The remains of the first Tay Rail-bridge are still to be seen in the estuary today. The bridge collapsed in December 1879 during a terrible storm and while a train was travelling across. Seventy five people on the train are believed to have perished as it crashed to the waters below.

Inland, along the path of the River Tay, it’s not too far to the fine market town of Perth. Dundee is the only Scottish city to face south and so cheekily claims to the Scotland’s sunniest city.

JUTE, JAM and JOURNALISM is said to be what Dundee’s past prosperity was based on, though shipbuilding and whaling were very important also. Dundee had a large whaling fleet and so plenty of the whale oil needed to process Jute into cloth. The jute was brought from India into Dundee docks. The ‘Jam’ refers not so much to jam as to Orange Marmalade which was famously produced by Keiller’s in the city. Journalism is based around D.C. Thomson, publishers of (among many books and newspapers) the Sunday Post newspaper and the famous children’s comics Dandy and Beano. Winston Churchill was MP for Dundee from 1908 until 1922 but did not see eye-to-eye with D.C. Thomson and the editorial of its local newspapers. He left in disgust at being constantly heckled during his 1922 election campaign never to return.

RSS DISCOVERY, the scientific research ship, is perhaps Dundee’s most famous current exhibit and museum.  RSS Discovery was built in Dundee in 1901 and later that year was used by Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton in their first Antarctic expedition. Nearby Discovery today and also open as a museum is Unicorn, a 46 gun naval Frigate from 1824 and the oldest British ship still afloat.