A visitor from Norway recently visited Caird House to rekindle childhood memories from the second world war.
Caird House has had many different occupants, even in recent years as a university building, but university and local historians alike will be intrigued to discover that Caird House was used as a club for Norwegian nationals during the second world war.
The Victorian Perth Road building was a gathering place for those who had escaped occupied Norway and had taken refuge in Scotland. The club was run by a couple called Pedersen who endured a two day stormy boat trip from Norway, landed at Lerwick and made a temporary home in Dundee. They adopted two orphans from the London air raids and left Dundee to return to Norway when the young boy Tony was five years old. A much older Tony recently visited Caird House to rekindle young memories of a boyhood in Scotland.
The Pedersens were friends with the parents of local woman Sheila Marshall who, although she was very young, recalls the wartime days in Caird House. "There were three flying boat squads, submarines and minesweepers based in Fife who had hundreds of Norsemen among their men. They used to congregate in Caird House during their extradition." She explains: "One of Tony Pedersen’s first memories was in Caird House so it was lovely that he made the trip from Stavanger to Scotland in November to rekindle memories."