Teatime Tales From Dundee

by Maureen Reynolds

  When she came to do her second year, she was given her dress but still had to have her aprons made, which had pink stripes. The colours changed with her third year when a navy blue bar was added.

  Come the fourth year, and after she passed her SRN, a white band was added and the staff nurses wore grey dresses.

  The training took four years in different wards. In the Dudhope House Home, six nurses were admitted every two months and from Monday to Friday there were lectures and tests before spending Saturday and Sunday on the wards. No time off was allowed at this time.

  Mrs Kiddie remembers going to the main theatre in 1938 where she remained till the following August. She said it appeared that the hierarchy had forgotten her. She then went on to ward 3 as a staff nurse and later became a sister. She recalled there was a strict rule in the dining room; junior staff couldn’t go in front of anyone who was senior and the day started with a call at 6.20 a.m. with breakfast at 7 a.m. and ready for the wards at 7.20 a.m.

  The night nurse would have the report ready but there was no sitting down. The report was read and because the night staff didn’t go off duty till 8.30 a.m., this nurse and the sister would walk round the ward, noting any admissions during the night.

  Time off was erratic, with one morning off once a month or two nights off during night duty. Any nurses who got a Saturday evening off, usually went to church on Sunday morning before reporting for duty at 2 p.m.

  Trainee midwives had a harder time of it with few days off in six months. Just one half day off on Sunday once a month.

  Mrs Kiddie loved her vocation and one story she told shows her love for the children in her care. One wee lad, who had been seriously ill, stood up in his cot.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked him.

  She remembers he squinted at her and said, ‘Tea and a take [cake].’

  One of her friends was a midwife called Miss Burgess and she recalls her salary when training was £18 a year going up to £36 in year four. She started work at 7.20 a.m. till 9 p.m. with a three-hour break.

  She also recalled having to scrape the fluff from the legs of the metal-framed beds. Also, as there was no disposable equipment, everything had to be taken to the sluice room before being sterilised.

  After qualifying, she regularly delivered babies in some of the worst slum houses, often ushering out three or four children while their mother gave birth. This led to some hilarious situations.

  Some of the children, when being allowed back into the tiny one-roomed flat, would gaze at the new baby, thinking the nurse had delivered it in her black bag. One wee lass met her one day and said, ‘Hoo many bairns hiv ye got in yer black bag the day, Missus?’

  The infirmary depended on the charity and goodwill of the city and the people didn’t let it down, raising money through various means.

  Bernard Street, which was a dark narrow street off Hawkhill, regularly put on wonderful displays during royal events. Hundreds of flags and bunting decorated every house and people came from miles around to see it.

  On one such occasion, a resident of the street went round with a charity can but he was informed he wasn’t allowed to collect money. It must have been against the law or something similar. The disappointed man told the newspaper that the collection was for the Royal Infirmary and he said, ‘Nearly abody in the street is grateful for the DRI as maist o the fowk wha live here have been patients there.’

  However, the days of charity and donations came to an end with the advent of the National Health Service in 1948 and the scourge of ill health was lifted almost overnight. No longer did anyone have to go without seeing a doctor if they couldn’t afford it. Sister Kiddie stayed with her patients during this momentous upheaval and, when she retired, the city honoured her dedication and hard work.

  She could recall all the surgeons, doctors and consultants and which branch of medicine they practised, including one that most new mothers of the thirties and forties will recall: Doctor Margaret Fairlie who later became a professor, was Head of Gynaecology and Obstetrics from 1936 onwards.

  From the 1920s to the 1940s there were three Matrons: Miss Susan C. McIntosh, 1923–1926, Miss Janet S.H. Nicoll, 1926–1942 and Miss Annie Day, who became the matron in 1943.

  Although the infirmary finally closed in the late nineties, the writing was on the wall from 1974 when Ninewells Hospital opened. It was another chapter in the medical scene and just as the King’s Road Infirmary closed in the nineteenth century, it was the DRI’s turn to shut down in the twentieth century. The building was bought and houses and flats have been built, which means the façade of Dundee’s Royal Infirmary hasn’t entirely disappeared.

