A nostalgic look back at university life in Dundee four decades ago is to be shown on the big screen.
The 31-minute promotional film from 1977 was made to attract students to Dundee University and featured interviews with heads of departments and shots of student life on and off campus.
Live and Learn in Tayside also included footage of a speech in the Tavern Bar by then principal and rector Clement Freud, who also showed off his pint-pulling skills.
The Friends of Dundee City Archives have teamed up with the university’s Museum Services to out on two showings at the Steps Theatre on Thursday at 12.15pm and 1.15pm.
Iain Flett from the friends group, came to Dundee from Cardiff in 1976 and said he was struck by how much had changed in the past four decades.
“This time-shot is a timely reminder of both how historically recent this film is and yet how it shows a different world,” he said.
“In some ways Dundee University was still flexing its muscles as an independent institution 10 years after parting from St Andrews University.
“The FDCA hope this film will fuel nostalgia of the Dundee public, whether students or not at that time, and will show how far Dundee has come in 40 years.”
Aside from the university, the city in 1977 was home to Dundee Institute of Technology – the forerunner of Abertay.
Ninewells Hospital had been officially opened by HRH The Queen Mother three years earlier and A&E was still run from the Dundee Royal Infirmary – now residential flats.
Dundee Rep was based in the former Dudhope Church on the Lochee Road, its own theatre a far-off dream.
The film follows senior students taking first years on a night out after their first lecture and footage of the “Raisin Monday” celebrations, brought over from St Andrews.
There is also footage of a group of new students being helped into a van at the railway station by Clement Freud who served two three-year terms as rectors from 1974.
Matthew Jarron, museum services curator at the university, said: “The film is great at showing both what has changed, such as the fashions, and what has stayed the same, like the students partying at the Union, the friendly campus feel and the significance of the university to the city as a whole.
“There may well be people still around in Dundee who appeared in the film as students so it would be great to encourage them to come along and share their memories.”
The film is being shown free to the public.
