Ian Sandison recalls a particularly seedy dive in Aberdeen's Constitution Street in the 1960s. He and his wife Jean had rooms around the corner from this establishment which seems to have housed the 'Rab C Nesbits' of their day:
Of all places in the whole wide world we got rooms, two rooms down in Constitution Street. Now, Constitution Street is rough, tough and ragged. There was a place around the corner which now no longer exists, called the Penny Hing, now for folks that dinna ken anything about the Penny Hing, the Penny Hing was literally a bar where down and outers paid a penny and slept hinging on the bar. So there wis winos and aa the funny guys, ye were actually accosted in the street, and ‘Gies the the price o a bottle of wine’, which is true. So that was an experience. Jean, she took a job, paid the princely sum of £2.10/- which paid for the two rooms for the week’s rent. We hated it, loathed it, because we are both country folk. Every Friday, it was Mealmarket Street, doon to the bus, Strichen one weekend and Methlick the next. We couldna bide in the place!
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