DUNDEE NATAL 1950s AND 1960s MEMORIES WEBSITE

The objective of this website is to celebrate the children who grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s in the town of Dundee, Natal, South Africa.  It is also intended to celebrate the other residents of the town in those years. The leading edge of that generation of children are now in their 60’s, and the group is widely dispersed throughout South Africa and the world.

Although we had a lot of fun growing up in Dundee, most of us yearned for the day when we would move on to some bigger centre, and few if any of us appreciated how lucky we were to have been brought up in the quiet, country town atmosphere of Dundee. Looking back over the years one is struck by the fact that even in the 1950’s and 1960’s the town still retained much of its character derived from the Scots who founded it and the later English settlers who turned the town into what at one time must have been not that different from a Scottish or English village.

The Scottish and English tradition permeated the town. The main street was, and remains – despite the political changes since the town was founded in 1882  – Victoria Street. One of the main cross streets is Gladstone Street. The St James Anglican Church is one of the few in Natal which has a graveyard in the churchyard – with one of its occupants being General Penn Symons, the commander of the British forces in the Battle of Talana – which was the first battle of the Anglo Boer War, and was fought on October 20, 1899.

Our recreational activities as children growing up in a Natal country town were centered on the local swimming baths, the “Cosy” tea room (the closest thing we had to the soda fountain of American teenage culture of that era), having “hops” at the homes of our parents or at the Golf Club or a church hall, sailing on the Tom Worthington Dam at Hattingspruit (which we reached on our bicycles and a few motorized “buzz bikes”), hiking in the hills around the town, hockey and golf and tennis tournaments during the school holidays, horse riding, skate boarding on the Victoria Street bridge, and a myriad of other largely self made activities.

The photographs forming part of this web site, and the narrative which follows, tell the story of some of the activities described above. Hopefully those photographs and memories will be supplemented over time, if this web site prompts interest and recollection – and nostalgia!

Photo At Top Of Page - 1963 "Dundee Teenagers" Mortimer Cup Team

Back Row: Peter "Turney" Turnbull; Robin Lowe; Kinnear "Kotch" Coffee; Stuart Wood Middle:  Peter "Spombey" Rogers; Wendy Portsmouth; Stuart "Mossie" Clark; Jill Rogers; Front:  Brenda Coughlin; Gill Lavers; Paddy Ann Smith

Useful Links to Dundee Today

Use these links to find out current information about Dundee and District:

Northern KwaZulu Natal Courier - http://nncourier.blogspot.com

Endumeni Tourism - www.tourdundee.co.za

Talana Museum - http://www.talana.co.za/