Based on a True Story
Here is where you’ll find all the real accounts of the lives of characters which inspired the books The Crescent and The End of The Crescent. Explore excerpts from newspaper articles telling the stories of arrests, stabbings and court witnesses.
Find out what happened to Mary Ann and how her life unfolded throughout the hard times of 1900s Dundee. What really happened on Little John Street, what did the police say and how were dramatic events reported back in the day?
Dive into history by viewing newspaper articles of lost Dundee to learn first hand about the dramatic moments mentioned in books.
Travel Back in Time
Explore a selection of images of Dundee to understand what life was really like for the real people mentioned in the books.
You'll see examples of the living conditions of the homes of real Dundonians, the jute mill workers and the kettle bilers and how many of the children went bare-foot and lived in poverty. You'll see how the industrial city once looked and you'll find images of the suffragettes, Winston Churchill, Black Watch soldiers and key locations mentioned in the book
Journey back in time to see Dundee the way it really was.
The Crescent (2021)
Life in Old Dundee
The Crescent is based on a true story of real Dundonians who lived at the turn of the 20th Century. With the impending war in South Africa and rife unemployment, the men, also known as "Kettle Bilers", had nowhere else to turn but to enlist in the Black Watch or face a life of poverty.
Meanwhile, for the women of Dundee, they faced challenging working conditions in the Jute Mills. While at home, they carried the burden of providing for their large families; struggling with ill health, violence and alcoholism at home.
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The End of The Crescent (2022)
The Sequel
The story begins where The Crescent ends. The people of Dundee who were used to poverty and hardship, were facing another war with Germany and in many ways, a second world war was preferable to life on the broo. As war descends on Europe and rages on, life in Dundee changes dramatically to cope with the dangers of being bombed and invaded by a ruthless enemy. For many Dundee men though, they were turned into fighting soldiers who were asked to sacrifice their lives at St. Valery in the aftermath of the disaster of Dunkirk. Their wives and bairns knew nothing of their struggle as the POW’s were forced to march through France unless escape was an option.
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