just being named one of the world’s top 21 “places of the future” by technology company Cognizant, once again Dundee is set for reinivention and new discoveries.
We are all beginning to hope again, that the long year of lockdown restrictions and the subsequent vaccine rollout will pay off, that we can move more freely again, that museums, theatres, galleries, music venues, restaurants and pubs can permanently reopen and so much of what we took for granted as normal life before can resume.
Dundee’s future includes exciting ventures such as the Eden Project and a proposed esports arena among big new plans.
However, the excitement of discovery is not new for the city and is best symbolised by the RRS Discovery herself.
It was around this time of year, on March 21 1901, that the RRS Discovery was launched in Dundee, after a year under construction at a cost of £51,000 (the equivalent of around £4 million today).
Workers were given time off and lined the Tay to watch the 3.15pm launch as the three-masted, barque-rigged steamship took to the water – it was an event to rival the excitement at the opening of the £80m V&A Museum on September 15 2018.
Unlike the V&A, the Discovery was both a first and a last. It was the first purpose-built scientific research vessel of its kind, with the Dundee Shipbuilders Ltd at Panmure selected for their experience in building whaling ships designed to sail through freezing conditions. Discovery was also the last traditional three-masted ship to be built in the United Kingdom.
Many years and much history later, Discovery returned to Dundee, arriving on
April 2 1986 from London’s St Katharine Docks to take up a permanent place in a dock on the Tay at Discovery Point. In time, the celebrated V&A Museum would open alongside her, greatly increasing Dundee’s profile in the world and significantly adding to the numbers of tourists attracted to the city – at least, before the pandemic.
Now against this backdrop, we wonder how the City of Discovery will be discovered in future, as the world hopefully opens up again.
There are the unflattering long-standing perceptions of Dundee as a backwater, a city abandoned and forgotten, overlooked for its many and continued achievements, long before the V&A stood recent testimony to its worthiness.
When Weekend Magazine contributor Rob Adams started thinking of perceptions, it took him back to a time, pre-pandemic, when he watched a colleague discover the City of Discovery from a completely different perspective.
As the V&A is about to open its Night Fever exhibition, a tribute to the history of nightclubs and their design, we thought it was time to put Adams’s story out there. It captures so much about the perceptions of the City of Discovery versus the reality.
DISCOVERING THE CITY OF DISCOVERY
The chap sitting next to me on the train from London had spent the journey sharing his vast experience of absolutely everything. This was no potential Mastermind contender – he could have set the questions. From the origins of Leyton Buzzard to the number of rivets used on the Forth Bridge, he had all the details at his fingertips.
Then as the train pulled into Tay Bridge Station, as it was at the time, he dug his elbow vigorously into my side – breaking just the two ribs, I think – and exclaimed, “Look at that banner. Dundee, City of Discovery. I never knew that!”
No sooner had I told this story to a small audience in the bar at a music industry conference a year or two back when the event’s most sullen attendee, by general consensus, grunted: “Oh, for goodness sake, don’t tell me Dundee has become the sort of place where people go to find themselves.”
My explanation that RRS Discovery, the ship that carried Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their successful expedition to the Antarctic, was now permanently on show in the city where it had been built, didn’t entirely mollify Mr Grumpy.
“Makes a change from Dundonians saying eh-meh-peh,” he grumped.
Of course, the nutritionally relevant answer to the stereotyping of Dundee people and pehs is that, as per the infamous Dundee baker’s shop order for “a bean peh an’ a pea peh tae” some pehs actually provided one of your five-a-day. And that was long before the phrase five-a-day entered common usage, in food terms at least.
I didn’t venture that item of information, though, because I was too busy being asked to name three things – pehs excepted – that could make citizens of boring Dundee proud of their hometown. Now, I’ve had Dundee described to me as boring by better, more talented people – and in public, to boot.
The saxophonist and jazz club owner Ronnie Scott used to pick on certain towns when he went into his “It’s great to be here ...” routine. Often it would be Scunthorpe – you’ll know the “if Typhoo put the T in Britain” gag; if not, phone a friend – or Weston-SuperMare. Stoke used to provoke Ronnie’s wrath, too, as did Wolverhampton.
According to Ronnie, seagulls would fly upside down over these places. Again, phone a friend if you need to. Or Ronnie and his band would have played there the previous week – “and it was shut!”
I knew Ronnie slightly – well enough to be the butt of a joke, anyway. One night I was having a drink at the bar of his club with his agent, Brian, who was a friend. Ronnie stopped to say hello on his way to the stage and I thought I detected a look in his eye as he went off to work.
Sure enough, as he picked up the microphone to welcome the audience, he looked over at Brian and me, and said: “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It’s great to be here. Come to think of it, at my age, it’s great to be anywhere. Of course, things could be worse. We could be in Dundee.”
And on, and on, he went. It was impossible to take offence because not only was Ronnie a seriously good saxophonist, he also had great delivery as a stand-up comedian. People who went to his club regularly and had heard his jokes more times than they cared to remember would laugh as if hearing his one-liners for the first time, every time.
The conference audience liked this story. So, knowing they were musically minded, I took advantage of having their attention and named my three things that Dundee could be proud of – two trumpeters and a drummer.
First, Jimmy Deuchar. At one time, Jimmy was widely reckoned to be the greatest improviser in European jazz. This was saying something because Jimmy played in saxophonist Tubby Hayes’ band and Tubby Hayes played with fearless, seemingly never-ending invention. So, to be considered better than Tubby Hayes is beyond complimentary.
The second trumpeter was John McLevy. John may well have joked that he had appeared on more Max Bygraves albums than anyone except for – and possibly even including - Max Bygraves himself. But he also toured with Benny Goodman, the King of Swing, and Benny Goodman didn’t just hire anyone. It’s also said that John’s dad, also a trumpeter, played with Louis Armstrong when he visited Dundee in the 1930s. Quite an incentive for John to keep practising, that.
And the drummer? Robbie McIntosh. I didn’t have to explain that the teenage Robbie had impressed Ben E King by playing the grooves on the former Drifter’s records exactly like the originals or that Acid Jazz hero, organist Brian Auger still regards Robbie as the boss. I just had to say: “Pick Up the Pieces. The drum break.” Because the Average White Band’s greatest hit is still current nearly 50 years on.
“Wait a minute,” said Mr Grumpy. “Jimmy Deuchar, John McLevy and the drummer on that Average White Band record all came from Dundee? I never knew that.”
And so the doubter of the city’s credentials found out for himself that Dundee really is the City of Discovery.
PLEASE DON’T TELL ME DUNDEE HAS BECOME THE SORT OF PLACE WHERE PEOPLE GO TO FIND THEMSELVES