Happy New Year 2007

Hello everyone, and a Very Happy New Year to All.

I'm sorry it's taking so long to continue with the story, but since my last post here I had a bit of a relapse in that I haven't been feeling the best. But then again it's that kind of weather here in Ireland, the kind where it seems everyone has colds and sniffles of some kind. As well as that the doc did tell me that it would be about 6 weeks before I'd be back to my old self again, so I'm trying to be patient (no pun intended :-)

But all of this has given me a lot of time to do some thinking and remembering and that has resulted in more stories that I have yet to tell.

Then too, just the other morning I was taking a short walk and met an old schoolfriend. Philly and me started primary school in Rutland Street on the same day, we were in the same classes and had the same teachers. Back then you had to have a 'partner' in school (think it was to make it easier for the teachers to keep us under control) and anywhere you went either in the school, in the playground, or on outings to the local church you had to hold hands with your partner. Philly was my 'partner' in school.

Anyway, Philly and me (should that be Philly and I? My grammar was always the pits) got to chatting after greeting and wishing each other the compliments of the Season. We must have looked like two lunatics standing there in the biting wind chatting like two old..... (oops better not say that or I'd be in trouble with the wimmin :-) We were on a trip down memory lane and didn't notice the weather as we remembered the good days and the bad ones. That chat with Philly has reminded me of things I had almost forgotten, and later I'll be talking about them here. Thanks Philly, may ya never want!

As we parted I said to Philly, "As I remember the things we got up to I wonder how come we managed to stay outta REAL trouble at all?" Philly's answer was a good one. "We caused our share of mayhem.... but we never actually hurt anyone." Maybe THAT'S why our memories are all mainly good ones.

On that note I'll take my leave for now and I look forward to getting back to the writing. Remember where we left off? I have to tell you about how we kids settled a score with a man, a loan shark, who made my mother cry. Coming soon.

Just a note to my loyal friends......

Hello all! :-)

I feel I must thank everyone who dropped in here while I was away and kept the blog going just by your presence alone. I knew you were dropping in because at first the reason I wasn't able to keep the blog up-to-date was because I didn't have a working computer, but I was able from time to time to look in on the site anyway from a friends's house.

I must say that it was truly heartening to see that people, and you my friends in particular, were dropping in, even while you knew that I wasn't keeping the blog as up to date as I should have been. This is true loyalty! You know who you are, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your belief in me and for your friendship.

Then I had the computer fixed and up and running again. But still my being able to continue the story was frustrated because I became ill. At first I put it down to tiredness, lack of interest. Yet I knew I wasn't not writing through lack of interest because I really and truly enjoy sharing my stories. In a nutshell I felt pretty much... or rather that should be pretty NOT much myself :-)

So then one evening I discovered that my breathing apparatus seemed to be packing up. Scary business! If I made the smallest effort I felt as if I'd ran a marathon and was breathing like a bull.

I did the usual (bad) thing. I figured if you ignore it it will go away. It didn't.

So at last the breathing just seemed to stop! Yep, just like that. To say it gave me a fright would be to greatly understate it. I called my son (Jimmy the Paramedic.... sounds like a Mafia name that doesn't it?.... Like Jimmy the Fish.... ahh you know what I mean :-) in the middle of the night and asked him if I might have pneumonia or something. He gave me the advice that I should have had the good sense not to need anyway.... he told me there were no short cuts.... I had to see the doc and get properly checked out.

So next morning (I was a bit surprised to actually make it to the next morning) I called the doc and told her that either she see me now or else send an ambulance to take me to hospital. (That was just me doing my panic bit) and she replied that if I came to her now she'd see me immediately. I told her I could hardly walk. She insisted. She's so nice.

To make this long story short I did make it to the doc's office and she had a listen to my breathing (almost non existant), heart and so on. Then she said the words that every hypochondriac wants to hear. "Okay, you're bad, but not as bad as you think. Lungs a bit tight (a BIT? I thought they'd shrunk and disappeared!), so lets go in here and see what we can do."

