AN ‘OLD DUNFERMLINE’ calendar has been produced for 2023 featuring archive images of the city of Dunfermline over the past century, many of which have featured in Memory Lane over the years. The photographs highlight many of the changes that have taken place in the ancient capital of Scotland.

The first photograph in this week's trip down West Fife's Memory Lane is of the Co-operative building that still stands at the top of the Abbeyview housing estate today, though the Co-op itself has long gone.

Alison Terras Shearer still remembers the shop: “I worked there in the sixties, first in the bakery and then in the mutuality desk and sometimes in the Post Office. It was such a beautiful building – I remember it well. Happy days.”

The photograph also brings back memories for Karen Byrne: “I remember there in the ’60s, the post office, the chemist and particularly the cafe up the stairs. We didn't always get to go there but looked up wishing we could.”

The next image is an artist's impression of the shopping complex that was built later at the top of the estate. Although it is from more than 60 years ago, the description on it shows that even back then Dunfermline was regarded as a city by many people ...

The estate took more than 20 years to complete. Although the housing scheme looked good on paper, no consideration had been given to the contours of the area, which resulted in shops and community facilities being built on the top of the hill with steeply-terraced streets running down into the steep valleys on either side. However, the houses provided a degree of luxury in a period when people had been used to housing with outside shared toilets, no baths, hot water or central heating, and they proved very popular as Tom Burnett remembers: “I’m proud to have been brought up in Abbeyview. I lived in Wedderburn Crescent until I married and moved on. Dad lived in the same house for nearly 37 years until he died. So many happy memories of growing up there.”

The final photograph is of the flats in Duncan Crescent shortly after their construction. Jane Conlon recalls living there: “We used to live at 197 Duncan Crescent, top floor left as you look at the photograph. We were amongst the first tenants and it was a good place back in the day. The Bruce family lived in the bottom flat and in the floor below us were two sisters, Mrs Booth and Mrs Barry. We played a trick on them and they threatened to tell our parents and I can remember saying, 'You don’t know where we live!'

The ‘Old Dunfermline’ calendar is on sale in Abbot House and Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries shops as well as online at olddunfermline.com/shop and in the Small Business Market on the lower mall in the Kingsgate Centre outside where Debenhams used to be.

More old photographs like these can be seen in the local studies department of Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries.

With thanks to Frank Connelly.