Category: post WW2

There is, rightly, concern for the loss of land to spec and council building. In the 30’s, in any industrial town, there was street after street of ‘two-up-two-down houses, full of people and children. – 75 to the acre, the legacy of the Industrial Revolution. In ’46 people were being housed in caravan parks and prefabs. From the 50’s  the smaller, older dwellings were replaced by motorways and better housing and those not accommodated in the immediate renewal were housed on green field sites, Since the 60’s housing is mainly built at 12 to 15 to the acre and the purchase of second or holiday homes is now causing a housing shortage with the infrastructure being over stretched, and the services put under pressure. We need a rethink if our heritage for the future is not to be totally mismanaged.

Portnoo, Caravans And Caravanning The desire to get away ‘from it all’, is, I believe, in the genes, the ancient urge to find pastures new. Round all our coasts are caravan parks great, and small, hideous and acceptable. We were persuaded to try it. We started going to Portnoo at the behest of our friends, who had been going for generations. The attraction, apart from the fabulous beach, the fishing, the golf, the security of children without tight supervision, was the free atmosphere, the way everyone mucked in. The girls made friends and Portnoo was immediately established for all time for us. At night there was drinking until nearly dawn in the pubs and it was a regular thing to give a turn, play silly games and get sozzled. Willy Long and his version of Piddling Pete, was a regular request.

The fishing in the sea, the lakes and rivers was good. I would bring both sea fish and trout for others to enjoy as I hated fish even then. Years later, fishing on Doon Fort lake above Narin, the sun setting with an extraordinary sunset, I hooked a salmon trout. Holding it in my hand in that light, in those surroundings, knowing I would never be the one to eat the fish, with the sun bringing out all sorts of colour and resonances from the fishes’ scales, I wondered why the hell I was killing something so beautiful for sport, and have never fished since.

Ernie, a dentist in Belfast and an habitue of Portnoo, hated to meet his clients when he was on holiday and we had to fend him from them when we went on holiday with him. He almost hid when he spied one on the horizon. On another wet day he, his son and wife, Sophie and I, were having coffee in the hotel lounge. I was pushing a toy car across the floor to his young son who was returning it when unfortunately it became bent by hitting a chair leg.. Repairs were effected, by the son straightening the car with his teeth. Sophie immediately said, ‘It’s a good thing your father’s a dentist.’, upon which a woman, who had been sitting behind us and who had mistaken me for the boy’s father approached me and said, ‘Oh! Are you a dentist?’ Without waiting for confirmation she went into a long detailed description of her daughter’s teeth, what was wrong with them, and what her dentist should have done to the child.. At suitable intervals I smiled, I dared not explain the mistake, it would have wrecked the day for all of us. However, my bluff was called when she asked me to examine the child and I was forced to explain that the boy I was playing with was the son of a friend, unspecified, and she had made a mistake. I’m afraid she took it all very badly, but it brought home to me why so many doctors register as Mr on holiday.

Dunmore Caravans The reflection of the attitude of the average Donegal man to cash flow was when we bought a static caravan in Portnoo. Sophie and I, staying on Gillespie’s site in a two berth towing caravan; saw John, the Site owner, installing a replacement van.. Curious to know the cost of a permanent plot, I asked how much it would cost to buy a static one and have it installed. He told me and added that I should make my mind up quickly as he was opening up the field at the end of the site with a view across the golf course to the Derryveagh Mountains and Mount Errigal, All there would be between us and the view would be grazing cattle and bad golfers – irresistible. We agreed a price and the model of van we would like a few days later by telephone and when I suggested he should give me a layout of his expansion so I could chose a site his reaction was typical of the people of the area. ‘Plan?’ he asked. ‘What plan? Just you come up here John and stick your heel in the ground and I’ll have the van on it by the Twelfth of July.’

He was as good as his word. Now, because of lack of planning the ground could only be partially levelled, with the result we are higher than everyone else as well as having the very best view. We now find the journey too much for us, but the family can’t bear to miss a holiday in it.