  I’ve never forgotten that afternoon with Miss Japp and Mrs Kiddie. Miss Japp had dedicated her life to teaching her pupils and her pupils loved and respected her, as did the hundreds of patients under Sister Kiddie’s care. Now, as they enjoyed their well earned retirement, I saw two ladies with immense strength and both immensely proud of their careers.

  Along with Miss Burgess, these three ladies helped babies into the world, taught them at school and cared for them when ill or injured, and this was all done with compassion, humour and hard work.

  But to hear them talking about past times that afternoon, it was all remembered with pleasure.

  17

  Remembering The Mona

  2009 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the lifeboat, The Mona, that foundered with the loss of her eight-man crew. On 8 December 1959 she set off from Broughty Ferry to rescue The North Carr Lightship, which was adrift in the North Sea.

  It was a wild night with gale force winds as the lifeboat with Ronald Grant, George Smith, James Ferrier, George Watson, Alexander Gall, John Grieve, David Anderson and John T. Grieve answered the call. The Bar which is the dividing line between the river and the North Sea is a dangerous place with treacherous currents and, on this particular night, severe winds.

  I remember the following morning vividly. We had not long bought a television set and I was busy doing the ironing when the awful news broke that the crew had all been drowned.

  The news stunned the entire city. These men were volunteers, doing a dangerous job over and above their usual jobs and they had been called out on numerous occasions when help at sea was needed, saving hundreds of lives. And now they were all dead. It all seemed so unfair I thought but when was life ever fair?

  One of the victims lived in Cotton Road and I regularly walked down this street. I would look at all the windows as I passed, trying to identify the house where I imagined the family would be sitting in their living room, grief-stricken.

  The curtained windows gave nothing away and the road looked peaceful and normal. A lot of people volunteered to make up a new team and a replacement lifeboat was launched in 1961 by Princess Marina, the Duchess of Kent. It was called The Robert.

  The tragedy of The Mona brought to attention all the hard, dangerous work carried out by these dedicated volunteers. The people of Dundee and Tayside realised this and they raised a large sum of money for the RNLI. A fund was also set up for the families of the men and, once again, people generously subscribed to it.

  Life as they say goes on but fifty years later, there will always be a small corner in the hearts of the Dundee and Tayside people who will never forget The Mona lifeboat. Or her crew.

  18

  A Safe Seat for Life

  This was the statement made 100 years ago by Winston Churchill when he was the candidate for Dundee in the 1908 by-election and it was a statement that was to haunt him until his eventual defeat in 1922.

  It all started quite well when Churchill was offered the seat after his disastrous defeat in Manchester, owing mainly to the strong Suffragette movement. In fact, it must have been a bitter blow because he had recently been made President of the Board of Trade, which meant he had to seek re-election in order to take up this Cabinet position.

  What is inconceivable is the fact he accepted the Dundee seat because if he found the w
omen of Manchester daunting, they had nothing on a city full of working, feisty women. And its Suffragettes were just as militant.

  He arrived in Dundee to thousands of people cheering him. He went on to win the election but with such a slender majority that the cheering thousands had obviously not all voted for him.

  Elected with him was Sir George Baxter. This was because of the election rules of the day with its double voting system. Also on the candidates list that year was Edwin (Neddy) Scrymgeour, a man who would haunt Churchill all through his Dundee years.

  Neddy Scrymgeour was a prohibitionist who stood for the total abstinence of alcohol. It was during this time that Churchill married Clementine Hozier whose mother was Lady Ogilvy, daughter of the Earl of Airlie.

  Having a member who was President of the Board of Trade was unpopular in the city. Owing to the high unemployment in the jute and shipbuilding industries, plus the loss of jobs in general, his constituents saw his policies as being detrimental to the main industries in the city.

