This year marks the 30th anniversary of the infamous Timex strikes which took place in Dundee from January until August of 1993.
When I went home from Radio 1’s Big Weekend a few weeks ago we walked up Harrison Road, or as many Dundonians call it, Timex Brae.
To think this street was once full of thousands of workers protesting for better pay and opposing layoffs at Timex is quite something.
Walking up it now, you wouldn’t have thought this was a site of one of the most notable industrial strike actions in Scottish history.
The strike fascinates me but the history surrounding Timex before them was something I was always eager to learn more about.
Aunt’s insight into life at Timex factory
And some of my family worked at Timex.
I had a fantastic conversation on the phone with my Auntie Agnes about her time working at the Timex factory at Camperdown.
Auntie Agnes started there in the late 1950s after leaving the textile industry behind where her wages were £2.50 a week.
When she went up to work for Timex, that wage went up to £8.50 a week, a significant increase at the time.
Watches and computers are two of the main products the Timex factory was notable for producing and Auntie Agnes had worked on both.
“The working environment was fantastic – and the holidays were great,” she said.
She added: “You could not knock Timex at the time.”
But when I asked about her moving to work on computers, she said: “When the watches stopped, that’s when Timex was on its way out.”
During her time working at Timex, she got married to my Uncle Alex who also happened to work there as an inspector at the Milton factory.
Auntie Agnes said they took on a lot of apprenticeships there.
She said you’d find the majority of the women at the Camperdown factory whilst the majority of the men were at Milton.
She started a family with my Uncle Alex, giving birth to three children before leaving Timex in the 1970s.
It was then two decades later that the strikes took place and the impact it made on the headlines was something you wouldn’t expect from a small city like ours.
Timex legacy
I remember watching the BBC documentary on the Timex strike from a few years ago and I love it because you got to see some of the determination of the female workers who held their ground. That was something I admired.
“Dinnae mess wi’ Dundonian women!” was my favourite phrase from the documentary.
I think it’s important to realise how important these strikes are in Dundee’s history – and it shaped the way the City of Discovery is today.
We’re the video game capital of Europe and a global destination for games design.
If it weren’t for strong-minded Timex workers like my Auntie Agnes, Dundee may not be the powerhouse of creative industries it is today.
