Its a small world

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  Way back in 1961 I started on a teacher training course at De La Salle College at Middleton on the outskirts of Manchester. I stayed in a hostel in George street, run by a Mr Fox and his wife, with 5 other students. We all were in one large room and when we were short of money we stayed in and played cards and music. There was one particular student who spent most of his spare time playing the guitar and singing. His name was Joe McCrory(not sure if this is the correct spelling). He originated from around Ballymena in Co Antrim but had spent some time previous to joining the college in Bradford as a student teacher. He also played in a band and rumour was that there was a contract for the band to go to Hamburg which was turned down because of joining De La Salle. The same rumour also said that the Beatles went instead.

For various reasons I left the college after 3 months and returned to Coventry. Some time later on a holiday trip back to Ireland I was visiting Carrickmore and decided to go dancing one Sunday. The early sixties was a period when show bands were at the height of popularity. Frankie McBride and the Polka Dots were one of the most popular at this time and they were on at The Gap ballroom in Mullaslin outside Carrickmore. I borrowed my uncle's bike and set off. Unknown to me Frankie McBride had gone solo to try and get his records into the charts ( his record Five little fingers was No 2 in Ireland in 1967 and 19 in the UK charts) and there was a new singer in the band that night. During a break for the band some members of the band were having light refreshments in the bar when I recognised Joe Macrory sitting with the band.

I had a quick conversation with him out of earshot from the other band members, he did not want them to know that he was only singing with them during his holiday break from the college. That was the last contact I had with him so I don't know what happened when they eventually found out he was returning to De La Salle. I think around this time the band were being managed by Barney Curley, later to achieve fame as a big time gambler and horse trainer in England.

Moyola days

Image via WikipediaMy aunt Margaret (Maggie to us) worked in Belfast as a seamstress. She never married and delighted in treating us to days out. Once I remember going by bus to the Zoo at Belfast. We also enjoyed the days down by the Moyola river that ran near the grandparents home in Anahorish picnicked on lemonade and biscuits. As this was in the summer the water in the river was not very deep in most places except in the bends where the slower stream was usually deeper. We stayed in the shallow parts. The summers seemed to be hotter and longer in the 50's.

At weekends we would see fishermen coming up from Belfast to fish in the Moyola river. I can remember on their return with their catch giving eels to the shop next door. I can still remember those eels jumping around on the frying pan even after being chopped up.

More Rainey days

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During the 6 years I spent at the Rainey School I don't think I ever gave much consideration as to what I would do after I left the protected cloisters. I had passed the 11 Plus to get there and it was easy enough but I was not fully aware that that was just the beginning. I did not get into a higher gear. Most classes were split approx 50/50 girls and boys and when exams came around girls usually came at the top. There was one exception to this. We had an English teacher called Mr Schofield, if I remember correctly he was tall and walked around the school wearing his university graduation gown, quite a few teachers did this at the Rainey. Mr Schofield (his brother was a top Shakespearian actor during the 20th centutry) had set us an English literature paper for an end of term exam. It appears that a copy of the exam paper was left within easy access of one of my classmates, who passed on details of the questions to a few selected pals, about 5 or 6, some of whom would normally have been lucky to get 40% in the exam.


I remember the evening before the exam being in Anahorish with my poetry book going over the poems which would be on the paper. This made revision easy. No long list of poems to remember. To shorten the story when the results came out at a later date I achieved around 80% in the English Litt exam and a few others also exceeded expectations. Some of the girls who would have been expected to get the top marks were surprised but there was no proof of wrongdoing and the episode was soon forgotten.

It seemed a remarkable coincidence that while I was revising my condensed poetry list that a few fields away Seamus Heaney was expanding his horizons in the field of poetry with a much longer term vision. In other words he had got into the higher gear necessary to achieve a positive outcome. Why things turn out this way is the mystery.

Comparing

Image via WikipediaCalled to see John Conway this evening. His brother Frank died tragically around Christmas time 2005 near Omagh. John tells me that Frank was setting up websites prior to his death. John works part time at the Ricoh as a steward at Coventry city matches. I was at the Ricoh recently on a course for web site optimising. Strange coincidence.

Winds of change from Australia

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During the fifties's a major change in my family's fortunes was about to emerge from the other side of the world in the shape of my uncle Patrick. He had been living in Australia for about thirty years and had decided to return to his homeland to retire. I remember the first time he called to see us in aughagaskin after his return home. I was in my early teens. He arrived on a bicycle wearing a long leather winter overcoat. This was in August, we were in bare feet and no shirts it was summer. He was used to high temperatures in Australia and it took a few years for him to adjust. However he did not retire as he planned, far from it. 