  His popularity was never very high but he managed to hold on to power during the 1910 General Election with the Socialist candidate, Alexander Wilkie coming second.

  As the Liberal government at the time had been slashed to a two-seat majority, they decided to hold another election in 1910 and, although Churchill held onto his seat, the country was becoming tired of politics.

  Normally, the elections would be held against a barrage of hecklers and people shouting noisily but even they were becoming jaded by the constant campaigning. By now he was Home Secretary but his success in parliament wasn’t matched by the grumbles and misgivings of the people of Dundee.

  In 1917, Churchill was appointed Minister for Munitions and as such had to be re-elected. He thought he was the sole candidate but Neddy Scrymgeour stood as a Prohibitionist and Pacifist candidate and it became a contest between the two men.

  It was a bitter campaign with both men slagging each other. Neddy accused Churchill of using Dundee to get to better things, while Churchill hit out at Neddy’s pacifism. As the country was still at war with Germany and huge losses of life were being reported every day, Neddy’s brush with pacifism was to go down like a lead brick.

  Neddy was a very sincere man who desperately wanted to close the numerous pubs as drunkenness in the city was rife, and many a household suffered because of it.

  However, it was a policy doomed to failure. In spite of his sincerity and popularity as a person, no one wanted the pubs shut and a ‘No Change’ ballot was recorded twice. Churchill won again in 1918 with Alexander Wilkie coming second with 1,000 fewer votes. But creeping up behind him like some perpetual shadow was Neddy who was increasing his votes with every election.

  In 1922, Churchill had an operation to remove his appendix and had to convalesce in London. Clemmie, his wife, did all his campaigning for him. Standing against him were: E. Morel, Socialist; D. Macdonald, National Liberal; R. Pilkington, Liberal; W. Gallacher, Communist, and the ever-present Neddy.

  Churchill had been promoted to the War Office; a bad position to be in after the carnage of the First World War. He had also enforced the Royal Irish Constabulary with men kitted out in khaki uniforms and black belts – the Black and Tans. This group was formed to curtail the violence by the IRA but with Dundee having a massive Irish population, it was a decision that proved very unpopular.

  It was also a time of massive unemployment and there had been riots in the city. With hundreds of female jute workers turned away from the Dole Office, the city was in an uproar.

  As elections went it was to turn out to be a very bitter one and on the day, the voters turned out in huge numbers.

  It must have been like a circus with the Prohibitionists’ pipe band marching through the streets as voters hurried to the polling stations.

  The result was an outstanding success for Neddy with E. Morel coming second. Churchill lagged in fourth place and never even gave a speech.

  It was said at the time that Churchill left the city humiliated and my mother can remember people booing him as he left for the railway station. Churchill was baffled by the apparent hatred of his former constituency and left Dundee for what was to be the very last time. At the time he said that he ‘would live to see the grass grow over the city’s jute mills.’

  This statement was probably treated with disdain. After all, Britain had an empire on which the sun never set and Dundee had its jute mills on which the doors would never close. Although it was a prophecy that didn’t come true for many many years, it did indeed come to pass.

  Yet it had all started so well back in 1908 but Churchill’s finest hours were still to come and the country would have a lot to be grateful for when he became the war leader and stood up to Hitler and the Nazis. One of his quotes at the time of the Munich Crisis, when he defended his policy not to negotiate with Hitler, was, ‘You can’t appease a crocodile with words.’

  What is strange is why he didn’t seek a better seat nearer London, one with people like his ‘ain kind’; people who moved in political circles and lived like the Churchills in their big houses. The city of Dundee had a population blighted by unemployment, social deprivation, poor overcrowded housing and voters who weren’t afraid to speak their minds. Not to mention feisty women.

  Back in London he must have ruminated on his statement of ‘an easy seat’ because it turned out to be a pill too bitter to swallow. Neddy went on in politics but never managed to get his prohibitionist law through Parliament and he stayed as candidate for Dundee until 1931.

