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Having been born in Lochee, Dundee at the very end of the 1950's, my earliest childhood memories are from Dundee in the early 1960's where I grew up in a Manse, wrote Jane McArthur.
My father was a Presbyterian minister and I was the youngest of 3 children. My brother is about 7 years older than I am and my sister 4 and a half years older.
One of the things that strikes me, looking back, is how much safer it was then compared with now. At the top of our road there was a nursery that grew tomatoes and it was not unusual for one of us to be sent to buy some. How many cities could you safely send young children on errands unaccompanied today?
Part of my dad's work was visiting old people, and I used to love going with him. If he was planning to visit someone in hospital he would take a couple of biscuits from home for me to eat in the car while he made the visit -- something else which simply is not safe to do today.
The car was a black Austin and, although it was not an estate car, there was a space that made the passage of air and fruit gums from the back seat to the boot possible, and my brother used to enjoy travelling in the boot on short journeys. I tried it with him once but gave up after the second time I asked my dad to stop so that I could see something -- nosey I guess!
My dad used to go to Glasgow from time to time for meetings or to visit his mother and would come home with huge oranges for us children -- what a treat! (The ones we usually had were much smaller).
On the rare occasions when my mum would go alone to Glasgow to visit her mother she used to bring me back a chocolate umbrella out of Ferguson's in Union Street, and when they were eaten I used to stick the plastic handles in my sandpit outside the back door.
We had a huge enclosed garden at the back. Ten years ago I had the opportunity to visit our old home again and was amazed at how small the garden really was!
I loved Dundee, I loved the people of Dundee and, because I was a Dundonian ('our baby' the people at church called me) the people of Dundee loved me, so it saddened me to leave the area the summer before I started school.
Two special people stand out in my mind -- one was Paula, the little girl next door. She was a year younger than me so neither of us were at school and we played together frequently.
The other was Bella, an old lady who lived across from the church (though looking back I wonder just how old she really was!). Bella always had a budgie that chattered away in the corner of the living room.
I loved going to Bella's house because she was my 'fairy godmother' and went back to visit her regularly until she died when I was in my late teens.
Jane McArthur, 2001
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