The Diamond

And so we move on... but just a few feet from our last photo. If you could just look 6 feet to the right of this photo you'd see the bell that I mentioned below... the one I was beaten up for, for hitting it with a pebble. In fact that small piece of wasteground that you see on the extreme right is part of the chapel yard... only thing missing is the railing that you can see in the other photo.

If you look up that street that's partly in shadow you can see the back of Summerhill. And if you look even more closely you'll see the top of the arch which was at the top of The 27 Steps. The wall that you can see coming down from that arch wasn't there when I was a kid. If this photo had been taken when I was small you'd have also seen the pigeon 'lofts' hanging from the windows on Summerhill. Pigeon keeping and racing was a big thing then, and the 'lofts' were made of wooden orange boxes.

But lets move back a bit. The street that's partly in shadow is Nth Gloucester Place, better known as The Diamond. We moved from 12 Summerhill when I was very small to No 7a in The Diamond. It was luxury compared to Summerhill. Only four families shared the washing and toilet facilities! As can be seen they're 2 story buildings and we lived on the top story. The toilet and sink were down at the back door. We had a wash stand in our flat. One of those tables with a hole in it which held a basin and beside the basin there stood a tall jug holding water. That jug served three purposes, holding water for washing, for drinking and for cooking.

My brother Tony was born in that flat... it's the one about half way along in the photo... at the second lamp post. I remember that night well. I was lying in bed and my father woke me and placed this bundle beside me and said, "Here's your new brother." I was mystified! I wondered where did he come from!! I asked... and was told that "The Vincents" (see an earlier reference to the Society of St Vincent de Paul) had brought him. So as they seemed to bring everything else, that explanation satisfied me.

This was a very tough area. I remember big fights, very serious fights which sometimes involved the use of guns, and the threat to burn out families. This was because of gang warfare on the nearby quays due to a struggle for power there, connected with the docks and shipping. It would be a long story indeed if I was to go into all of it here. But if you ever saw a movie called "On The Waterfront" with Marlon Brando, that would be very close to what went on. I remember nights when our parents would take us in a hurry out of our home and up the 27 Steps to either my Aunt Mary's or my Gran's to safety when trouble broke out. I have a very clear memory of a man who I shall not name, but who was a veteran of the Rebellion, standing outside of our halldoor with a revolver in his hand and calling to the police to send their bravest man to arrest him. Tough times indeed... and tough people. But the salt of the earth!

If you look along now to the left of the photo you'll see part of Sean McDermott Street. If you were to walk through that first door with the arched fanlight over it you'd be walking into the home of my Aunt Nanny and her husband Willy. That's their front window to the right of the door. Further along that street lived some famous boxers, 'Blinky' Gifford, 'Spike McCormick' and 'Blackman' Doyle, among others. Since the photo was taken a new street has been built there, it's called Champions Avenue, after those well known (at that time) boxers.

Chris mentioned winkles in the chatterboard and I said I'd talk about them when I arrived here. If you look directly ahead you can't miss The Diamond Bar, and next door was Boland's Bakery... a cake shop where you could buy the Snowcake that Marie mentioned... and even a glass of milk to go along with it.... delicious!

But to the winkles. My Ma and my Gran sold winkles from a breadboard that was rested across an old pram, from outside the pub. The winkles were collected the day before from an area known as The Sloblands. This area was in fact a lovely area. If you look at any map of Dublin, find Fairview Park (just beyond the North Strand) and as soon as you passed the park going towards Clontarf you came to The Sloblands. It's all filled in now and built over, but it was a small inlet of Dublin Bay back then. As the tide went out it left behind rock pools and it was here that the winkles were collected. You could pick them off the rocks, but it was said that the bigger (and juicier) ones were under the rocks, so rocks were moved to get to the bigger winkles. I'll show a photo of winkles in awhile. But for now, the winkles were collected and brought home in any bags that were available.... a sack... shopping bags... anything.... and you smelled all the way home! I remember my Ma and Dad washing the winkles and steeping them overnight in salty water. Then they were tipped into the biggest pot available and boiled well.... then kept simmering just on the boil overnight. Next day a pint glass was brought out (winkles were sold by the pint) and after all of the water had been drained off, the winkles were placed in a large basin. Old newspapers were then procured and off my Ma and Gran (and many of the other neighbours did the same) headed with the pram, the breadboard and the winkles to a spot outside of the pub. As people came to buy them (I think it was 3 pence for a half pint and 6 pence for a pint) a page of a newspaper was shaped into a sort of cone and the winkles poured in. If the buyer wanted a pin that was a bit extra, but most people had pins of their own anyway, pins were a necessary accessory to hold some torn clothing together. If the winkles were still warm they were in even better demand than cold ones.