Off we went to a different office and she placed one of those jet pilots face masks over my face, and told me to breathe normally. (Missus, if I could breather normally I wouldn't be here!) But I tried anyway.... and in minutes I was so relaxed that I almost fell asleep. God bless whoever invented oxygen! The doc left me in charge of a rather pretty and chatty nurse and off she went saying she'd be back soon. Funny how a pretty nurse can take your mind off what you believe may be your imminent departure from this vale of tears. Few minutes later the doc came back, put some stuff into the face mask and in a matter of moments I was breathing like a kid again. I swear, I sort of shuffled into that surgery like a man in chains, and after my treatment I walked out like a soldier on duty! Amazin' what they can do these days.

Bottom line (hah... I know who's saying now "Awww thank gawd, I thought he was never going to shut up!") is I had some kind of lung infection, a chest infection just for good measure, and my first ever asthmatic attack.... all at once.

Well the good news is I'm on the road to recovery. At the mo I'm still a bit under the weather but I suppose that's to be expected. I'm taking so many pills that if I jumped now I'd rattle.

And the even better news is that I'll be continuing the story very soon.... just as soon as the doc tells me I'm free of whatever it was that made me ill in the first place.

So till then, and I hope this will be very, very soon. I want to say a huge heartfelt thank you to all of my friends who never gave up on me. You're the best!

Soon.

Remembering today.......

Our Ma who went to her reward on this day. 2nd July 1979 Aged 52 years..


On the wings of a memory we see a vision of you there,with a smile in your eyes, heaven's light in your hair.

We feel your presence on the wind we smell you on the rain,

And the memory of your laughter eases all pain.

To see that wonderful little grin on your face,

To have your smile light up even the darkest place.

If it were possible, we'd pray you back home with the dawn,

But Ma, on the wings of our memories you're not really gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ma. You fought the brave fight and were valiant.


Thank you for your love. Thank you for being our Ma.


Remembering you today, Ma... and for always.

Jim ~ Tony ~ Marie ~ Chris ~ Ellen ~ Paul

The Turf Depot

Returning to the Turf Depot, here's a different view of it above. To see a bigger photo click on this one.

Here we see it from the opposite end from the last photo. To help us get our bearings here, the photographer would be standing with his back to The 27 Steps. Slightly to the left (out of picture) would be the back of our old flat as seen in another, earlier photo. This picture looks like it was taken in the early morning or else shorly after a delivery of turf, because normally that weighing scale you can see was just inside the door, and so was the pile of turf. While the turf was lying outside like this, people hoped it wouldn't rain because wet turf was nearly impossible to burn. I remember how my parents used to make little piles of wet turf either side of the fireplace in an attempt to get it dry. If they made little piles of turf sods on the hobs either side of a blazing fire I used to sit there staring at the drying sods because they'd scorch and the tiny loose hairy bits used to catch fire and this used to remind me of the Christmas lights downtown. Funny the things that stick in your mind.

As can be seen in the photo that little girl is waiting for her turf to be weighed. She has a small baby walker (we called them go cars) and it was on this little car that she'd have struggled home with her 8 stone sack of turf. Sometimes, if there was a decent man working the scales and you didn't have a sack (a sack was compulsory) he'd tip the scales so that your turf allowance filled whatever mode of transport you happened to have. In this case the little girl has that small baby car which was never designed to carry 8 stones of weight, so as you can imagine baby cars didn't last very long from being used to carry home the turf. I've seen big expensive baby prams (prambulators) being used and the weight of the turf causing the wheels to buckle, and whoever was pushing it would wind up pushing and pulling in turns just to get that precious turf home safely.

