Dundee History: Jute, Jam, Poetic Gems

Famous for Dundee cake, jute, marmalade and the poetic gems of William McGonagall, Dundee last year celebrated its 800th birthday to the jeers of numerous detractors.

Among the city’s great moments remembered recently was the first recorded dissection of an elephant--the one that came to Dundee in 1706 and promptly died.

And there’s the beaching of a whale in 1883, commemorated by the incomparable McGonagall: “Then hurrah for the mighty monster whale . . . which can be seen for a sixpence or a shilling / That is to say, if the people are willing.”

Dundee is a handsome city on the Tay River estuary on the Scottish east coast, 450 miles north of London. Its 170,000 people make it Scotland’s fourth-largest city after Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen--and the butt of jokes from all three.

The Glasgow Herald could not be contained after hearing claims that Dundonians invented postage stamps and electric light, and that William Shakespeare had cribbed the bit about Duncan’s murder for “Macbeth” from Dundee historian Hector Boece.

When Dundee newspapers headlined the death in Los Angeles of native son James McDonald, the voice of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse, Herald columnist Tom Shields gleefully noted that the man was 2-months-old when he was taken to the United States.

As to Dundee’s claim to have built the world’s first highway beltway in 1919, Shields wrote: “It seems somehow appropriate that Dundee should come up with the concept of a road that misses the city entirely.”

William Hunter, a colleague of Shields, says Dundonians are funny because of their thick accents.

He cites Desperate Dan, a huge, stubble-chinned cowboy who is a figure in a series of popular comic books. When he needs extra strength, Dan wolfs down a steak-and-kidney pie, but always spelled “peh” because the “eh” sound is the foundation of Dundee-speak.

Mick McCluskey, author of “Dundonian for Beginners,” said that to produce the correct “eh” sound, “place a tourniquet around the throat, just above the Adam’s apple and tighten briskly. As soon as you are unable to breathe, summon up a dainty little cough and clear your throat.”

Looking out over the North Sea, Dundee traded with other ports for centuries, built ships and became Europe’s largest whaling port.

In the 19th Century, it imported jute from what is today Bangladesh to make sail canvas and sacks. The brittle plant fibers needed softening before they could be worked and Dundee had the very thing on tap: whale oil.

The wagon trains rolling across the American plains were covered with Dundee-made canvas, and Dundee made the sandbags for both sides in the Civil War. The mills employed 43,000 women.

“Women got half the pay of men so women were employed in the jute mills which were noisy, dirty and dangerous and led to deafness and drink,” Hunter said.

Janet Keiller, a Dundee grocer’s wife, invented marmalade in the 18th Century--but the business has long since moved to England.

The thrifty Keiller is said to have used leftover orange peel in devising the recipe for Dundee cake, a large, round fruit cake containing nuts and spices and decorated with toasted almonds.

City fathers continue to spurn proposals for a statue to McGonagall, who was born in Edinburgh and died there in 1903, but made his name in Dundee writing the worst verse of the age.

Willie Smith, retired manager of Dundee publishers David Winter, which first issued the poems, travels widely lecturing on McGonagall.

“Although he was the most famous man we ever had, the people were embarrassed by him alive because he walked the streets reciting Shakespeare when they were almost illiterate. They are embarrassed by him dead because they think he makes people laugh at Dundee.”