My name is Murray and I’m a proud Dundonian. And no, these last two words are not a contradiction in terms.

As a son of the city who moved away for reasons of employment 30 years ago, it became clear fellow Scots regarded my hometown as not quite the a***hole of the empire but certainly the butt of jokes.

What do you get when you pour boiling water over a Dundonian? A new flavour of pot noodle (aye, thanks Glaswegian comic Jerry Sadowitz).

And it wasn’t just outsiders taking the proverbial. Even for generations of Dundonians, the city’s biggest critics tended to be Dundonians themselves.

This is, in part, explained by the multiple body blows suffered by the city's economy, including the demise of two of the much-vaunted three Js; jam making and jute spinning. The third of the city's iconic trio, journalism, appears to be in rude enough health.

Dundee jute may have covered the wagon trains that colonised most of America but even slave wages in the city mills couldn’t withstand Calcutta’s challenge for the title jutopolis. And with that industry in decline, the days of Dundee’s whaling fleet – whale oil was used to soften the fibrous raw material – was also numbered.

More recently, other totemic employers like cash machine makers NCR have embarked on cataclysmic downsizing, while others like Levi jeans, watchmakers Timex and shipbuilding went the way of the dodo.

Some of the wounds have been more self-inflicted, like short-sighted insistence over a single trades union deal that killed car giant Ford’s plan to build a components factory in the 80s, depriving the city of scarce manufacturing jobs.

And never forget the blatant acts of civic destruction – fuelled by wanton corruption – perpetrated in the middle decades of last century. Where Edinburgh protected the old town and Glasgow maintained many facades of its grandest architecture, Dundee’s city fathers levelled so many buildings of character amid infamous brown envelope scandals.

Imagine, if you will, going back in time and taking a daunder for a mile or two down the old Wellgate steps, along the Murraygate, on to the Overgate, up the Blackie (Blackness) and doon the Hackie (Hawkhill). If you’ve seen the Harry Potter movies, you’ve just walked through Diagon Alley. Yes, the frontage of old Dundee was so inspiringly quaint that Warner Brothers built a theme park in its image.

Considering all that and more, it’s forgivable the city suffered a crisis of confidence.

But that was then, this is now and Dundonians have discovered a confident swagger. There is much to be optimistic about. Dundee is obscenely youthful. It has one of the highest student ratios of any British city, thanks to its two universities.

It’s at the forefront of the gaming industry and, with a fair wind, the ground-breaking research in the city’s life sciences sector may provide humanity with a cure for, amongst other things, cancer.

Dundee and its people are friendly and welcoming and the city boasts the finest riverfront in Britain.

To appreciate what city living has to offer, take a trip to the top of The Law, the conical hill that dominates the skyline. Look north to the Sidlaws, the range of hills that stand sentinel over the city. Just beyond are the beautiful Angus Glens and the winter playgrounds of The Cairngorms.

Look to the east and bask in the full majesty of the Tay estuary, flanked on opposite banks by Carnoustie’s golf course at Barry Links and the Fife nature reserve of Tentsmuir and Kinshaldy Beach. A trip to Broughty Ferry, just 10 minutes by car from the centre, might reward you with the sight of bottlenose dolphins and seals at play in the surf. If not, console yourself with a pint in many of the welcoming howfs (my favs are The Ship Inn and Fisherman’s Tavern).

If you’re atop The Law in the evening, cast your gaze west for breathtaking sunsets that blaze like a furnace over the platinum and gold of the River Tay as it meanders through the Carse of Gowrie and Perthshire. Dundee is blessed with the most yearly hours of sunshine of any British city. Sunny Dee, indeed.

Now look due south to Fife. St Andrews is 14 miles away straight across the road bridge and the East Neuk villages of Crail and Anstruther another 10 miles or so further.

Look right and witness, between the spans of the rail bridge, the broken-tooth pillars of the ill-fated first bridge, a bleak testament to that catastrophic storm 140 years ago next year.

Now look down. Spread before you nestles the city centre, not the one devastated by the myopic corruption of last century where the town was cut off from its riverside heritage.

Gone is the high-rise concrete monstrosity of Tayside House, the 18-story brutalist council HQ. In it’s place are up-market hotels, thronging pubs, restaurants, wine bars and civic spaces for open air events.

And at its centre the V&A, the catalyst for transformation in this £1billion Waterfront Project.

That a city so crippled by low self-esteem has been pulling itself up by the bootstraps long before the V&A opens gives me great confidence this is merely another step on the road of Dundee’s revival.

The city’s rich heritage is being combined with stimulating, contagious optimism. Dundee’s swagger is as tangible as the concrete walls forming the museum’s already iconic building.

A significant nod to that heritage sits alongside the V&A. The RRS Discovery, the ship Captain Scott sailed to the Antarctic, is docked just a few hundred yards from where she was first launched in 1901.

I left the City of Discovery more years ago than I care to count and absence makes the heart grow fonder but one of the best things about living away is returning home to witness this reawakening.

It has taken too long but finally Dundonians are rediscovering what I have been preaching for years: Our home town is pretty damn special.

So I say it loud: I’m Dundonian and proud.