But the turf was also a springboard to another money making little job. I've already mentioned that the standard payment for delivering a bag of turf was 1 shilling. Well as you couldn't carry much turf in a baby pram we made box carts so that we could carry more at one time, thereby saving on trips and increasing our earnings. These carts were made of wood and a pair of old pram wheels, or any kind of wheels we could get our hands on. The body of the cart was a simple wooden box, often made up of old orange or apple crates with two shafts for handles. These boxcarts were in great demand and if we could get enough scrap wood and some old wheels and made up some boxcars we could sell them. The going rate was whatever the market would take. On average this was between a half crown (two shillings and sixpence) and 4 shillings. So making boxcars was a good little earner. Of course they didn't carry any guarantee and if the cart happened to collapse while someone was taking home or delivering some bags of turf... tough luck. In that case we, (the manufacturers) either went into hiding for awhile or else we simply legged it and hoped we weren't caught. Ah well, some you win, some you lose. But we were diligent in making these carts so they seldom collapsed.... maintaining our good names as boxcar builders.

But in Summer it was a different story with the boxcars. Then they became chariots and the chariot races around Summerhill, and Gardiner and Sean McDermott Streets were legendary. The race in Ben Hur never even came close to the excitement of these races. A kid would stand between the shafts of the boxcar (the chariot!) and a piece of rope was strung over his shoulders, around his neck and back to someone sitting in the boxcar who was the driver. The driver had one important piece of equipment -- a whip! And that whip was used too!! Though I can't remember it ever really hurting. On race day the chariots would line up. The starter would harangue the drivers to get the carts into a proper line.... no cheating allowed... at least until after the race had started. Then he's signal the off and away we'd go! The ankles of innocent pedestrians were in dire peril while this race was in progress because the drivers threw all caution to the wind in the excitement of the race... and not a few of the cart wheels had spokes sticking out at all angles, so being a pedestrian on a race day was a perilous business. After the off no holds were barred. There weren't any rules! You could trip any kid between the shafts if you could manage to do that. Or if there happened to be a bit of turf or coal, or even a few stones in the body of the boxcar then these made good throwing weapons to be used against other charioteers. There was no prize for winning except the right to brag about how well you done in the race. And you got a lot of mileage out of these bragging sessions, and naturally as each story was told it was gilded slightly until by the time it had been told a few times the race became an epic, and the winning team were heroes held in awe by their pals.

Next time I want to talk a bit about the time a man (a moneylender) made my mother cry and how we, my friends Paddy, Seanie, Jimmy and myself avenged her. And the lane in the photo above was where it happened.

But as I say, that's a story for next time... and coming up too a story about the junction of Parnell Street, Summerhill, Gardiner Street and Middle Gardiner Street... known to the older folk at that time as The Four Corners of Hell.

Drop in again soon.... some good stories coming up.

Marie's memories.

"Well, let me start by saying I don’t feel very comfortable looking at the back of the flat in Gardiner Street. I don’t know why that is but it just makes me feel a bit sick or something like that. Looking at the front is not too bad why that is I don’t know, maybe because when I look at the front you didn't see as many poor people as in the back.

In the front all types of people walked up and down the street rich and poor but the back seems to have a lot to say for itself.... when you looked out our back window you would see all the people in a queue for the turf. Kids as young as 4 or 5 going for the turf and the old people all waiting to get their turf to get a fire going. I remember one time going there I think it was with me Granny and she had me rushing with her to the turf depot she said if we did not get there soon all the turf would be gone and we would have no fire and we would be cold.

Thinking back it was very depressing place and the people did not look much better and then having to push that pram back with the turf. God it was awful but it made us strong in heart and mind. I remember thinking to myself will it always be like this if so then I would be better off dead and I was only a kid thinking like that. But that was in the winter.... god the winter was bitter cold!