Rumour had it that he was up every morning in Anahorish at 7am, basin of cold water outside on a log washing his face preparing for his daily work. He managed to acquire a few fields in around the Broagh road outside Castledawson and set about cultivating. He grew potatoes and hay mostly. I was helping out some weekends with the hay but when I left the Rainey school I was on my way to England. My younger brothers carried on this assistance.


Sometime in the late fifties Patrick gave my parents a field to enable them to build a house. 'A field of dreams' you might say. My brother Sean around this time was serving an apprenticeship with a builder so was able to do a lot of the building work. Eventually my parents and the rest of the family moved in. This was a vast improvement on the place in Aughagaskin. Every time I returned home from England during the holiday periods there was something new added. Since that time my family members have added another 6 11  houses to the original one in the Broagh. Uncle Patrick left a fine legacy.

Anahorish

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Looking out the window of my father's home in Anahorish you could see Lough Neagh. You could also see the Toome road and at night the vehicle lights as they descended from Moneyglass to Toomebridge. This house was the family farm for some years and was the typical Irish farm cottage with living room in the middle and a room at either side. Attached in a terrace format was the house of Bob Cushley, his wife Bridget and a son Billy. Also living there was Bridget's sister Trea Gribbin who was a teacher at Anahorish school . Contained within the house was a small grocers shop and at the end of the terrace was a tailors premises occupied by Bridget's brother, locally known as John the tailor. 

During my school years my uncle Hugh ran the farm and lived there with my aunts Kitty and Margaret, both of whom worked. Margaret was a tailoress in Belfast and Kitty worked at Kilroes in Magherafelt. Myself and the other family members in line after me used to spend time here after school and on Saturdays. We always found things to do which were not available at home. We played football in the field in front of the house with Billy Cushley and other neighbouring children. There was also going to the peat bog with uncle Hugh in the donkey cart to take home the turf from the 'bog' on the Hillhead road past the junction for Castledawson and Bellaghy.

Things always seemed to be happening in Anahorish, perhaps because we were young and all our relatives were working or doing something we could only watch. We watched John the Tailor measure and make suits for men and women through the big window at the rear of his shop. On Saturdays we went 'over the hill', as the path past the tailors shop was known, to call at Gribbin's who had a pig farm. There were 6 brothers all well known footballers in their club and county. Three appeared on Derry's first time at Croke Park in an All-Ireland Final in 1958.

There was always a football lying in the concrete front garden and we spent many hours just kicking these against the concrete walls.

They were one of the few houses to have TV in those days and we watched rugby on Grandstand and The Lone Ranger whenever we could.

Potato picking

Image via Wikipedia September was the season for potato picking, we usually had a week off school at this time of year. There was about half a dozen different farms where we used to go each year. Near neighbours Barney McKenna, Billy Johnson and James Loughrey were the farms we most frequented. The field in front of our house was quite large and whenever McKenna's had spuds in this field it was a big job to complete. Barney had a tractor which pulled a digger used to turn the potato drills, while the pickers followed with their baskets, usually in pairs or sometime threes if there were younger ones along that day. On filling the basket it was carried by 2 people to a large heap some where in the field and emptied into the 'pit'.

The Loughrey's farm was behind our house and they had several fields which they rotated with potatoes. We liked going there because of the food, it was better than the average. One field in particular was on top of a small hill. On one occasion after we had finished picking for the day the tractor was left parked in the field. My younger brother Seamus climbed on board and somehow managed to release the brake. The tractor headed off down the slope towards the hedge with Seamus still holding on. On the other side of this hedge there was a 6 foot drop and luckily he fell off as the tractor crossed the hedge.

It then ran one hundred yards down the next field and was stopped as it ran into a sturdy tree. Before the tractor had stopped I was half way home across 2 fields and the lane with the cherry trees with the story of the runaway tractor. Everyone was in a panic, wondering what had happened to my younger brother. However 15 minutes later he wandered home without a scratch without a care in the world. I cannot remember what happened to the tractor. It wasn't in good shape, neither would Seamus have been if he had stayed on it.

Rainey Days

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Image via WikipediaI attended the Rainey School in Magherafelt for a total of 6 years. I arrived there after passing the 11+ as my parents could not afford to send me to the Catholic boarding school at St Patricks Armagh. Pupils at the Rainey were predominantly Protestant. Every morning while the rest of the school had assembly the Catholic pupils ( about 20) attended the classroom of maths teacher Dr Gwilliam for religious education. The remainder of the school day religion did not crop up much as a topic of conversation. The Rainey school was not only academically successful but had athletics and rugby teams of a high standard.

