You know you’re no longer a spring chicken when…
Well, you could chose any number of endings for that sentence.
When you go through five names including the cats to get to the right one, when your kids laugh at your dance moves, when you sigh involuntarily upon sitting down.
For me, this week, I realised it can be when, come a certain age, The Courier’s Past Times articles can be the highlight of your day.
For there’s not much more warming to the cockles than being transported to a time and place of your youth through the pictures and words.
This week the chosen bygone era of Dundee was the Forfar Road institution that is Nicholson’s bike shop, as writer Graeme Strachan took us seamlessly through the decades.
Kids beamed proudly astride their BMXs in the eighties in tight shorts; mountain bikes in the nineties – when the only Christmas present you wanted was the latest bike with streamers on the front in lieu of 50 sheets of wrapping paper.
On which note, we are heavily overdue a new bike model fad, are we not?
It was a time when kids, on said prized bikes, would race to their nearest garage show rooms on August 1 waiting for the new cars to be driven out by their beaming owners.
‘Look’ we’d shout, running after a shiny motor ‘it’s a D-Reggie’. Anyone else remember this? It seems so far away it possibly didn’t happen.
The next year we’d be on the look-out for F registrations.
You get the picture – every year new car plates would boast the next letter of the alphabet. And having one equated you to being the Queen for a day.
Nicholson’s stayed in the family
My mum took a job as Tayford’s first car saleswoman (as opposed to man) and so, we got a fair few new models – albeit handed back regularly but the excitement and lifelong love of cars and driving has never left me.
Back to the two-wheeled bicycle and this week’s article took us to an earlier time, of Nicholson’s slipping into first gear in 1949 when Jack Nicholson, one of Dundee’s best competitive cyclists crowned Dundee District best all-rounder in 1940, bought a bike business.
Big Nic, as he was known, had been called up for wartime service as an RAF wireless operator in 1943. The end of the war in 1945 brought with it a renewed nationwide passion for cycling.
In 1987, Jack’s son-in-law Bryn Williams and his daughter Margaret took over the business.
Cue a very cute picture of their son Gareth around this time, proudly sitting on a Raleigh Vektar.
We – Jamie and I – were lucky enough to go to school with Gareth, affectionately known as Scaley on account (from memory) of his impossibly smooth skin.
His other aesthetic feat was maintaining a year-round tan in spite of Celtic conditions – an achievement Jamie confirms Gareth is still keeping up, after he met with school pals for a curry a few weeks ago, starting at another Dundee institution, Mennies.
You don’t survive the internet by accident
Now Gareth has his own lovely family.
And so, not only can I admire this family business – still run by the charismatic Bryn and Margaret and also their son-in-law Colin Murray – from afar, I know the family are the best of eggs and I wish them luck with the next chapter as the shop goes up for sale.
You don’t survive the advent – followed by worldwide dominance – of the internet, by accident.
Like any independent business from butcher to bra specialist (the Lingerie Shop in the Ferry) in this city or anywhere will tell you, it’s not easy. Many have closed.
But the devil is in the detail and one paragraph of the Past Times piece said that decades ago, Nicholson’s made the claim you could walk into their shop and out within an hour with the perfect bike for you.
How? They had a warehouse with a stock of 700 at any given time.
Amazon Prime is a modern concept with delivery the next day, but the Williams were way ahead of the game with an aim of an hour to walk in and out.
When it comes to the important things in life, I want to see and feel before I buy.
From bras (come on ladies, a fitting is better than a wild, saggy guess) to bikes.
Here’s to all the small businesses of this city – to your ingenuity, resilience and the many memories you give us all.
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