  Dingle Foot, who was a Liberal, and Florence Horsburgh, a Unionist, beat him. Miss Horsburgh was the first ever female Member of Parliament for Dundee and she was able to deal with rowdy hecklers and people out to cause mayhem.

  It was still a time of very high unemployment for the country and Dundee, in particular, with over 26,000 people on the dole. It was a tough life for voters and parliamentary members alike, but they were both re-elected in 1935. Both of them served in Winston Churchill’s coalition government during the war but 1945 was to see the biggest turnaround in the government.

  The Labour party had two contestants in this election, T. Cook and John Strachey. Also standing for the very first time was an SNP candidate, Arthur Donaldson.

  The results were to be catastrophic for Churchill’s government with Clement Attlee’s party with its Welfare State manifesto proving to be what the people wanted. The country was tired of wars and shortages, rationing and unemployment, ill health and bad housing.

  Dingle Foot and Florence Horsburgh lost their seats to the two Labour men. How well I remember this election in Dundee. As children we would run around the streets chanting: ‘Vote, vote, vote for Mr Strachey. He’s the man wha’ll gie ye ham and eggs. If ye dinnie vote for him then he’ll brak yer windies in and ye’ll nivver see yer windies oany mair.’ What windows had to do with ham and eggs was a mystery but we all enjoyed going around shouting it out.

  As it turned out, Mr Strachey never managed to give us ham and eggs and he even rationed bread for the very first time, but times were difficult and the government weren’t miracle workers. One good thing to come out of this 1945 government was the National Health Service that still looks after our health sixty years on.

  Elections don’t seem to have the same fire in them now. Not like the days when Dundee must have seemed like a frontier town to Churchill. It was probably because so many people ventured out on the streets and it would seem like a good idea to pack into halls and give the candidates holy hell. No doubt they left the halls buzzing with excitement and having a jolly good entertaining night out. How the poor candidates felt like is another story.

  19

  The Octocentenary Jamboree

  1991 saw the 800th birthday of Dundee and the city was determined to celebrate this milestone.

  Henny King, a Canadian from Montreal, was made the director of this momentous occasion and although there was some criticism of her post, she was more than able fore th
e job, organising events that culminated in the giant street party on Saturday 1 June 1991. Thousands of people turned out on that sunny June day to take part or just to be spectators. It was a spectacular day of brilliant sunshine that started off with Lord Provost Tom Mitchell, with Ron Coburn acting as Dundee’s Bellman, leading the crowd in a rousing ‘Happy Birthday’.

  Then on with the show. Entertainment was on a large scale: artistes who showed the extent of different cultures in the city from a Chinese dragon; Wurzburg’s Rhonrad Wheels with their giant steel hoops; fly-past of jet planes from RAF Leuchars, and the Black Watch Pipe Band, who were Freemen of the City.

  Also taking part along with groups from the city’s churches, the fire-juggling unicyclists and all the various bands who played music almost non-stop, were Ye Amphibious Ancients, wonderful, hardy people who swim in the icy River Tay and who make the regular special dip on New Year’s Day.

  The street party continued into the evening with torch-bearers wearing masks depicting mythical animals that were supposed to represent the city. All I can say is I’m glad these animals weren’t roaming the streets of my childhood, but it was all good fun.

  The torch-bearers were part of the Elephant and Whale son et lumière show and there was a wonderful firework display to round off the day. What saddened me on the day was the fact that most of the old city had been razed to the ground and concrete and glass boxes were standing proudly in their place.

  Dundee, like many other cities has a history of bloodshed and tragedy as a result of the many times it has been conquered by, mostly English, forces. The city was sacked and burned to the ground by various armies in 1303 and 1548.

  The last battle was when Oliver Cromwell’s Roundhead army, led by General Monck, laid siege to the city for eight days before finally capturing it on 1 September 1651. It was estimated that a fifth of the population including women and children were slaughtered and were all buried in a mass grave. The city was left in ruins that lasted for many years.