Dens Road School was formally opened on the 5th January 1911. We are about to celebrate our one hundreth year.
To help us celebrate we will use this blog to share some of the extracts of our school log books dating from the opening of the school. These have lots of interesting entries about school life throughout the past 100 years.
Extract taken from Dundee City Council Website – January 1909 Bygone News
New Dundee School
Dens Road School to be erected by Dundee School Board in place of St Salvador’s Episcopal School, which is to be closed, is to cost about £14,500. The works committee on Tuesday agreed to recommend the acceptance of offers from Tradesmen amounting in the aggregate to £12,500 and the cost of furnishing with architects fees etc, will amount to £2000. It should be stated that the first estimate was £19,000, but there has been a good deal of cutting down, with the result indicated.
This provides a link to the architect of Dens Road School.
Please feel free to leave any comments on the blog.
I was very impressed to see this Dens Road students’ blog celebrating the school centennial. I spent seven happy years at Dens Road from 1942 to 1949 and am still grateful for some fine teachers who gave me a solid grounding in the three ‘Rs’ and a love of learning that has served me well over the years. I particularly remember Miss Laing and Miss Macpherson, two fine teachers.
I noted, in the blog, the comment “11th January 1911 – Miss Jane A. Tosh entered upon her duties as an assistant teacher in the Junior Division.” Miss Tosh must have enjoyed teaching at Dens Road, since I was in her class in ‘44/’45.
Some specific memories:
• My wee brother Mike entered Dens Road the year after I left, and caused quite a stushie by disappearing on his first day. Not quite grasping the concept of mid-morning playtime, he had simply taken off and walked home.
No harm was done – since we lived at #2 Fairbairn St. Our mum quickly got over the surprise of seeing him and walked him back to class.
• The headmaster in those days was Mr Allan, a rather distant but kindly man. He once took me and a couple of my schoolmates to Murrayfield to see a Scotland v England rugby match.
He also gave me the belt for climbing over the railing and swinging on the branch of the tree in the garden opposite the Dens Road entrance to the school from the boys’ playground. That branch had been polished smooth by the hands of generations of kids – but I was the dumb one who got caught by the Jannie…
• One final memory.
My time at Dens Road coincided with the Second World War, and the boys’ playground had a number of brick and concrete air-raid shelters (which I remember as cutting down on our football space). In early ’45 I guess it was clear that they weren’t needed anymore, and a group of workmen came in to tear them down.
As you might imagine, this was a big attraction at playtime, and we kids would stand around and watch the destruction. One of the workmen – he must have been a real old crab – told us to buzz off, and when we didn’t move fast enough for his liking, he decided that he would hurry us along by bowling a half brick along the ground.
My buddies were smart or agile enough to get out of the way – but not me! It hit me in the leg, hard enough to make me bleed. My response of course, was to go get my mother (since she was just at the other end of Fairbairn Street and my dad was in away in the army).
I remember her being furious, and after cleaning me up she dragged me back up to school with steam coming out of her ears, had me point out which workie had done it, then gave him a major earful.
I don’t think she actually hit him, but I think that he thought she was going to …
I left Dens Road with mixed emotions to go on to what turned out to be six happy years at Morgan (actually to Clepington Road School for a few months first, since we were a February intake), but I soon settled in there, thanks largely to the excellent grounding I had received at Dens Road.
My best wishes to the school for the next hundred years of serving Dundee children.