Buying 15 Having got Number 18 exactly as we wanted it, inside and out, it was obviously time to move. Sophie saw a board outside Number 15; virtually that was that, except for the protracted negotiations. leading nowhere. Then a friend, suggested if we quoted another similar property, stated we were interested in vying for it, but making a firm, time limited, offer for this one, there was a good chance the matter would be closed,. We followed her suggestion, and it worked. Then fate intervened. At about five, the following morning I awoke, beset by the most frightful pain It turned out I had a severely slipped disc and would have to be on my back for sometime so the negotiations continued rather like jungle telegraph, she on the phone in the hall, I shouting instructions, and she shouting the reply. The details of the removal I found interesting The son of a well established remover, out to show his business acumen, made an offer it was difficult to refuse. He said the price was firm from our point of view but if it turned out to be otherwise, the estimate stood if he had underestimated, and if he had over estimated he would refund the difference. This left me a little open mouthed but to reciprocate I told him there was stuff in the roof space and more still in the garage. He said he had no need to see any more. OK! I thought, but backed it with a request for a written quotation with all the provisos included. It was just as well, later I found a debt collector on my doorstep, saying we owed money due to the excessive time taken. Fortunately I was able to produce the quotation, the debt collector smiled, nodded and went on his way.

The Lawnmower Caper The garden of 15 was huge. The layout had been what had attracted Sophie to the house because of the number of specimen plants she had found there. However, there was insufficient grass to allow the children a bit of freedom so I reshaped the beds and the lawn at the back. I had been advised to buy a petrol mower with drum blades because our main lawn was class one. To avoid having to edge I placed granite square sets at the edge of the lawn and then, twenty years before the cigar ad on Telly had the idea, I made the lawn like spectacles, with overlapping lenses, and in the centre of each circle I placed a two inch diameter tube which would take a wooden stake. A two inch peg has a circumference of about six inches, so, if a mower, with a twelve inch cut, no grass box, is set on the paving, the front roller attached to a rope from the stake, it will go round and round with an overlapping cut until it arrives at the peg and falls over, stopping the engine. What was more it worked, and apart from providing endless amusement to our friends when they saw it in action, it allowed me to get on with other things while the lawn was being cut. There is nothing new under the sun!

The New Kitchen The worktops at 15 required replacing, I got in touch with a builder, decided on the units that I wanted, put it all in hand, and after a year, when nothing happened I decided to do it myself. I knew a clerk of works who had been a joiner and he agreed to help me, and came one dark evening in January to assess the work. The conversation went something like this. I say conversation, it was a monologue. ‘You realise if you put on new tops you’ll have to take the tiles off the wall above them?’ I nodded. ‘You can’t take them off without stripping that wall as well, for the new tiles won’t match!’ ‘Ah!’ I muttered. ‘We’ll have to bring in new cable if we are to strip the walls and have you got a spade?’ That was certainly a switch. Mystified, I brought the spade. He hefted it, shook it a bit, as if to limber up and then struck the ceiling a couple of times until a large piece of lath and plaster fell at our feet with a cloud of dust. ‘That ceiling was bowed,’ he remarked, ‘it had to come down some day.’ With that laconic statement he proceeded, with our compliance and aid, to wreck the ceiling, pull all the tiles and plaster off all the walls, remove the sink and units leaving nothing but rafters above and brick exposed around us. When all the arisings had been wheeled into the yard he packed in for the evening, having given me an extensive list of purchases based on an ad hoc design mainly in his head.. With Tommy there were no half measures and there was no turning back. Good as his word, for a week he turned up every night and also at the weekend. We plastered some of the walls, we made the framing for the wall cupboards and units and installed the sink unit and taps, but that was as far as we got as a team. Unfortunately his father was suddenly taken ill with cancer and needed careful attention. I never saw Tommy again in any guise, either as helper or COW. The next few months were a drudgery, a hell.. How Sophie and the family stuck me, I can’t imagine, except they never saw me, I was always, either at work, asleep, or sawing, hammering or painting The quantities were so huge, especially the frustration, if I heard a voice at the door I told it to go away – I just wondered if Tommy really had to wreck it so thoroughly.

“Any Fool Can Cook ” – a certain party stopper We were entertaining old friends to dinner, we had all eaten and drunk well, the conversation was slowing and some guests started to eulogise the meal and others felt left out if they didn’t – we all knew, my wife Sophie’s excellent cooking capabilities. I said, ‘Any fool can cook’ just for something to liven the evening. Alcohol had something to do with it. The fact I believed it to be true and was prepared to prove it, made no difference, heads turned with such speed, some were in danger of dislocation. All the women round the table were up in arms, their skills had been denigrated, it was like the terraces on a Saturday when the ref has made a boo boo. The men were laughing, enjoying the lashing I was getting. I tried to explain my thesis which asserts that most people think cooking is so easy they don’t read the small print – the really important details – they read the ingredients and the first few lines, then, as they have seen that bit before, they think the rest is also all the same and skip it. I tried further to add that one was allowed one mistake and then success should be assured, but the hub-bub was such that no ‘lady’ was listening, they were all shouting abuse.