During PE lessons we sometime went for long runs around the local streets and roads and I think it was during the first year at school that we had a cross country race (round the streets). I can still remember at the finishing line in the school yard being the first finisher in the 1st year pupils. I finished third behind Derrick Crothers (he was good at nearly everything) and John Bole both of whom were in the second year.
The school had a large playground at the front of the school. During the dinner break someone started throwing a small rubber ball in the air covering about thirty yards. ( A bit like the invention of rugby at Rugby school). The idea was to catch the ball in the air and throw it back. So 2 groups developed mostly the same individuals. I remember Henry Diamond, John Brennan, myself and other Gaelic football players being in the forefront of this 'game'. There was a highly competitive spirit engendered from this activity, could have contributed to the sporting success of some of these students in future years.
There was a grocers shop at the lower end of Rainey street opposite the side entrance to the Rainey school. Ever since I started at the school pupils used to cross to this shop during morning break to buy cakes etc especially snowballs which were very popular at the time. I believe the school was not in favour of this practice.
The last year I was at the Rainey I was made a prefect and we were allotted use of a room overlooking this shop. One wintry morning there had been a heavy snowfall and coincidentally a delivery of bread to the shop. The van had the bread arranged on pull out drawers and while these were being emptied someone, allegedly a pupil, had thrown snowballs into the breadvan.
When the head read out at the morning assembly that someone had 'thrown snowballs in the bread mans drawers' this was greeted with howls of laughter. I cannot remember anyone being caught for this offence. Such was life in the fifties and as prefects only the occasional pupil smoking behind the music room created a stir.

The field

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Beside our house in aughagaskin was a field just about the size of a gaelic football pitch. It was our Croke Park. This was not a level field, half way along there was a dip which flooded when there was a heavy rainfall. This was our playing field for water sports, shoes off and splashing about. Simple games not complicated by ideas from TV (we had none). This field was rarely cultivated so we had full use of the field for all our games. I remember practising javelin throwing with a suitable branch cut from a nearby hedge. Alongside this field was a lane which sometimes got a bit overgrown from lack of vehicle usage and on this lane were some cherry trees, the only ones in the whole neighbourhood as far as we were aware. The cherries didn't last long!


In one corner of the field, adjacent to the rear garden, was a large tree which had been growing there for a long time. I was around 12 years old at the time when it was decided to chop the tree down. My father was a long time sufferer with a lung complaint which left him breathless after a short period of physical activity and he asked Frank Toner a family friend to help. The younger family members and myself enjoyed the whole drama but probably didn't contribute much to the job in hand. The tree however was chopped into logs for the fire and probably saved on the fuel bills for that year.

School teams

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This is the Rainey Endowed Junior Athletics team which competed in 1956 at the Northern Ireland Grammar Schools  championships at Cherryvale, Belfast. There was a terrific air of anticipation engendered by this team mainly because  of the prowess of Derrick Crothers, who seemed to be good at everything and this lifted the performance of the rest. On the Wednesday the qualifying heats were held and I managed to qualify for Saturdays final by finishing in 6th place in the javelin. On Saturday I improved to 4th place. By finishing in 2nd place in competition with all the major grammar schools the team exceeded all expectations. Also in the County Derry championships the same team came out on top finishing 1st  in each event, a rare thing indeed. Here I managed to finish 1st in at that time a record throw.

In front - James Forsythe, Laurence Teague, Derrick Crothers (now Professor at Queens), Tom McCord (RIP), Mitchell Brown, Michael Brennen (now surgeon).

Standing - Mr Blackmore (PE Teacher), P Gribbin, Mr Fazackerley (Head), P Brockerton, Mr Johnston (teacher and a future runner up in Mastermind)

Summers in Cregnadovesky

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I don't know what age I was when my parents first sent me to stay with my grandparents for the summer in cregnadovesky. I guess I was about 10. I suppose they were glad that I was one less to feed and while I was away I helped my grandparents on their farm. The farm did not have a lot of arable land as it bordered on the mountains and it was an annual battle with the heather and boulders to keep it workable.

This is me between my grandfather and uncle Pat with brothers Sean and Hugh in the early 50's.
This was my grandparents house taken in 1984 about twenty years after it was vacated.

Working in the hay meadow helping to save the hay on the days when it wasn't raining was one of the main jobs to be done in summer. When I first started going to 'Creg' both my grandparents were still alive. Also living with them were my uncle and my grandfathers brother James, who had what would now be described as learning difficulties. He suffered to some extent from some good natured banter in the hay meadow from my grandfather but I think he knew it was not meant to be offensive.


