Dundee - City of Discovery

Between 1860 and 1960 the city turned jute into essential goods like sails, ropes, tents and sacks. The industry at one time employed 50,000 (mostly women and children). Now many work in medical research.

There is something almost heroic in the city’s civic pride in having the world’s worse poet William McGonagall. Other examples of this light-hearted approach to life are obvious. Dundee’s publisher D. C. Thomson made a comic strip character Desperate Dan famous in a children’s comic book. He is a rooting tooting cowpoke like character. A statue in his honour now adorns the city centre.

Among the city’s other achievements was the introduced of marmalade as a commercial product at the start of the 19th century by the firm of James Keiller, Dundee.

Quick Tips:

Although most attractions are near the city centre, various other ones are a short car trip away. Four miles out from the city centre is Broughty Castle. This 15th-century estuary fort stands at Broughty Ferry, a fishing village that was the terminus for ferries crossing the Firth of Tay until the bridges were built. The museum has displays on local history, arms and armour, seashore life, and Dundee's whaling history. The observation area at the top of the castle provides views of the Tay estuary and northeast Fife.

Also within easy driving is the ruins of Abroath Abbey where the famous Scottish Declaration of Independence was signed. The fairy tale Glamis Castle where the Queen Mother was born is also not far north from Dundee. To the south is St Andrews with its famous golf courses.

Dundee is off the main tourist trail so it is ideal for a quiet holiday.

Best Way To Get Around:

The bus service in Dundee is convenient and there are numerous taxis. Most of the attractions are within easy walking distance of the city centre. Booking into a hotel like the Shaftsbury near the city centre allows most of the sights to be seen on foot.

The owner Dennis Smith on discovering that I had an interest in the building enthusiastically showed me around. All together the hotel has 12 rooms on three floors. Many rooms gave good views over the Firth of Tay. Some of the original features still exist, so the property keeps its essential character. A huge white marble fireplace dominates what was the Drawing Room and is now part of the restaurant. Room one contains a black marble Victorian fireplace. Period pieces tucked away in the building include the original ceramic fuse boxes and the system for communication with the domestic staff.

All the rooms are roomy, individually furnished and with different architectural features. Room 12, the Honeymoon Suite on floor three, is the largest. This room was the Billiard Room, and has the most wonderful Gothic window. It gives the occupants views over Dundee and the River Tay.

Strangely few of the rooms had showers installed. I found it a new experience to run a bath in the mornings for a quick shower is more my style. A bath though is great for getting rid of aches and pains in preparation for the day ahead. Each room has a television, radio and telephone installed.

A full Scottish breakfast can be had which includes juice, cereals and bacon, eggs, sausages, and black pudding. It prevents hunger pangs from returning for most of the day though it is thirst inducing. I’m sure it is full of cholesterol, which makes it a wonderful meal for those who wish to live dangerously.

My wife and I were there on St Valentines Day, which proved a mistake. We had booked the hotel on the Internet and hadn’t given the owner time to warn us the restaurant would be fully booked on this special day. Rather a pity for the hotel prides itself on the quality of its restaurants meals. Not to worry we managed to book a table in an Italian Restaurant elsewhere.

The bar on the ground floor being only available to residents and restaurant guests was intimate and quiet. Overall we were happy with the hotel though some of the wallpaper seemed dated in design and car parking was out in the street.

If you want a hotel with character it is well worth a visit.

I was viewing RRS (Royal Research Ship) Discovery, built to take Captain Scott to Antarctica in 1901. She was at the time the first ship ever built in Britain specially for a scientific expedition. She cost £50,000 of the total budget of £92,000 for the expedition.

Discovery Point, the present mooring of RSS Discovery, is one of the main attractions in Dundee. This research ship was built utilising the city’s experience in building whalers for Arctic and Antarctic whaling voyages. She left Dundee on July 31st 1901 bound for Antarctica. Now a pavilion containing displays and special effects brings the voyages of Discovery alive before climaxing with a tour of the ship.

The ship’s massively built wooden hull designed to withstand crushing by ice offered greater strength than steel construction and could flex to resist damage. Hoisting the propeller and rudder into the hull preserved them from the bruising, crushing force of ice. Raked iron shod bows riding up over the ice could break through it using the dead weight of the ship.

In the English Channel Scott considered the ship sluggish, short masted and under-canvassed. These characteristics become virtues in the Roaring Forties down in the southern oceans. She could sail through gales with canvas aloft that would have stripped the sails and masts from more conventional ships.

After explorations along the coast of Antarctica, the Discovery wintered in the protected waters of McMurdo Sound. Frozen in, she remained there over the next two years until February 1904. A supply ship, the Morning, brought provisions.

