One of my favourite reader emails ever landed the other week after I’d written about memories of living on Ellengowan Drive in the ’80s.
Dave Nicoll stayed there with his parents for much longer than my two and a bit year stint and was able to furnish me with information that took me right back to my childhood.
Dave, who was also a paperboy at the well-known and much-loved Kiosk, thinks the blocks were built for dockers – with a fireplace in every room showing the kind of heating that was in place.
And, he says, the park was built on a milk farm.
“We used to find old bottles and broken ones as we dug around looking for places to build dens,” he said.
https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/construction-back-in-action-at-new-20-5m-ellengowan-development/
He added that there were “dozens of Anderson Shelters (bomb shelters from the Second World War) that were buried, unopened, in the gardens where the washing was hung out”.
Dave didn’t remember me by name but did recall a wee girl with a pet rabbit in the garden at the back of his house – that was indeed me.
His whole email was fascinating and if ever a book is written on the history of Dundee, it’s people like Dave – who remember not only the detail but can give a narrative of how things changed in one residential area over decades – who would be invaluable contributors.
Mike emailed a week after publication to say he hadn’t stopped thinking of his own childhood since reading my column, while Kim said she’s still in touch with a few of her old playpark friends.
To Charleston now, after last week’s column, when I mentioned a Chinese takeaway – I still remember my first taste of sweet and sour chicken in battered balls that became an occasional treat.
I imagine I was only about five years old.
Charles said: “I’ve since moved to Craigie but I believe there’s still a Chinese takeaway in the place you remember – the Golden Sky on Buttar’s Loan. I’m not sure if it’s changed hands over the years – you’d imagine so.
“I remember being a kid too and never having tasted anything like the food there.
“Before that, a fish supper was as exotic as it got.”
A quick Google and indeed it looks like you’re spot on Charlie.
Thank you all for the trip down memory lane.
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