A few weeks later an Aunt, a reasonably intelligent woman, was in Ireland staying with us and I brought the subject up again, with the same reaction, she was very incensed, to the extent she reminded me of the Worthy Master of the Loyal Orange Lodge who had said he would ‘like to stick a deacon pole into me so far he would have to put his boot on me to pull it out’ – there was that level of vindictiveness. She insisted I take on a challenge and make a ‘knocked-up’ pie as proof of my theory. The trouble was none of us knew what a knocked-up pie was and she was too cross to tell us. In the end it transpired that the K-U pie was the sort of pork pie people eat in pubs. To me the answer was simple, use a jam jar as a former for shaping the bottom, make and cook the bottom bit, make and cook a fancy lid, fill the pie with pre-cooked meat, put on the lid and then pour in the hot jelly through a hole in the lid. The Aunt said I was a mile off, but not why. Sophie, ever helpful, even though I had insulted her with my theory, was forgiving enough to discover in her library of cook-books that I was right. I think QED would be a suitable way to close the matter for all time.

PUNCH – manipulated. I used to make wine out of Spanish grapes – 54 gallons per year, and this enabled me to make a lot of punch. In wintertime, the norm was four bowlfuls as a pipe opener for our parties. The recipe, consisted of wine, with a mixture of chopped up oranges boiled in brown sugar and sieved, brandy, Orange Curacao, and Cointreau; the last three being added after the heating process was over to ensure none of the alcohol leached away into the atmosphere. This potion was relatively innocuous in that there was no in-built hangover but it did set the standard for the night. One evening, a close friend, stood beside me and remarked I was playing tunes on my guest’s alcohol blood level. I claimed ignorance, he insisted, and I capitulated, he was right and very astute to notice. To avoid the parties getting out of hand, I replaced the three liqueurs with only essences and orange lacing the wine, and when the decibels came down to a nearly reasonable level, normal service was resumed, and only one had discovered the ploy.

During the 50’s we owned a series of cars but the most idiosyncratic was, without doubt, the Morris Minor 1000. Sitting with the driving seat fully back I found my knees were somewhere near my chin, so the matter of using the clutch caused my knee to make the little signal arm come out and indicate I was turning right, an embarrassment at any time. Sometimes that same little arm stuck and when I got out of the car I would break it off. If nothing else it gave me confidence in doing small repairs. Then there was the shape of the boot. Clearly, at the speeds that thing achieved, streamlining and hence the drag factor were obviously an issue the designer had spent hours on. I never did discover why it was so small and of a shape that no more than one suitcase could be accommodated in the boot at a time.

We proposed taking a month and going to Igls in Austria, via Brussels and Cologne. We had learned that to save money one took as much tinned food as one could and due to the shape of the Minor’s boot the tins had to be packed round the spare wheel and within its dished rim. Just one suitcase, a Revelation, expanded to its maximum, everything else was in plastic bags – apart, that is, from a doll in a carry-cot. My younger daughter refused to go unless the wretched doll went too and in its carry cot. Every inch was catered for, under the seats, the sun brolley was between the seats, the back shelf was loaded until the rear view was almost obscured, every spare space was taken up – except one – behind my heels – that triangle of valuable space immediately in front of the driver’s seat. That was where the unmentionable dolly in its equally descriptive cot rested when we were on the move.

It had to happen – of course. It would have been unthinkable for it not to have. When we travelled in other vehicles, where things were secreted in suitcases, it never happened, but because we were travelling like gypsies, it happened – we had a puncture on a motorway, the German Autobahn outside Cologne. There I had to take out the case, the plastic bags, and the individual tins of food, before I could change the wheel. That was not the end of our embarrassment. We were staying in hotels where the staff in green aprons came out to take the elegant, matched suitcases from people driving limousines. In our case this was not quite a fair description. They came out all right, but I made them hold out their arms and piled them up with the transparent plastic balloons containing our necessities, all on display. I suppose seeing the repeated looks of surprise, followed by disgust was compensation for what I really felt. No matched luggage meant no big tip; what plastic bags portended, they had no previous experience, but they guessed correctly.

Igls was not a success after our previous holidays at Hendaye in the Basque country. For a start, it was on the Atlantic, the beach was wonderful, the huge waves came straight in and when it wasn’t raining the weather was perfect. Then there were the myriad of things to do. On Bastille Day there was the great celebration with the confetti battles, where one never opened one’s mouth to say a word in case a complete stranger threw a handful of confetti in. Towards evening, when the street dancing started, the ground was littered to a depth of more than an inch with all colours of confetti one bought in huge paper bags. Sophie lost her watch in all this mele, It is impossible to believe, but after a lot of searching, under the confetti, in the middle of the cavorting feet, I found the watch still going. Those celebrations kicked of with the Toro Del Fuego, a papier-m?ch? calf, festooned with Catherine Wheels, bangers and Roman Candles, carried on the head and shoulders of a man, weaving in and out of the crowd, sputtering its fireworks to the screeches of the dancers. There was that beautiful city of San Sebastian, with its posh shops, fine restaurants, statues on high towering pillars of rock round the harbour and a small funfair at the top of one of them.

