Lost streets, school sports and Stoneywood Mill: Photos of June days in Aberdeen over the years

As we dare to dream about a summer of sun, we’ve looked back at happy June photos in Aberdeen of school days, a bustling St Nicholas Street, and students at the Kirkgate Bar.

Our oldest photo shows Land Girls in training in June 1940, tending to fields at Craibstone just outside Aberdeen.

The Women’s Land Army (WLA) was regrouped just before the outbreak of the Second World War to provide agriculture support.

Many farm labourers were called up to fight and maintaining food supply was vital to keep the country going.

1940: Dig for victory! Land girls in training at Craibstone Farm near Aberdeen on June 10 1940. Image: DC Thomson

By May 1940, 6000 land girls “were at work stocking Britain’s larder” – but demand was outstripping supply.

Initially a voluntary role, by 1941 many young women were conscripted as part of National Service.

A topical subject given the Conservative’s recent election manifesto pledge.

Not for the faint-hearted, Land Girls – many of whom had come from cities – worked long hours in all weather while milking cows, ploughing fields, and catching vermin for £1.85 a week.

Kirkgate Bar was hallowed student haunt in 1970s Aberdeen

But fast forward a few decades when the dark clouds of war had passed, our archives show happy days of summer fun in Aberdeen.

Who can forget school sports days when the reward for competing in classic competitions like the sack race was a bottle of Moray Cup?

Or a trip to the Washington Cafe for an ice-cream – perhaps a twin cone if you were lucky.

1978: Alistair Hutcheson and student Bill Taylor hold the new exhibit at the Kirkgate Bar. The plaque was a petition from regulars to stop the new owners making changes to their beloved student drinking howff. Regular Bill Taylor proved to the new owners that he and his fellow drinkers liked the bar as it was. Image: DC Thomson

Elsewhere, an Aberdeen student was so devoted to his favourite watering hole – the Kirkgate Bar on Upperkirkgate – that he gathered 500 petitions to present to the new owners.

The bar was only a stone’s throw from Marischal College which was still part of Aberdeen University at that time. Therefore it was a convenient haunt for students.

Bill Taylor created the plaque as a form of guarantee to the regulars of the Kirkgate Bar that although their local was to get a face lift, it was not to lose its original character.

Luckily the KGB is still an Aberdeen institution all these years later.

Although it’s likely the interior has changed a bit since 1978.