LOCAL SHOPPING
Before the big supermarkets in Dundee and Forfar opened Tealing had it's own fair share of small local shops. Mrs Wilkie's house and shop (now demolished) was built in 1924 and for the next decade was the first house on the Dundee/Forfar Road after the Mains Toll House. Mrs McFarlane at No. 8 Holding ran a sweetie and lemonade shop and the Smiths at Woodside also had a small shop. At one point, long ago, there was even a chip shop in Tealing, ran by Mr Mudie on the Newbigging Road. There was for a while two post offices - at Inveraldie, where the pub now is, and at the Tealing Post Office and General Store run by Mr & Mrs Todd at Balgray, across from the old Tealing Hall.
There had been a post office at the second site for 100 years. The entry in the Forfarshire Directory of 1887/88 said "Post Office, Balgray, Tealing - William Marr Postmaster. Letters arrive at 9.00am and are despatched at 2.30pm. The nearest money-order office is in Dundee".
Jack and Florrie Todd ran the post office for 21 years until it closed in February 1976. The Evening Telegraph reported at the time "it has the typical rural versatility, somehow finding space for ginger beer and boiled ham, spanners, hammers and electric lamps, cakes and biscuits. At one time Mrs Todd ran her own teashop, with freshly-laundered tablecloths, butter and jam in round glass dishes, table knives and home made scones and shortie, often freshly hot from the oven. And delight of delights - real flowers in vases.
En route from Glamis, the little princesses Elizabeth and Margaret are reputed to have called at the village shoppie for the purchase of chocolate and sweets. For special parties Toddy's teashop could put on morning coffee, lunch and high tea. But business was too erratic, dead in winter and so busy in summer with berry-pickers and weekend tourists that the Todd family ran the risk of exhaustion. It's sad news for city ramblers and walkers across the Sidlaw Hills that the persistent door-bell on the store will sound its last knell".
When the post office in the room behind the Inveraldie Inn closed, Colin Paton opened a sub-post office in his yard. It continued for a further seven years until it became part of the petrol station on the A90. That petrol station, and the post office within it, closed just two years later. When the current Club petrol station opened they wanted to run the sub-post office again, but this was ruled against on the basis that the users would have to cross the A90 on foot and this should not be encouraged.