We visited San Sebastian from Hendaye on the Topo, a rackety train in which all the locals crossed themselves before it started, and with reason. It journeyed through a tunnel in the Pyrenees, which was not well lighted. The way it rocked about was certainly unlikely to imbue anyone with the confidence they would survive. In San Sebastian we bought the cheap liqueurs, which we shared with the other guests, all French, back at Madame Ader’s and this made the evening meals most congenial. The only problem was no one spoke English. After about three weeks of continuous fractured French I came down to breakfast swearing I would speak no French that day, it was such a strain. I had to renege, there was no chance of getting through a day, with only English.

I become an arm-waver. You know the sort of thing, ‘put this,’ pointing to the right, ‘over there,’ waving at the left, ‘put that ‘ and so on. On the day in question I wanted work done on an outlet, which had become useless through the installation of the wretched cattle-walk, over which, as far as I knew, only a few, if any, animals ever walked or ever would walk.

It so happened that on that day the route to the valve was obstructed by a deep wide trench in the grounds of the sewage works, where a pipe had corroded and was being replaced. The alternative approach was across a temporary bridge, in fact a plank, spanning some ten feet across a channel carrying raw sewage. I am built like a toffee apple on a stick, with my centre of gravity just below my chin – in effect I’m permanently in a state of unstable equilibrium – never at my best crossing planks over voids or sewage. My instinct in this case was to adopt a sort of slithering, one-foot-at-a-time method, drawing the toe of the dragging foot up to the heel of the front one – undignified but trusted and true. At six foot two and thirteen and a half stone, I was about as confident as a cripple on a clothes-line. My guide, the Fitter-In-Charge, a man of no mean girth, at least six feet tall and weighing about four stone more than myself, cantered over the swaying, bouncing plank with total aplomb and a delicacy of step large people often exhibit on the dance floor. I had to follow in my version of like manner, dignity demanded it, I was being watched,. The plank seemed to bounce more for me than for him, and to say I was in a blue funk at the thought of imminent immersion, hits the mark.

We arrived on the other side unscathed and I did my arm waving bit, a little more theatrically than usual in my relief at being spared. True we had to return but by now my confidence had returned. Again the Fitter-In-Charge preceded me. If I was not mistaken his crossing of the plank was even more of a virtuoso performance. He made the plank sway and spring with a rhythm of his footsteps, as if to some calypso in his head. There was no way I could emulate that, but my poor best was a sort of running step with narrow paces – they, the men, were still watching. Unfortunately the F-I-C with his mad caper must have weakened the plank and with a resounding crack it snapped and I was in the unmentionables, one hand grasping a wall-edge, one leg caught on the coping, the rest of me well immersed.

The face which accompanied the helping hand was far too smiling for my peace of mind and the way figures emerged from buildings and from hiding generally, indicated that none were to be denied the sight of the dignity of authority uncloaked.

I stripped, showered, borrowed a set of overalls to a barrage of phrases like, ‘it has happened to us all at some time’, which I knew to be a lie as I had never witnessed it happening to anyone else. I drove home, soaked myself for ages in disinfectant and returned to the office only to discover my shame had preceded me. The phrase going the rounds was, ‘Is it true John can’t swim, he only goes through the motions?’

I have dabbled in crafts all my life and at one time was prepared to accept the opinion of experts as gospel, in spite of knowing that artistic criticism is inevitably subjective, but that is all a thing of the past and came to an end in the YMCA Camera Club one evening when I gave one of my master-pieces to an alleged expert for his views. I sure got them.

About a month earlier I had come home late to find a bunch of daffodils and a decorated Spanish basket on the kitchen table, it was one of those baskets made from thin plates of wood, thonged together and painted with Flamenco dancers. The whole collection gave me an idea which I proceeded to put into effect. I pulled a hearth rug up against the fireplace to provide a neutral base and background and then, with some flowers in the basket and others on the floor, I made an elliptical composition completing the shape by tossing a pair of scissors on the rug so they fell casually. The idea was to give the impression that the back-lit flowers had just been cut, brought in casually in the basket, some had spilled and were all yet to be arranged. I was delighted with the final enlargements and Sophie gave her Good Housekeeping Stamp as well.

