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“Ou sont les neiges d’antan?”

(Where are the snows of yesteryear?)

….

I was saddened to read of the death at a relatively early age and as a result of a long illness bravely borne, of Mrs. Patricia McCracken (nee McShane).

Patricia was the loving wife of legendary Newry distance runner Willie McCracken and beloved mother to Conor, Sharon and Eimear. Every one will have their own precious memories of this great lady.

I have fond memories of Patricia and her sister Margaret – now Mrs Margaret Vint – when, many years ago, they worked together in the Satellite cafe Kilmorey Street, under the proprietorship of Tommy Burns.

(Actually he was Tommy Byrne but everyone called him Tommy Burns!)

During the early to mid 1960’s a hot orange and a chip in the Satellite , lingered over all night, was the innocent apotheosis of our social and culinary indulgence. Impecunious as we were we could nevertheless watch and comment on the passing female “talent”. The entertainment was completed by the Juke Box on which we took turns to spend our “thrupenny bits” playing British and American pop records and Irish Showband hits. The Journal Editor, Peter McGrath, Terry McCrum, the late Peter Dodds and myself were stalwart regulars and the beautiful McShane girls were like big sisters to us.

Well, actually, Patricia was more of a “little big sister”. We would tease her over her soft South Armagh brogue which contrasted with our sharp urban rasp. (Actually the editor never rasped; he always spoke softly but laughed heartily).

In turn she and Margaret indulged our youthful exuberance while drawing the line firmly at foul language, smut or unacceptable behaviour. Diminutive and petite as she was, Patricia was fearless in confronting drunks, louts or yobs; equally she could sternly call us to order on the rare occasions that we became unruly.
I suspect all of us Abbey lads had a secret and forlorn “fancy” for one or both of the McShane girls. However from an early stage it became apparent that a polite, immaculately dressed and perfectly coiffured young compositor called Willie McCracken had won Patricia’s heart.

In 1965 the “Abbey”group of Satellite customers decamped, some to Queens University, others to St Joseph’s College of Education. Visits to the “Satellite” were confined to weekends and gradually died out.

I hadn’ t spoken to Patricia for over forty years and caught a glimpse of her only once since then. But some people often unknowingly touch your life in a small but significant way. Patricia was one of those and I confess to having shed a small tear when I saw her yesterday for the last time at her home.

To her sorrowing husband and family, I offer my deepest condolences.

Go ndeanfaidh Dia trocaire ar a anam uasal.

Sergeant Peter Joseph Markey from Newry was part of the unsuccessful British parachute assault on Arnhem in September 1944.  (see also https://www.newryjournal.co.uk/2007/06/22/dickie-the-paratrooper/ )

Markey was captured and incarcerated in Sagan prisoner-of-war camp in Germany. With the others there he was liberated by the Russians in February 1945.

Desparate to return to Britain, Markey considered that the best route was to go east, via Odessa. Plodding along, he met with a horse and cart on the road which turned out to be driven by two Jews, Hans Andriesse from Holland and his friend Sal Berkovitz, a Czech-born Belgian.

They invited Markey to climb aboard and travel with them. Their story was heart-rending.

Both had been rounded up by the Nazis in their determination to exterminate all Jews from the face of the earth. They would first be exploited in the war-effort forced labour camps.

Hans had been imprisoned in Westerbork transit camp and was on the train to Auschwitz along with 1,710 Dutch Jews when it stopped in Kosel where the able-bodied were ordered off. For thirty months in the forced labour camp there Hans survived the most extreme of conditions. He ended up in Kittlitztreben. There he met Sal, who had had similar experiences. Remarkably they survived until the close of the war, as the Germans were pressed from all sides.

Due to severe illness, they had been left to die when most of the inmates had been force-marched by their ruthless captors deeper into Germany before the Russians arrived.

When Peter Markey met them on the road, Hans and Sal had just been liberated by the Russians.

Markey resolved to find a way to repay their kindness.

Markey concocted a cover-story for Hans and Sal which saved their lives. He gave them false identity papers, Royal Engineers’ numbers and Sagan POW numbers. At every stage of their tortuous journey east, Markey persuaded doubting Russian and British officers that Hans and Sal had volunteered their services to the British in Arnhem.

The journey to Odessa took fifteen days. Eventually the friends boarded a troop ship for Glasgow. They celebrated St Patrick’s Day on board with Markey who waved wistfully at his native country as they sailed around the west coast of Ireland for Scotland.

