Shops & things

The Dunblane of my childhood was a singularly different place from the town it has become. Now living in Copenhagen, Denmark, my last visit was in 2001 and the town had changed considerably. The architecture of the old village was, by and large much the same, but the composition of shopping opportunities and the purpose to which buildings were used was very different. Visiting the town by Internet I can see that many other changes have occurred. To give an example, the world famous Churches' House is now a restaurant!

My memory might be lacking when it comes to naming shops or remembering exactly where they were located but, with your indulgence, I will try to recall a time when our shopping consisted of visiting individual retailers instead of  the 'one-shop' experience of a Tesco or M & S.

On the west side of the railway I can remember a grocer's in Springfield Terrace but the main shop for us was Jean's in George Street. This was where I would be sent by my parents to buy a packet of cigarettes, a tin of beans or a loaf and so on. I remember three types of loaf. Hovis, which was a brown bread, Pan loaf which was a soft, tasteless sandwich bread my mother and father liked and Plain bread, my bread of choice. The culinary delights of that period were simple but were etched so much into the memory and senses that I still savour the taste of them today. Beans on toast, the outsider of a plain loaf, toasted and smothered in butter, a black pudding supper from McLeod's chip shop, mutton pies and bovril at the football and, my favourite - a square sliced sausage sandwich on plain bread with tomato sauce.

Despite the fact that, as a cook, I love the cuisines of amongst others India, Malaysia, Mexico, Italy. and so on, I still love that last named sandwich and make the sausage here in Denmark, being unable to buy it in Scandinavia! Alas, plain bread is also not available and, despite my best efforts, I cannot bake a passable alternative so must make do with sandwich bread!

It is possible that it is a case of  'absence makes the heart grow fonder' that gives me a craving for the more unhealthy foods of my younger days such as the fried breakfast, especially in light of the wonderful raw ingredients that Scotland has to offer. In my defence it is only occasionally that I allow myself to indulge!

Delicious!

One other thing I remember from Jean's shop was the bacon slicer. It was a deep, ruby red colour and made a horrible metallic swishing sound as it sliced. It sent shivers up my spine and many years later when using a similar machine in a professional kitchen, it took me some time before I overcame my reluctance to use it.

Down the lane by the swing park and on to Springfield Terrace again. Turning left, we have Dunblane Light Engineering on the right, followed by Davidson's garage and filling station. Roderick  Davidson was in our class at the Braeport. The family lived in a house on the Doune Road just by the turnoff to Kilbryde. Having just moved from Cambuslang I became friends with Roderick and on a visit to his house he showed me his skis. I was amazed. Did people in Scotland really ski? For a wee boy from the Lanarkshire coalfields it was confirmation indeed that I had come to live in another world!

Next on the right was Kings coach hire. Kings operated coaches to all corners of the land, day trips to the seaside, football supporters' buses and the like. On the other side of the road was the telephone box at the bottom of the Old Doune Road. This was the only phone box on this side of the town. (If I remember correctly, there were others by the police station and up at the Ramoyle or Whitecross and a fourth beside the station.)

In these days of smartphones, young people find it hard to believe that if you didn't have a house phone it was necessary to walk to a phonebox to ring to someone! The old public telephones were mechanical. You deposited four pence (4d) in the slot and dialled your number. (Local only, long distance required the help of the operator.) If your call was answered you pressed button 'A', the money dropped into the box and you were able to talk to the person on the other end. If there was no answer you pressed button 'B' and your pennies tumbled into a little drawer from which you could gather them up. We always made a point of never passing a telephone box without going in and pressing button 'B' on the off chance that the previous user had forgotten to do it but, not once can I remember having any success.

The telephone service was also more personal in those days as we had human operators who connected us when we wanted to call a grandparent in Glasgow or an aunt in Dundee. As weans we thought we were so clever, dialling 100 for the operator and, when she answered, enquiring, "Is that the operator on the line?"

"Yes, it is," she would reply.

"Then get aff! " we would shout. "Thur's  a train comin'! "

And so, laughing hysterically at our incredible wittiness, we would run off into the night expecting to hear the sound of sirens as the police rushed to arrest us for perpetrating the heinous act of being cheeky to the telephone operator.

We soon learned that we could also ring for free from these callboxes. The trick was to tap out the number, morse code style, on the cradle. Providing you did it at the correct tempo you got through to your number. The calls made this way were brief however as, again, we feared the interference of the forces of law! How innocent we were.