But when the summer came that was great. Ma and Da would take us out somewhere maybe to Sandymount beach. Ma loved that beach she always talked about it I remember one time in the summer Ma, Da and me were walking down Summerhill I think it was in 'Jon's' (shop) Ma got me a paper umbrella and when I came out of the shop I put it up to keep the sun off my head. I thought I was like one of the ladies in the films and as we walked along a big man pushed past us and my umbrella got torn. Well did I cry! I cried my eyes out and the man just kept on walking. Ma was near to tears because I was crying so much, Da said, "Ccome on I will get you something else." I'm still waiting for the something else sure they did not have much money.

But come Sunday we always got that coconut cake for tea it was great when Ma would slice it up and shared it around us all, even the crumbs were lovely. I can still taste it now ah that was the good times when Da was working when he was lucky to get a job.

Now about the marble. I think it was a blue one and Tony and myself were playing at the table with marbles and I said to Tony, "I dare you to swallow that". Of course he said "No" so I made him swallow it! Mam and Da did not notice what I was doing because they where talking and us kids were playing. Little did they know that their little girl was up to mischief but the funny part was to come when I told them Tony swallowed the marble! The next I knew was Da's friend standing in the room with a knife down his belt Tony looked at me and we both thought the man was going to cut open Tony to find the marble, but no Tony was taken off to the hospital we are still waiting for that marble to come out of Tony's belly but that was fun.

I used to make Tony do some bad things. Like we would go over to my Aunt Bridie in Summerhill and she was out of hospital at the time she had TB and she had to take a lot of tablets. When Tony and me seen the tablets we thought they looked nice... we thought they were sweets. But there was one tablet I thought looked the best. Now we were always told not to touch anything in that drawer so to cut a long story short I said to Tony, "You eat one of them pink sweets and if you eat it then I will eat one too." So he did and I waited to see what he thought of it then I ate one and it was nice and nothing happened to us. So every time we went over to Bridie's we had a pink sweet when no one was looking the taste was lovely..yes I was a little devil........ "

Marie.

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Well that was a great sharing of memories from Marie. I played no part in helping either Tony or Marie with these memories, I wanted to see what they'd come up with without any prompting from me, and I'm glad I did. I include their memories of Gardiner Street just as they wrote them, all I did was run it through a spell checker. I was laughing as I read how Marie nearly poisoned me poor little brother. She was (and is) a holy terror.

I'm glad Marie introduced us to the Turf Depot. As you can gather from what she says it was a miserable place. Back then, during Winter, men on the dole and old-age pensioners were given a voucher once a week. The voucher entitled you to collect, at your own expense, an 8 stone bag of turf to be used as fuel for your fire. If times were really hard you could sell the voucher for 1 shilling, and there was always someone who would buy it. A shilling would be worth close to 5 Euros now -- I've compared things I could buy back then for a shilling to how much they'd cost now.

I'll have a lot to say about the turf and the depots in a later post. For now I'll just try to explain the picture above. The picture was taken on a snowy day sometime in the late 50's or early 60's. If we looked out of the back window that you saw in an earlier photo, and looked slightly to the left we were looking down on the roof of the depot. The picture was taken from the lane beside our flat in Gardiner Street, looking towards the back of Rutland Street School. If that smallish block of flats weren't there you'd be able to see the school. To the left you can see the backs of the houses along Summerhill, and that slope that you can see is The 27 Steps leading from Summerhill to The Diamond. To the right and slightly out of picture is The Diamond and if you could look to the right you would also see the back of Nannie's street (Sean McDermott Street). The pram was those kids transport for lugging home the 8 stone sack of turf.

Marie also made mention of Jon's. This was a shop on Summerhill. Jon's was one of those shops that seemed to sell everything. You could buy sweets, toys and even some cheap jewellery which was grand as I used to buy my present there for Ma on Mother's Day. Jon's also played a part in my rather short-lived career as a criminal.

But you don't want to hear all that now... enjoy Marie's memories first.

Do drop back... there's a lot of stories, sad and funny yet to be told. This could go on for a very long time, so I hope you dear reader have lots of patience.

Soon. And thanks again Marie.