Of the 107,000 Dutch Jews transported to the East by the Nazis, only 5,000 survived. Of the 550 men who alighted from the train at Kosel, only 30 survived. The women, children and elderly who remained on that train were murdered in Auschwitz.

Not one of the Kittlitztreben prisoners force-marched West before the Russians liberated the camp, survived.

So how do I spend my time in retirement, you ask?  Very pleasantly, on the whole.  Some days indeed, I am so occupied I cannot get in all the jobs I have engaged myself to do.

I play the organ in church.  Somewhat like myself, it is ancient and unpredictable.  Between Masses, benediction services, novenas, Holy Hours, missions, First Fridays, and so on, I am fairly often seated at the organ, which I play very ‘charitably’, for, verily, ‘my right hand knoweth not what my left hand doeth!’
Any time I meet a pretty young girl – and this town is full of them – I’ll say, ‘I’ll play the bridal march at your wedding.’ They always say, “Ach, Mr Crawford, you’ll have to get me a boy first!”  I notice that they always sigh when they tell me this.  In order to keep their young hearts up, I answer them thus:

“Look here, daughter, I never promised a girl that I’d play at her wedding, that I didn’t fulfil my promise.”  And it is so.  The first wedding I played at was in 1912.  Even considering that Lent is a close season, and Advent another,  have played for a brave few brides in that half-century.

I hope that, dressed in their bridal raiment, they will be waiting for me at the golden gates of heaven, as the blessed welcome the merry ‘Fiddler of Dooney’.

… more later …

How time flies!  Already we have seen one third of all the plays in the 2012 Newry Drama Festival!
Bart’s opening on Friday night was competent, distracting and pleasant:  I expect no kudos to come their way though.

Ballyduff (Saturday) and Nenagh (Sunday) were both outstanding in their own different ways:  Waterford displayed an exceptionally talent youth section and the production was excellent.  Tipperary gave a masterly technical performance, especially in set, lighting, costume and sound.  I expect them to win an award in the latter category.  Both performances however left room for improvement.  The Judge was weak in The Crucible:  the over-ornate and technical set restricted the cast of Jekyll and Hyde.

The best is yet to come.  I look forward especially to Silken Thomas’ Jerusalem (Friday) and Newpoint’s Beauty Queen of Lenane (Thursday).

Tonight it is Clarence with Weekend Breaks.

Attend and enjoy!

Some philanthropists, solicitous about the possibility of my becoming bored with so much leisure at my disposal, naively advised me to open ‘a wee shop’.  However recalling all the money I had paid out of my own pocket for pens, pencils, jotters, catechisms, readers, copies and rubbers for some of my old pupils (who did me up to the two eyes!) I decided to steer clear and wide of any commercial reef. When I was young I had often heard people talk in awed tones of so-and-so who was in Stubbs Gazette.  I therefore had no great urge to appear in that dreaded chronicle of financial disasters.  Wisely I decided to play it cool.

Every morning, waiting till the streets are well-aired, I lie in bed, not having to clock in any more.  I read the civil register page of the Irish News and, on discovering that I have not yet died, I rise and start the day. Sometimes on my ambles I catch a glimpse of the academy wherein I wrought for so many  (forty) years.  It still looks right well from the outside, but not having entered it for the past ten years, I cannot vouch any more for the inside! Truth be told, for all I know or feel or care, I might never have been inside it!

Speaking truthfully, it evokes no nostalgia whatever!

…. more later …

“This is Tass Murphy again!

I was born up in Derrybeg. Before the Derrybeg Estate houses were built.

There was a wee lane, up where Parkhead Crescent is now. There was a pile of us: the McCoys, Begleys, Hartes, McClellands – Michael John Benett, McKevitts, Raymy hamilton, Fegans, Gunner Devlin, Feehans – all gone! We were big into boogies. Ball-bearing carts.

We’d fly down the Camlough Road. Concrete surface then. Gave you a rollicking ride! Boy, we could go! Passed “Matchboxes”, sports cars … We were caught – more than once – by the infamous Sergeant Junk! Done us for ‘no lights on the boogies!’

Imagine! To be caught by the police at 7-year-old. He’d have a word with our fathers. Told them it was dangerous. Suppose, now you think about it, it was! But not as bad as it sounds. There wouldn’t be ten cars on the road -all day – in those times. The ’50’s. We got the wood from the oul’ tramline station. It closed in the late ’40’s. We were expert scavangers! We built a fleet of boogies. I’m sure – if you got talking to any of the men named above – it would be the same story! “