One other business lay on this side of the railway and that was the cobbler. His shop was located in a little building in Clarendon Place, across from the footbridge. There was a little lane and some steps between his shop and the neighbouring air raid shelter. I always remember a little window in the gable end of the building through which you could discern shoes on the windowsill, although the glass was so grimey you couldn't see much detail.

Crossing over the footbridge we carry on to the station and, immediately on the other side of the road, McLeish's shop and cafe.

I drove Mr McLeish mad sometimes. My favourite sweets were 'Midget Gems'. I would come into the shop for the huge purchase of a quarter pound and insisting on having mostly black ones. To his credit he always showed enormous patience and fished around in the jar to ensure I got my favourites.

Most of our sweets were sold 'loose' from large glass jars in those days and they were not individually wrapped as they are so often now. One sweet which I still love is the 'Sherbert Lemon.'  I have only been able to buy this in recent years when visiting Australia or Canada, or in transit through Heathrow Airport and I usually leave the shop shelves empty of my seldom luxury. In our young days, boiled sweets such as 'Sherbert Lemons', 'Cola Cubes,' 'Pineapple Chunks,' and the like presented us with other problems. They were served in paper bags and after several hours in a warm trouser or dress pocket, the sweetie was almost inseparable from the paper, resulting in sticky fingers, ripped paper pokes and pocket fluff on the sweets.

Remember these?.......

........ or these?

Around the corner, down Station Road and over the bridge to Beech Road. The only shop I remember was Andy Flaws'. Andy was a large, red cheeked, jovial man who had a mobile shop. The van was packed with every imaginable grocery item but what I remember most were the sweets and chocolate. The serving 'counter' was a glass case at the back of the van and it was confectionery chaos. It looked like boxes of assorted sweets had been emptied into  the case 'willy nilly' and when you ordered say, a packet of 'Lovehearts' or 'Opal Fruits',  Andy would roll up his sleeve, stick his hand in among the sweets and enquire, " Am I near it?' You would then direct him 'right', 'down','forward,' and so on until he got a hold of the required item.

Andy wasn't the only mobile shop in the town. The other was Mr Mackie who drove around in a big blue van, reminiscent of a removal lorry. He had his own vegetable garden behind the Haining, where Buccleuch Court lies now, and grew a lot of the produce which he sold.

The High Street was our main shopping area, of course. Looking up the 'Street' from the Stirling Arms, on the there was a greengrocer, a toyshop, a barbershop and a tobacconist run by a little Polish chap while on the left side I remember a wee sweetie shop, the baker's, the Polish barber and Davy Hunter's clothes shop.

What a wee gem of a shop that was with loads of wooden drawers packed with ties and handkerchiefs and socks. Shirts in boxes were stacked high on shelves and you could buy hats and bunnets and things you could not find elsewhere like cufflinks and tie pins. Not only the shop itself was a throwback to an earlier age but so was the service, both courteous and helpful.

Further up on the left, where Choices Deli is now, was a shop where my mother worked. It was an electrical goods shop, selling tv's and radios and so on. I can't for the life of me remember the name of it. Across the road was Miss Reid's newsagency, now Meldrum's, and further along on the same side were Tweed the fishmonger, a grocery shop, another newsagent and Bennett the Butchers.

Crossing back again, we find MacLeod's chip shop and cafe, Here we could buy a black pudding supper for 1/3 and a pie supper for 1/6. Chips were 6d and a pickled onion a penny. On this side there was a chemist, Burgess & Gibson electrical retailers, another butcher and I seem to remember another grocery shop. These are the only businesses that I remember in the main part of the 'Street', there were certainly others that have slipped from my memory with the passage of time and there were also solicitors and banks.

The High street continues to the right and up the hill to St. Blanes. Here we find yet another butcher across from the old jail and on the other side of the road, the CO-OP. At the top of the street and on the right hand side just before the road bends was another little sweet shop. I think this was run by Christine Parrish's grandmother. Colin McClaren and I often stopped here on our way either to or from the baths at the Hydro on a Saturday morning. My favourite purchases here were ginger beer or american cream soda and those little blocks of yellow lemonade powder.

But I've been rattling on about where shops lay in the town. What about the people?

I will try to give a guided tour of where my friends and acquaintances lived but the list will not be exhaustive and probably not completely accurate. I hope you will bear with me and forgive me for any spelling mistakes.

