New visitors to Dundee?

“I STAY in Rosebank Place in Dundee and wondered if your readers could tell me if magpies are an unfamiliar site in the city?” asks Michael Eaton.

“I’m being told it’s unusual to see them this side of the water. They are nesting somewhere close by as there are two and a young chick frequenting my garden on a daily basis.

“The magpies have a beautiful blue tinge to the base of the tail and seem to be in very good condition and obviously happy in their new surroundings as they have nested and produced an offspring.

“Are there any other places in Dundee that have magpies visiting their gardens? I must say it’s a nice change to see these birds visit the garden – although my flat coat retriever may have a different opinion after they steal his food!” POLICE IN Wiltshire are now fetching truants from their beds and bringing them into school and are hailing the scheme as a successful innovation, notes a retired teacher.

“With today’s relaxed attitude, I do not know whether school authorities still use them, but, in my time at MontroseAcademy in the 1970s, truant officers were very much to the fore,” he says.

“One in particular, an ex-boxer, I was told, always got his man, or should I say, boy or girl. He was so efficient, the headmaster recalled, that, by the morning interval, any reported truants were lined up outside his door ready for interview.

“On one memorable occasion, the headmaster went out to question the miscreants and found a former pupil there.

“The truant officer had found him in a local billiards saloon with some others and, despite his protests, brought him in with his pals. He had made him an offer he dared not refuse!

“There’s nothing new under the sun and, when our softly-softly modern powers-that-be begin to realise their approach has failed, more and more of the old methods that worked will be making a come-back!

“I just hope it is not too late to save our youngsters!”

Do any Craigie readers have memories of truant officers or ways in which pupils managed to get a day off school in days gone by?