You held the winkle in one hand between the thumb and forefinger, and using the pin you first flipped off 'the scab', and then you pierced the winkle's head with the pin and very gently (so as not to break it) twisted it out of the shell and straight into your mouth.

What did a winkle look and taste like? It looked like a semi solid green snot (sorry, can't think of a better description) and probably had the same consistency, and it tasted salty.... but it went down so quickly that it's hard to say what it actually tasted like. But they must have been nice because we loved them. Though I doubt of I'd eat one now.

Well, I think that's enough for now.... so until we move a bit further along in the old neighbourhood.... think of winkles.

More soon.

The Tin Chapel

Leaving the school behind (but not too far -- it can still be seen in the background here) we come to Our Lady of Lourdes church.... or as it was known to everyone, the Tin Chapel. It's easy to understand why it was known by that name, you see it was tin... or corrugated steel. It was made of some kind of metal anyway.

Liz's brother, Mikey served here as an altar boy, and it was here that I was christened and made my first communion. It was from here too that many of our relatives who passed on were laid before their burials. I was married in the chapel that replaced the one you see above. But they're other stories for another time.

I made mention to our 'Great Escapes' from school earlier. Well here's how mass escapes were accomplished. Every First Friday we were brought from the school to the chapel to have our confessions heard (it's a wonder the priest never called the police because of some of the things he must have heard). The teachers (the male teachers were called Masters) used to line us up two abreast and off we'd go like a troop of little soldiers... the teacher of each class at the head of the column. Now you can't quite see it clearly in the picture, but almost from the bottom of Rutland Street as far as the chapel was all waste ground, grassy and bumpy. So as the little columns progressed on their way to the chapel the teacher would look around and call on us to keep up. But he or she never took much notice of the kids at the back of the column... we were the kids who were also put to the back of the class for one misdeanour or another. As we walked along we used to dare each other to make a break for it across the wasteground. Of course a dare was a call on your courage and was never turned down. So by the time the head of the column reached the chapel door, the tail of the column was invariably gone! Legged it.... the great escape! Of course we always paid in the end by taking a caning at school next day, but that little adventure was well worth it. After escaping we'd head off to the Dinner House around in Buckingham Street. This was a place, run by nuns, that the poor could go to for a cheap dinner (it cost a penny, or free if you had a voucher from the local priest) and I think all of the expectant mothers in the area used to go there too. But we went there just to get our gur cake. The nuns used to make these huge slabs of cake (we knew it as gur cake) and cut squares out of it, one of which alone would leave you feeling full... god knows what it was made of. Surprisingly, the nuns never asked us why we weren't at school, or if they ever did we'd say "Me mammy is sick, sister." and that was good enough for her.. we'd get our square of gur cake, and enjoy the rest of the day off from school, with full bellies.

A few things come to mind when I think of the Tin Chapel.

One is my first confession. We told the other kids that the priest was a bit deaf and some of them believed us. And so, sitting outside in the pew beside the confession box we were able to listen in on some juicy confessions... yes even for 7 year old kids. I remember we heard one kid confessing that he'd stole a ball. He was given a pasting afterwards by a kid who'd had a ball stolen!

Another memory is the Crib at Christmas. We used to go to the chapel just to look at it, to see the almost life-sized figures in the Crib and how it was all lit up in a dark part of the chapel. One year there was a big commotion in teh area.... someone had stolen the donkey from the crib! As far as I know it was never recovered and the word on the street was that it had been pawned. It probably was too.

But one memory is a painful one. You can't see the chapel bell in the photo. It was just to the right out of the picture. It hung from a sort of metal scaffold. One day I was walking through the chapel yard (we used to squeeze through the railings -- more fun than using the gate) and I picked up a pebble from the ground and threw it at the bell. The bell gave off a nice little 'ping' when the pebble struck it... but what I didn't know was that I was being watched by Mr Leslie the man who looked after the chapel. Next day I was sitting at my desk in school when in walked Mr Leslie. He and the master whispered and then Leslie pointed at me and that was it..... judged, found guilty and condemned all by that pointing finger. I received six strokes of the cane on each hand, and these were applied with a vengence because most of them caught the tips of my fingers which was the most painful place to be whacked by the cane. I remember the anger on the master's face and how he seemed to actually bounce while he was swinging the cane.... and all because a kid threw a pebble at a bell!

