It’s the communities and people of Aberdeen who help make the Granite City such a sparkling place to live, work and play.
Join us as we take a look through our archives to uncover some snapshots in time, from hard-working mill girls to Hollywood royalty like Charlton Heston, who have all helped write the rich and vibrant story of our city.
Garthdee
Garthdee branch members of the North-east of Scotland Federation of Townswomen’s Guilds in costume for their sketch, 20th Century Elizabethans, illustrating the decades of the Queen’s reign at their annual rally at the Beach Ballroom in 1992.
Kepplestone
Known to generation as the Dough School, the School of Domestic Science, pictured here in 1963, became part of Robert Gordon University. It is now the site of luxury flats.
Aberdeen Grammar School
Back in 1992, Jane Alexander, Fiona Smail and Christine Caldwell were all in their prime, as they took part in Aberdeen Grammar School Senior Drama Society’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the school’s new drama studio.
Bay of Nigg
Flying into the sunset in 1984, with the aero modellers who would spend Sunday afternoon at the Bay of Nigg putting their aircraft through their paces.
King Street
A view of a once popular shortcut to Pittodrie for football fans which was closed soon after this picture was taken in 1955. Advocates Road, between King Street and King’s Crescent, was shut to through traffic on January 1, 1956.
Berryden
Tending the giant looms at the hosiery firm Kilgour and Walker in 1936. The Berryden mills enjoyed booming sales in the immediate post-war period thanks to the big demand for knitwear. Orders were sent around the world with New Zealand and South Africa particularly good markets. In the 1960s the firm diversified from traditional knitwear products like fishermen’s jerseys to garments for the teenage market. But in the following decades the company changed hands and eventually went out of business.
Golden Square
Back to the days when parking was no problem in Golden Square pictured from upstairs in the YMCA on a quiet summer evening in 1955.
Hilton
Margaret Gordon is given a bouquet from Shauna Polson, 5, after retiring from Hilton Nursery School in 1975. She held the position of head teacher for nine years.
Shiprow Tavern
Young Norman Anderson goes round with the tea at the Shiprow Tavern Christmas party in 1963. On this occasion more than 100 men were entertained by a concert. Thanks to an anonymous gift they also got a gift of money as well as cigarettes and a meal from the friends of the Tavern. The Tavern, then in Constitution Street, was a haven for men from the early 1930s and could count as one of the lost pubs of Aberdeen. But, as it grew from the Temperance movement it served no alcohol.
Bucksburn
Bucksburn schoolgirls Morag Jessiman (bottom left) and Lyndsay McWilliam (top right) made a big impression on TV duo The Krankies when they visited Aberdeen in 1983. The two 13-year olds had won a BBC TV talent competition on the Untied Shoelaces Show by impersonating the comedy team. And that meant double trouble when Morag and Lyndsay asked to meet their favourite stars.
