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.