The Folks Who Lived on the Hill.
There was a popular romantic American song doing the rounds on the wireless in the early 50’s – ‘The folks who live on the Hill’ – That was us!! We lived at 18 Ann Street, half way up the Hilltown in Dundee. All be it, mind you, not in the same idyllic dream home portrayed in the song’s lyrics, but more, shall we say, in slightly less salubrious surroundings. There were actually three ‘Lands’ serviced by the same narrow close at number 18, opening out into a large elongated cobbled courtyard accessing outside stairs leading to the three storey tenements above the shops on the main street, each accommodating 8 to10 houses. On our own landing and the one above, we shared the same ‘La’vie’, recycling the Sunday Post with five other one and two room ‘residences’. We were a family of six, although by the time I was of the age in the photograph, my father had died, and my two sisters had married and moved out, leaving so much room in fact that we actually took in a lodger.
Which brings me to the picture. Have you ever seen such a bunch of healthy, happier, and well turned out children? Some having just returned I might add, from the Wild West of America, just a few hundred yards away at the Plaza cinema. Mr. & Mrs. Hooper (that’s him on the left) had no children of their own, but being an integral part of the close ‘Nit’ (we all had them) community, hosted regular parties for all the kids (and their parents). Everyone was your auntie, uncle, or granny anyway, each adult accepting parental responsibility, dispensing ‘wisdom’, advice, and the occasional skelp in the lug when you did something wrong. Like the time I took my pal Pat Donahue to Holy Communion at St. Mary’s Forebank (With a name like that he should have been a Catholic anyway). That’s me in the centre of the picture by the way, with the young lady’s hand on my shoulder, and Pat Donahue beside me looking blessed.
The wind up verse of the popular song went “Darby & Joan, who used to be Jack & Jill – Still like to be called the folks who live on the Hill”. Well, most of us are old aged pensioners now, but I bet none of us still live on the Hill.
