Tell a kid today that when you were their age, the biggest thrill of the week was a Saturday shopping trip to watch a clock chime and they’d nonchalantly raise an eyebrow, and say: “In the old days?”
Yes, kids, but not just any clock. The Wellgate Centre Clock.
It may have been with us since the centre opened in 1978 but the clock could be ticking on its future at the shopping centre as Dundee and Angus College eye a new state-of-the art campus on the site.
Time moves on – even, or possibly especially, for clocks.
Why the outpouring of column inches and sentiment?
To anyone who doesn’t know, I’ll try on behalf of the many thousands of Dundonians who do.
‘Place to be’
As I said, this isn’t just any clock.
It was installed five months after the centre opened and how best to explain the excitement.
This was a world before computers, iPads, mobile phones and the internet, when catching the end of the Magic Roundabout on television was beyond exciting.
There was no Sky, Netflix or Disney+ but just three channels – then later four (Channel 4 arriving in 1982) before the Spice Girls launched Channel 5 in 1997.
And, as odd as this may sound, when the TV shows had finished for the night, a still picture was transmitted called Test Card F – or as you and I knew it, an eight-year-old girl called Carole playing noughts and crosses with a clown doll, Bubbles.
In this world, where the only place (catalogues aside) to buy things was in shops, The Wellgate was the place to be.
You could get the record by the singer you fancied in Virgin Records at the back on the ground floor.
McDonalds was still a relatively new kid in town.
Then there was BHS where you could get anything you heart desired from pillows to pinafores. Ah, BHS.
But while every one of those stores came and went, the top floor nursery rhyme clock remained.
Every hour the Wellgate clock burst (and still does but to less fanfare now there’s Fortnite and Fifa) into life.
A door opens, objects move and the chimes ring out to a familiar tune.
At the stroke of midday, the clock is at its most lively, with several doors opening and all 12 nursery rhymes playing in succession.
In its heyday, hundreds of families crowded below, row upon row of faces lit up with delight.
If you have a moment, the poem The Wellgate Clock by Anna MacDonald captures the nostalgia and detail superbly.
And if you have another moment, perhaps go to the top floor to see what all the fuss was about.
‘Amazing space’
It’s always sad but shops come and go.
For all the memories people of my age have, the generations before can go further – to before the centre was built and the area was a shopping hub with fabric shops, Henderson furniture, Hunter household store and dozens more.
Dundee and Angus College’s plans are a long way from fruition but if the idea to move their current Kingsway location happens, the Wellgate as a shopping centre will be no more.
If that happens, we should simply cherish the clock in a new home.
I give you the McManus, where visitors can embark on a journey through 400 million years.
It astonishes me every time I visit we have such an amazing space and place on our doorstep – and for free.
One of the sections I love most is the gallery showing changes to Dundee in the past century.
Our clock would be the perfect addition.
Just like Verdant Works shows the fascinating journey of Dundee’s industrial heritage, McManus shows our history, from the sweets we bought to the Tay Whale skeleton.
Thank goodness these things have been preserved –
Like the period features I beg property buyers to keep, once they are gone, they are gone.
The clock might not be easy to move. It might take work and repairs if we want it still to work.
But some things are worth saving and the Wellgate clock is one of them.
Conversation