Aberdeen in the Fifties and Sixties

Author: David Smith

Aberdeen in the Fifties and Sixties

THE Fifties and Sixties were two of the most exciting decades Aber­donians have ever lived through.
Skeletons of buildings bombed during the blitz were flattened, others springing up in their place to create a new landscape. The great exodus from the city centre got under way with major new housing schemes springing up all around the outskirts.
This led to the bus becoming king of the road, ending the city’s tramway era.
Landmarks like Black’s Building and Castlehill Barracks became a mere memory and the first high-rise blocks altered the city’s skyline.
Aberdonians shopped at Reid and Pearsons, Watt and Grants, Isaac Benzie’s, The Equitable or the Rubber Shop, all now consigned to memory.
Three nights a week there was greyhound racing at the Bridge of Dee. Rock ‘n’ Roll arrived at the city’s dance halls.
And two significant events occurred in people’s lives – the advent of the North Sea oil industry and the arrival of the first Chinese restaurant.
And there to record all the changes were photographers of the Evening Express.
From their Broad Street head­quarters they created a unique record of the changing times of Scotland’s most northerly city.
Brought together for the first time in this unique book, they paint a picture of change over a 20-year period that now seems as sudden as it was dramatic.