We start in Springfield Terrace.  In the tenement building lived Terri Rys (almost certainly spelled incorrectly) while further along were George and Alan Bundy who lived across from Dunblane Light Engineering and yet a little further on was my classmate, James Thompson. Turning left onto the Old Doune Road Arthur and John Kerr lived on the right hand side about 70 yards up. On the same side, between Atholl Place and Keir Street was Drew Walker.

Next street on the right was Cawdor Crescent with Claire Stewart, Davy Tweed and the Flaws family. Around the corner Kinnoull Avenue was home to Doreen Ewing, Moira Angus and Richard and Gordon Stobbs.On the left was Cromlix Crescent where I lived. John O'Hare stayed in the house on the corner of Murdoch Terrace and Kinnoull.

Up towards the top end of the Old Doune Road lived Craig McCormick. When I say the top end, I mean it. After Roman Way there were nothing but fields and Anchorscross Farm. After Baxters Loan there were loads of blackberry bushes and you could always tell that we had been out 'brambling' by our purple arms with intermingling blood from all the scratches we had received!

In the Roman Way/Braemar area I can only remember Sheena Buchanan and her brother John.

Most of my friends lived in the streets surrounding  the 'Square' or in George Street. Living in Albert Street were Barry Davidson, Eddie and Mike Taylor, and Billy Ellison. In the 'Square': Elspeth Mercer, Anne Willis, Tommy McClymont and Ian Cameron.

Also in the adjoining area were: John Reich and his sister Edith, Patricia Smith and her three brothers, Gordon, Roddy and Colin, Raymond and Gordon McKenzie and their sister Carol, Anne-Marie McDonald, Allan Nairn, Gordon Boyd, Theresa Yerz, Ally Nairn, James Drummond, Allan and Elaine Crockett.

Along the Doune Road and adjoining streets: Duncan Strathdee, Elaine Napier, Duncan MacInnes, Ewan Simpson, Brian MacConnachie, Bernard Marquardt.

Out towards the Westlands, still on the Doune Road was Valerie Cockburn while a little way up the hill in Bruce Avenue lived Carole Rae, just along from Raymond Taylor.

Then we cross over the railway to Bridgend where Willie Heuer lived. In the High Street, Robert Lindsay who refereed all our football matches while down on Mill Row was Colin McLaren's house, beside the town's other air raid shelter and a little further along, Ian Adamson. In the High Street on the way up to St. Blanes were Norman MacKinnon and, living over the CO-OP Vicky and Tony Pieda.

Continuing our little tour, we go around to the cathedral and up the Braeport to Dargai Terrace where Ewan and Shona MacMillan lived in my favourite house in the whole of Dunblane with its views over the Allan Water and the Haugh, framed by the viaduct to the right and the cathedral to the left. Tannahill was simply a field at this time but later when houses were built here I believe it was home to Susan and Cheryl Mallon.

The Ramoyle where Winnie McGowan lived leads us to the Perth Road. To the left are Whitecross and the Q.V. and we find Rhayna Milne, Alan Urie, Isanne Watson and Heather Williams here.

To the right and continuing down towards the Fourways roundabout we pass Duncan Garden and turning up the Glen Road we arrive at the Strang's house overlooking the pond at Ochlochy. I think the house was designed by Mr Strang and we visited it a few times as 'wolfcubs', Mrs Strang being our 'Akela.' We would sit in a windowed alcove looking out over the water while she read stories from the 'Jungle Book' by Kipling. (Rudyard that is - not Mister!)

There were two classmates I knew in Ochlochy Park. Stephen Brettell and Suzanne Borthwick. Suzanne's house had a swimming pool in the back garden. We were very impressed but unfortunately were never invited to use it.

We go over to the other side of the Perth Road to the Fourways restaurant. I remember Isanne Watson and I drinking Russian Tea here. (Tea, no milk, slice of lemon.) We thought we were so posh!

Behind the restaurant is Drummond Rise home to Ailsa McCrindle. She and her family achieved fame (in our eyes at any rate) when they appeared on television in a 1960's quiz programme called 'Ask the Family'.

Our last port of call is the police station where Maureen McRae lived in one of the houses at the back, her father being a police officer.

I know I have omitted many people from this little tour of Dunblane but I am getting a little older and my memory is perhaps not as complete as it could be. In addition, I have not included friends from outside of the town. People such as Margaret and John McNicholl, Neil Stewart, Gordon Bounds, the Bowyers, Roy McGregor, Ewan Mcgregor and so on and so on.

I hope however that this little blog has perhaps jogged your memory with a name or two of people whom you have not thought of in decades and brought back what I hope are pleasant recollections of a time gone by.

All the best

Alan