As well as an extensive scientific programme, the expedition aimed to reach the South Pole. A party of Scott, Shackleton and Wilson on December 31st 1902 travelled 300 miles farther south than any previous group. The effects of scurvy and a lack of food forced them to turn back 480 miles from the Pole. It took them over a month to reach their base - as Scott put it "We are as near spent as three persons can be." They had been gone for 93 days and had covered 960 miles.

The "Morning" returned in 1904 this time with the "Terra Nova" and orders from the UK government for the expedition to return. The Discovery had 20 miles of ice between it and open water and seemed permanently locked in. Hard work with explosives, the wind shifting in the right direction and the two relief ships breaking their way through the remaining ice sprung Discovery out of the jaws of the trap. The Discovery arrived in Portsmouth on September the 10th 1904 carrying many specimens never seen before.

Discovery Point is well worth a visit.

I could see in my mind’s eye the huge white sails filling with each breath of wind, the frigate heeling as it beat to windward. Holding steady to the wind the waves roll under the keel without changing the heeling angle of the masts. Turning to run before the wind the ship takes on an unpleasant sea sawing rolling motion that keeps the helmsman on his toes.

Its foresails offered the same aerodynamics as the wing of an aeroplane. It used renewable energy in a way that modern-day electricity generating windmills try to match. On the debit side the construction of one ship could swallow up a fair sized forest. Before steam ships, which lived and breathed in a smoky fashion, sailing ships commanded the oceans and circumnavigated the globe.

The first Unicorn in the Royal Navy was captured from the Scots Navy in 1544. Since then a long line of ships have had a unicorn gazing steadfastly ahead from its precarious perch on the prow. The Unicorns of the Royal Navy have more battle honours than even Nelson’s famous Flagship, HMS Victory.

This Unicorn though was launched in 1824. Built in time of peace, it was immediately roofed over. If needed as a fighting ship she would have been fully rigged in 12 days. Overtaken by the age of steam she had a peaceful life and retired in 1968 as the world’s last unreconstructed wooden sailing ship. Eventually she will be fully rigged and take on the appearance of the rakish warship that she was meant to be.

Life on board an active frigate was cramped for the 300 men. The gun-deck of Unicorn just about cracked my scull on the beams. Part of the normal complement of 28 long guns was in position. The other 18 needed to make up her rating of 46 guns were normally mounted in small batteries on the Forecastle and Quarterdeck.

The captain’s cabin in the stern seemed roomy but having to share it with two large guns reduces his space. Its opulence depended on his wealth and the price money won.

The lower deck was used for accommodation. The officers had small cabins and the crew simply slung their hammocks from the overhead beams -- even lower on this deck than the gun-deck. Apparently hammocks by reducing the rolling motion of the ship were more comfortable than bunks.

I look forward to the time when masts and spars give HM Unicorn the grace and beauty she was born to have.

Dundee was known as Juteopolis for good reason. It was a city of jute mills though a whaling industry supplied the oil needed to soften jute fibres. It was a women’s and children’s world. Machines created the tune they danced to in carding, drawing, roving, spinning, cop and spool winding, beaming, weaving and finishing. Nimble fingers of women were needed to tend the machines. The small bodies of children were needed to clean under machines. Beyond the age of 18 boys became men and cost too much to continue working in the factories.

Society had been turned on its head. Women went out to work while men stayed at home to look after the home and family. Over the period 1860 to 1960 women brought home the wages – only just above subsistence.

The Jute Barons grew rich while 50,000 toiled away in their satanic mills -- so noisy that sign language had to be used to communicate. The Jute Barons were able to give Juteopolis grand buildings such as the Cairn Hall and build themselves mansions. They seemed unable to pay their workers a decent wage.

Jute was made into products that kept the world running. Over 30 essential products incorporated jute. Among the most important were carpets, sacks, twine, ropes, parachutes, sailcloth, tarpaulins and yarns. Even the covered wagons rolling across America often had canopies made from jute.

Strangely Juteopolis didn’t try to protect its essential industry. Instead the Jute Barons themselves shipped out jute processing machinery to Bengal in the search for even higher profits. This set up competition that was difficult for Juteopolis to compete against even though wages in the town were among the lowest in the UK -- a good example of cutting ones own throat!

Jute was an environmentally renewal product. Now fibres such as polypropylene made from non-renewable oil became a substitute for jute and killed the industry. Some of the jute manufacturers successfully made the transition to this new fibre though most went out of business.

The Verdant Mill is being restored to show the machinery and working conditions in the days that Jute practically powered the world. It is ironic that the very mills that failed to supply the workers with a decent wage have now been converted into high quality housing for present day Dundonians.