Davina Brown and the vitriol attack, 5th December 1924 Davina Brown was in her mid-twenties, slogging away in the jute mills like so many other young women in the 1920s when she met Thomas Crombie. He owned his own cooping business, ooh fancy, cooping is making barrels and casks, but hey, he owned his own […]
Jessie Jordan (23 December 1887 – 1954) was a Scottish hairdresser found guilty of spying for the German Abwehr on the eve of World War II. After her German husband’s death in battle, she remarried and later became a spy in Scotland. Imprisoned and deported to Germany after the war, Jordan’s life was marked by […]
Winter usually throws us a few curveballs as she goes; black ice, flooding, burst pipes and even thunder-snow is to be expected in Scotland at this time of year. Danger lurks on every corner and on every (un-gritted) path as we slip and slide our way around. There’s always something you can rely on – […]
On January 4th 1922, the scene in the Harrison household on 24 Brook Street was probably very similar to many others. William Harrison and his wife were both at home with their two young children, three year old George and eighteen month old Catherine. The fire was roaring and the kettle was boiling up some […]
Nestled away in a copy of The Evening Telegraph and Post from late July 1905 is a dark tale of a violent ex-soldier. There aren’t many words, as the railway disaster in Liverpool which claimed 20 lives takes up the vast majority of the page, but what it does say paints a vivid picture of […]
Before Castle Huntly became a prison, it had a history all of its own – and a couple of its own ghosts, to boot; the White Lady and that of a young boy.
London was the worst affected by the Blitz, and ports in places such as Glasgow came under heavy bombing. But Dundee was not to be spared, and on 5th November 1940, 8 bombs were dropped in Dundee.
The following is a collection of extracts of Dundee Crime Statistics from the Dundee criminal returns of 1898 to 1902 inclusive, read, in part, by us on one of our forays in the archives. A very informative and insightful glimpse into the lives and crimes of this era, it’s also hard sometimes to see where […]
Now, you might be thinking, what has Mary Slessor got to do with Dark Dundee? Sure, she’s from Dundee, but as a missionary, she is hailed as somewhat of a heroine. Of course she is, and we’re not denying that…but what’s truly dark about Mary Slessor are the things she witnessed during her lifetime. Her father, […]
In the early hours of 8th December 1959, the Mona Lifeboat was launched to assist the North Carr Lightship, adrift in St Andrews Bay. Much like this week, the weather conditions were exceptionally severe with strong winds and the Mona was the only boat in the area able to launch. The last radio message from the […]
