Friends reunited

I have heard from Mandy Whitham who says: “I am looking for ex-Wrens who joined between 1947-81 and who trained at HMS Dauntless (Reading).

“I’m compiling a searchable, accessible archive of Divisional ‘class’ photos that only ex-Wrens may access. It’s also hoped that old friends can be rediscovered, memories shared and new friendships/support groups formed.

“When I began the archive, I stored the collection in a private Facebook group and contacted all the Wrens I could trace using normal social media sources. Within days I realised the idea was much bigger than just photo storage. A friend came on board to help with the deluge of information that landed on my desktop and within a month we had over 1,000 ‘members’ in

John Hyman emails: “I’ve lived in Dundee since being a student at Bell Street Tech starting in 1974. I worked at Keiller’s in Mains Loan from 1976 to 1990 and have always been interested in the city’s history.

“When I was at home in Sheffield before coming to Dundee, a good friend of my late father was a gentleman called Roland Wood. If my memory is correct, he told us that he had been a submariner, and based in Dundee at one point. He also said that he was billeted in a jam factory.

“I made an assumption, possibly incorrectly, that he meant marmalade and it could have been Keiller’s. However, my last job before I retired was at the University of Dundee, and I was surprised to hear somebody one day refer to a uni building as The Jam Factory.

“So, I wonder if anyone can recall submariners being billeted at a jam or marmalade factory during the Second World War and can shed any light on this?”

Bill Shand from Dunfermline has a problem – his greenhouse grapes are ripened and he doesn’t know what do with them all. “The variety is black Homburg and I can supply 20/30 bunches free to a wine maker or similar,” he says. Please contact Craigie in the first instance.