We were born before 1940….
..before TV, penicillin, polio shots, frozen food, Xerox, contact lenses, videos and the pill…
Reminiscence
Time for Smuggling
The smuggling of cattle was a favourite with the ‘big boys’.
It was more dangerous – carried on at night on ‘unapproved roads’ that were often patrolled – but also much more profitable.
Avoiding the Customs Man
Apart from fat profits made by ‘Spivs’ or ‘wide boys’ as we named them, there was the odd shilling too for those of us youngsters who possessed a bicycle. Those were few enough, and less of their owners willing and able to indulge in the ‘smuggling trade’ along the Fathom Line.
Miss Ethel’s characters
‘There were McCann’s breadmen, wearing leather leggings, such as Vincent McLaughlin, Bob White and Sandy Wright. Wordie’s Float delivered goods to the small shops. ‘ Miss Ethel went on.
Off the Omeath Train
When I’d be eariwigging on adult conversation then, I’d hear lots of similar allegations about them ones that ‘made their money’ during the blackout – the local opportunists.
Air-Raid Shelters
Our men folk, in those war years, were mostly in
A hen kicked me!
We all have local idioms and peculiarities of speech. We acquire these from the people around us. I remember once being verbally assailed on the soccer pitch and angrily asked what I thought I was doing.
Funereal Times
To this day funerals to St Mary’s cemetery pass up Chapel Street.
We were obsessed as children with funerals. Ned Murphy’s hearse was drawn by huge black shire horses suitably plumed and adorned for the occasion. The aura of death and mourning had a peculiar effect on us as youth, so far removed, we felt ourselves, from all of it.
Mourners were dressed in their Sunday best, and in black (if indeed they possessed either one or the other). One’s wardrobe was severely restricted then!
Belfast Evacuees
There were things to be said for and against growing up in Newry in the war years. There were shortages but our fathers weren’t enlisted and we weren’t bombed. Belfast was different. I learned as much, as a seven year old boy, when a family of four suddenly arrived at our door for lodgings.