I showed it to a professional who was part of the leadership of the Club, and a rep for one of the two big photographic manufacturers at that time, but naturally it was a mere coincidence that he should be associated with a club. He looked at it casually and then handed it back with only one comment, ‘I would not give that many marks, I’m right handed and I couldn’t pick up the scissors, they are the wrong way round.’

A few weeks later I was at a meeting where we all submitted two mounted half-plate photos for criticism. One of the beginners who was terribly new fangled with his little daughter of about two years, had put in a photo such as nearly all parents take at some time, his little girl was hunkered down among the flowers she was picking, in the way all small children do. I have some of our own girls in that pose. The genius picked it up to talk about it and I could see the look of expectancy on the beginner’s face, which suddenly turned to horror. It was not the criticism of the picture, all beginners are used to that and might crumple a bit from time to time if the comments are a bit harsh, but they can generally take it on the chin. No! The bastard had said that the picture looked as though the child was having a pee. I could not believe that one could be so crass, I had looked at my photos of my daughter in exactly that pose, smelling the flowers, and that interpretation had never crossed my mind. Even if it had, so what, he should not have put it in the mind of the beginner.

From years of rejection and acceptance in a number of different artistic skills, I believe acceptance in art is certainly subjective but can be more a matter of fashion, than a reflection of taste or ability. Having been to art galleries and art exhibitions since the 50s, I am convinced of a number of things. If you take the works of the great masters, I believe it is impossible to compete, on the basis of their work. If this is the case then people who wish to make a name for themselves in any artistic field, either as artists or critics, have to find a new approach, something not done previously, and in this way we have arrived at all the isms, Cubism and so forth. The problem I find is that others in striving to be original are generally failing lamentably, but for some reason what they produce is upheld by some critics as genius.

On the runway job I learned of the problems of labour relations. We had to build up a big workforce and as we were a Government Department, and in Northern Ireland, we were walking on eggs all the time. Politicians were looking over our collective shoulder and, to our complete amazement, asking questions in Westminster – no less. In one case we had inadvertently taken on a Free State (Eire) worker while there were men still on the dole in Northern Ireland. This was brought up on the Floor of the House with predictable consequences. Theory, it seems is more important than practice but our General Foreman had other ideas.

It was his practice to telephone the Labour Exchange to send us a batch of hopefuls – most were hopeful they wouldn’t suit – and then line them up in a hangar. He would address them along these lines; “This is pick and shovel, the hours are so and so, the pay is so much and those who don’t want to work step forward and we’ll sign the form.” The majority stepped forward, proving our point. Signing the form was the easy way out for us, it said that as far as we were concerned the man was unfit for the work in question. The problem was that if we had played it by the book, signed all of them on, we would have had a mountain of paperwork within days with malingerers, wasters and the downright bloody minded who would then have to be sacked, with reasons given, and we would still be back to the handful who wanted to work. We were risking the wroth and penalties of Authority, but it was expedient.

Lunchtimes – The Long Wait It was always my practice on jobs that were big, to go round the whole site during lunch time, when the men were clear and the machines were silent. I took my time, looked slowly and carefully, with the over all picture viewed from a different perspective to that of my assistants, who were too close, and too familiar with their section. I could also view the future areas of work for possible problems. Belfast was built on alluvial mud called sleech, which, dried out has a hard crust over successive layers of mud progressively becoming softer, so it is totally unpredictable and supports very little weight, unless paved piled or treated. This day, on my wander, I went where work would soon be started.

To give an idea of what this silt, or sleech was like, one day in summer, when the ground had dried out and the sleech had a hard crust I set out during the lunch hour to look at the site where we would be working next, suddenly I found my feet sinking. I knew better than to struggle, I just sat on my widest part, giving minimal loading to the ground and waited for lunch time to end in the hope I would be missed and rescued. There was one case while I was working there of a man stranded, sinking off the shore at Holywood, and people had to rescue him in the way one does with quicksand, with the weight spread over wood or sometimes metal ladders lying flat, and possibly throwing the man ropes.

A warning based upon experience On one of my lunchtime wanderings I was within inches of being impaled on a forest of 40mm steel reinforcing bars, forming a retaining wall. Fifteen feet above the steel, walking along timber scaffolding planks, one slid and tipped and my leg went through the hole opening at my feet. Don’t ask me how, but I grabbed a rail before the other followed. Stupidly I was wearing bifocal glasses, and had not seen the bad footing as it was obscured by the division in the lenses.