The Tin Chapel had an organ in the balcony at the back of the church. We kids used to sit on the steps leading to the balcony, and some used to be asked to help pump the organ. (The steps were a good place to have a smoke where no one could see you) The organ was pumped by a kind of bellows which had a sort of leather bag between two shafts. It took up to four kids to keep that bellows going. But one Sunday a kid who was pumping it was having his smoke at the same time. The tip of his cigarette somehow burned a tiny hole in the leather and next time they pressed down on the shafts a loud pharppp sound could be heard all over the chapel. Yes you've guessed what it sounded like! Then you could hear people tittering in the chapel and the priest was standing there on the altar with a face like puce! Order was restored, or should that read piety was restored eventually.... and the kid who caused all of the jollity, not surprisingly I suppose, was never asked to pump the organ again.

More soon......

Just a snippet from an email.

A lady who visited this blog wrote to me to tell me that she lived in the area that I'm writing about and that now she's taking an adult literacy course -- I think that shows how little education so many of us received at the school I'm writing about at the moment. But I must say that I also know some people who went on to make real careers for themselves later in life, so maybe it was just a few of us had the wrong teachers.

I should explain a word or two that the lady uses below. She speaks about 'scutting'. This was a 'game' we all played. A very dangerous game! It involved jumping onto the back or sometimes the side of a moving bus or truck and hanging on until the vehicle eventually stopped or slowed down enough for you to jump off. I remember one of my pals having to walk home for over 20 miles because the bus he'd jumped on one night didn't stop or slow down till it reached a village well outside of Dublin.

The other word she mentions is the 'buildings'. The Buildings, as they were known, were two blocks of flats facing each other in Corporation Street. They were sort of self enclosed with large iron gates at one end. The police seldom ventured in there because if they did the gates would be closed by the tenants and the police pelted with all kinds of missiles from the balconies. Think of a movie where you saw Alcatraz prison, and the tiers of cells with the railing running along the edge, but without the roof. Yes, and even the apartments themselves were about the size of those cells, yet whole families were raised in them. That's The Buildings. Pulled down now, thankfully. But good and very nice people lived there too. My next door neighbour was born there.

Anyway, here in part is what the lady wrote.
-----------------------------------------------

I was kind of Miss Doran’s favourite and she put me in charge of the class one
day.

I had a plaster cast on my arm after a lorry went over it while I was
scutting. I was showing off with the plaster, looking for order and attention in
the class by banging the arm off the desk and the plaster cracked.

Another time in Rutland Street School, I was sending a love letter to Harry Bradley in the
boys’ school, which was separated from the girls’ school by a tin gate, when
Miss Piggot caught me. She made me and my cousin Jean go all around the boys’
school, reading the letter to all the classes. Well, we felt like proper
idiots.

In the buildings, I remember my granny got a coin-slot television.
I think it was two hours you got for two shillings then. When the two shillings
went you couldbe in the middle of a thriller. Boris Karloff was on a lot and the
television would often go in the middle of it and we wouldn’t have two shillings
to watch the end.When the news came on, with Charles Mitchell reading it, if my
grandmotherwent to the toilet, one of us would have to stand in front of the
television. “I don’t want him seeing me going to the toilet,” she’d say. “He’s a
nosy gett!"
-----------------------------

She mentions Miss Piggot. If you've ever heard of the Oscar-winning animated movie, "Give Up Yer Oul Sins", Miss Piggot was one of those responsible for helping to get that movie made. The kids in it were recorded as they related their stories as they'd learned them from their teacher. The kids are all Rutland Street kids and the sound on the movie was recorded in one of the classrooms in the school over 40 years ago. See it of you can, or even get the sound CD, it's very funny.

The Schoolyard

This is the best photo I could find of the schoolyard at the back of Rutland Street School. That yard has changed very little since I was there as a kid. Some of the changes are the arches that you can see. They weren't bricked up as they are here. We used to play under those arches, mostly when it rained. And the only part of the yard that was concreted was under the arches. The rest of the yard was gravel... so if a child fell it usually meant badly grazed knees. We came down to the yard via a steep flight of steel stairs, and out into the yard which was about 150 feet long and completely surrounded by a high wall (about 15 feet high) topped by strings of barbed wire. Think of a prison yard and you'll be very close.

The toilets were in the yard too, and open to the elements. So if you needed to use the toilet it could be very uncomfortable in wet weather, and especially in frosty weather.

