It's a long walk from Fleet Street to Dundee

Jeremy Briggs has very kindly sent some photos from a recent trip to Dundee in response to my own walk down Fleet Street. If you missed it, John Adcock has recently also taken a historical trip around London thanks to John Tallis' London Street Views.

Jeremy's trip reveals some of the interesting sights relating to D. C. Thomson in a little piece he calls...

It's a long walk from Fleet Street to Dundee

Your walk along Fleet Street inspired me to take my camera with me to Dundee at the weekend. Despite their comics carrying the London address on the letters pages, Dundee is of course the home of D C Thomson and their headquarters is in the Courier Building in Albert Square, named after their Dundee Courier newspaper.

This imposing building was built in 1902 and so predated the renaming of the Thomson publishing business by David Couper Thomson in 1905 and the takeover of their Dundee publishing rivals, John Leng and Co, in 1926. The tower at the rear was added in 1960. The Albert Square entrance has Courier Office embedded into the steps leading up to the entrance.

Meanwhile the Meadowside entrance is rather more imposing with statues of Literature and Justice gazing down on what is now a taxi rank. A much older photo of the same entrance can be found in Dundee City Council’s Photopolis website.

It is also at the Meadowside entrance where the brass company name plate can be found, listing the company as Thomson-Leng Publications, as can also be seen on the London branch.

Of rather more interest to the tourists is the statue of Desperate Dan striding manfully through the pedestrianised zone of the city centre.

Yet his faithful Dawg is rather more observant of his surroundings.

Dawg sits down in his attempt at attracting Dan’s attention.

For what Dan has not realised is the young Minx who is preparing launch the contents of her catapult at our hero.

Only one problem… no elastic!

The statues at the corner of High Street and Reform Street are a source of amusement to all, a popular photo shoot for the tourists, and a plaything for young kids to clamber over.

END

My thanks to Jeremy. I had hoped to post this Sunday night or Monday but I've been laid low with some bug which has knocked my schedule completely out of whack. Hopefully I'm over the worst of it and normal service can be resumed shortly.