Pearl Strachan, who was as energetic and colourful as the vibrant industrial Dundee she knew in her youth, has died aged 86.
She worked in some of the city’s best-known firms including Keiller’s and NCR and also served behind the bar of the Dundee United Social Club at Tannadice.
Three-times married, Pearl (nee Longmuir) forged great friendships at NCR and often entertained the production line with musical routines, said her daughter, Jan Murphy.
For much of her life, Pearl was a single mum and took on bar work at weekends to pay for treats and holidays.
She was born in February 1937, the second youngest of eight children born to Alex Longmuir and Nettie Wilkie.
The family lived at Dallfield Walk, known as the Walkie but pronounced the Whacky, at the bottom of the Hilltown.
Her father died in 1946 and in the early 1950s, her mother took the family to live in a new semi-detached house in Kirkton.
Pearl was educated at Rockwell High School and then began work at Keiller’s sweet factory, the first of several jobs.
She met her first husband, who came from Fife, at the dancing and daughter, Jan, was born in 1958.
High-rise life
By 1965, Pearl had divorced and married her second husband and had moved to one of the new multi-storey blocks at the regenerated Dallfield.
Her daughter, Jan, said: “By 1970 my mum found herself a single parent once again and now worked even harder to provide for herself, her mum who now lived with her, and me.
“For a time, she worked in Ferguson’s jute mill and then went to work beside her big sister Janette in the NCR where she worked for the next 30 years.
“There, mum made some great friends and often entertained them with her rendition of For These are My Mountains and more of her favourite songs.
“Trying to make ends meet during this period, my mum also worked in various pubs around Dundee at the weekends – finishing up her time at the Dundee United Social Club at Tannadice Park.”
During the three-day weeks of the 1970s, Pearl and her friend would go the berries to fund family holidays as her grandchildren began to arrive.
“When my granny died in 1978 my mum suffered extremely badly with this loss, which she was again to suffer in 1993 when her beloved sister Janette died and again in 2000 when her dearly loved oldest grandson, David, died,” said Jan.
“Her brothers George and Forrie were dockers and she often went to the Dockers Club with her friends. It was here that she was to meet Andy, husband number three– and third time lucky.”
Andy, an electrician who also went on to work at NCR was the love of her life and the couple married in St Mary Magdalene’s Church on Christmas Eve 1984 and then moved to Barnes Avenue where they spent many happy years together.
They also enjoyed many cruises and trips abroad before Andy’s death in 2002.
Pearl was forced to take early retirement from NCR because of arthritis and later moved into sheltered housing in Caldrum Terrace at the top of the Hilltown.
She lived happily there until around 10 years ago when vascular dementia set in and she went to live at Forebank care home in the middle of Hilltown, not far from her beginnings in Dallfield Walk.
Jan said: “My mum may be gone but she will never be forgotten. She was the last member of her generation in the Longmuir family and while many of her family and friends are now deceased, there are too many people still on earth who love her, who laughed with her, who sang with her, who danced with her and who remember her doing her bow-legged chicken and a knocked-kneed hen dance.”
You can read the family’s announcement here.
Conversation