There was also a wall, not visible in the photo, which separated the boys yard from the girls one. Back then, at least in that parish anyway, boys and girls were strictly segregated in school.... and even at church. In fact men and women had to sit in different sides of the local chapel too. I've often wondered what kind of mentality was working to make those rules.

Earlier (below) I spoke of punishments. Well the yard could be part of your punishment too. For instance I remember one kid who wet himself after being 'awarded' twelve strokes of the cane, six on each hand. The whole class (about 40 of us) were brought down to the yard and paraded like soldiers. The kid who had wet himself was brought out, the teacher stood him before us and we were encouraged to jeer and laugh at him. Other punishments as far as the yard is concerned were kids being made to stand in the yard on a frosty day. I'm talking about kids, many of who didn't even own a coat to keep them warm.

So I have happy memories of that school? Yes I do. One is an amusing one. I had a female teacher at the time I'm thinking about and she used to sit on her table with her legs stretched across from her table and her feet on a front-row desk. Then she would call on us to come and polish her shoes. Those who were chosen to polish her shoes used to snigger while signalling the colour of her knickers to the rest of the class. I wonder did she know this, don't know how she couldn't have known. Other times she used to get us to pray that she'd meet a good husband. She never said whose. (Yes I'm smiling!) But I suppose my fondest memory is that of hearing the bell ring, the bell that signalled that we were free to leave... until the next day.

I said in an earlier entry that I'd speak more of our 'Great Escapes'. Well I'll be doing that shortly. So do drop back... there's more to come.

School

This is Rutland Street School. My first school, but then again I only went to two, finishing my education at age 14 years. (That's part of Summerhill at the top of the street)

This school, as I mentioned below, was known by the pupils as The Red Bricked Slaughterhouse. And well named it was too! Back then you could (and would) be beaten for something as simple as not knowing the solution to an easy sum. And it didn't mean just a slap on the hand. Oh no! All teachers carried a bamboo cane which was used by many of them on any part of your body. I remember seeing kids with red weals on their bare legs from having been lashed by one of the teachers with a cane. Some teachers even had thicker sticks and one even had a leg from a chair! If the teacher walked up the aisle between the desks to hit you and he/she had forgotten the cane then you received either a slap with the open hand, or if you were very unlucky you received a punch. The good old days? I think not.

My earliest memory of this school is my first day. My Ma and Gran got me ready that morning, and I was trembling because I'd already heard some of the horror stories even at that age (4 years old) Anyway, I was scrubbed and my hair carefully combed, my clothes checked to see that they were clean... and off we went, walking from Gardiner Street (where we lived at that time) to Rutland Street. The first thing I noticed (after the huge forbidding looking red building) was a man with wild grey hair and wearing a dusty looking grey suit(who turned out to be the headmaster) standing on the hill beside the school, furiously ringing a handbell and calling to the stragglers to get a move on.

Then I was brought into the head teacher's office where I was enrolled and from there I was brought into the room that was to be my classroom. This room was huge, high ceilings, rows of desks, kids paintings tacked to the walls, a blackboard on an easel and a big table behind which stood my first teacher. She looked huge to me. I clearly remember the smell of her perfume and a huge bosom that very nearly smothered me as leaned over me, put her arms around me and asked my name. Timidly I told her my name was Jimmy, but she called me James anyway. She lifted me onto this huge rocking horse and started it moving and I was happy enough with that until I looked around and saw that my Mam and Gran were gone! That was enough for me... I was gone too! The teacher must have been looking the other way because I don't remember anyone trying to stop me as I ran through the door, down the steps and out into the street, crying my eyes out and very scared.

No sooner was I out in the street than I met my cousin Betty (or Liz as she's known on the GB) and she put her arms around me and comforted me, then took me home in Summerhill (my Aunt Mary's). I heard later that while I was sitting there eating bread and sugar, my Dad, Mam, Gran and the teacher were out looking for me. A four year old kid had vanished! Well to them I had anyway. But by then Betty had encouraged me back to the school, left me in my classroom and went off to the girls part -- boys and girls were strictly segregated.

But this time the teacher was more alert to 'The Great Escaper'. I couldn't get away again because she kept me under very close observation. Then my Ma and Gran showed up, having heard about my great escape, and I noticed that my Mam was weeping, but the teacher wouldn't allow them to speak to me so I suppose I had to make the best of it. The teacher gave me a piece of board and some coloured chalks and left me to my own devices. I don't know what I drew on that board, but whatever it was would have been seen through my tears because I think I must have cried for a week. But eventually I settled in and began to enjoy playing with the other kids in the schoolyard.... and learning how to escape again. Another story for another day.