Despite his obvious shortcomings his memory was good as was his sense of direction. There was a tradition in rural Tyrone in the fifties for people to visit neighbours houses late at night after work on the farm had been done. This was called ceilidhing and James regular as clockwork went off through the lanes, fields or mountains depending which direction he was heading. I usually accompanied him sometimes setting of at 10 o'clock at night to cross the mountain in the dark on paths not visible in the darkness. Houses we called at at various times were Martins, Kellys, Montagues, Mulgrews, Tanneys, MacCartens, Meenaghs, Toals, Harveys and Conways. There were others but James always seemed to know whose house to visit next. 

On other occasions when both my grandparents were still alive neighbours would call at night for card games - whist or 25 I think. These were seriously contested even though only small sums of money would change hands. Plenty of tea was consumed and the odd bottle of Guinness. My grandfather died in the early fifties and I still recall being awakened by him at 8 am with a cup of tea and home made soda bread. These sort of insignificant or mundane actions are the things which demonstrate the personality of people and keep them alive in the minds of future generations.

After the death of my grandfather my uncle looked after the farm but with less commitment than his father. A year after my grandfather died my uncle got married. I was not at the wedding or the reception afterwards in Portstewart, this slightly upset me at the time but life had to go on. My grandmother was being in a sense forced from the nest, sort of semi retired with out consent. Around this time my grandfathers sister returned home from a lifetime spent in America. She had saved her money and had never married and on her return a new two storey house was built. The sparks at the time could have set the mountain on fire. The presence of these three strong willed women in the same house meant that I spent a lot of time chasing rabbits through the mountains with the dog.

Growing Up in Aughagaskin

Image via WikipediaWhen I was 5 and lived in Aughagaskin, the eldest child in my family, I was sent off to school for my very first day on the trailer of Barney McKenna's tractor. Also on the trailer was Barney's daughter Kathleen, we were the same age. Destination was the Convent primary school in Magherafelt. The teachers were nuns, sympathy was thin on the ground for starters, I was not too impressed. I stayed there for approx 2 years and then moved to Anahorish school not far from my paternal grandparents home. Why I was sent there and why I went to New Row school in Castledawson after another 2 years is a mystery to me. One of my teachers at Anahorish was John Murphy ( a Derry county player ).
At New Row the headmaster was Robert Barton assisted by his wife. With a lot of help from these I passed the 11plus and started at the Rainey Endowed School in Magherafelt in 1954. This was only yards from where I was born in a flat near to Regan's pub in Rainey street.

Living in Aughagaskin in a rented house we kids thought we owned the whole neighbourhood, we had free rein to roam around the fields, playing cowboys and indians, looking for orchards. We thought we were rich. Some neighbours probably thought we were hooligans, but we had no malicious intent. The neighbours were the McKennas & Hegartys who were cousins. The Hegartys moved away in the early fifties to Castledawson and their house was occupied by Charlie Conway who was Mrs Hegarty's father.

We picked anything that grew from the earth - potatoes , blackberries and apples, plums and other delicacy's from the orchard at the rear of our own house and others nearby. The money we got from picking potatoes was given to our mother who spent it on clothes etc. The railway line between Magherafelt and Castledawson on its way to Belfast was only 2 fields away or alternatively 4 hundred yards down the lane. We usually crossed the fields. In the other direction the line headed towards Omagh via Cookstown, Pomeroy and Carrickmore. Once only I remember travelling on this line to Carrickmore on the steam train. Sometime during the fifties passenger trains ceased on this line and only the occasional goods train could be seen. There was a direct connection between my grandparents in Carrickmore and in Anahorish, the railway line ran close to both homes.

The house in aughagaskin was a typical Irish single storey building, with a central living/kitchen area and a bedroom at either side. The roof was originally thatched but in later years was replaced with a corrugated iron roof. The main bedroom had a fireplace in the end gable wall and was large enough to be divided with a curtain. My parents and the younger children slept in these areas. The rest slept in the other bedroom. As the family increased the loft space above this room was converted to an extra bedroom and I slept and studied here as I was the only one attending secondary education at this time. This room had a small window in the gable which overlooked McKenna's house. This was a large two storied farm house and we would have wanted ours to be the same. We got the short straw, but we carried on regardless.
At the rear of the house was an orchard. This had apple trees both eating and cooking apples. Gooseberries, blackcurrants and plums. Some years were good others bad, but the one thing which never failed was the nettles. These took up about a third of the garden and grew to about 5 feet high. The reason why I remember these so well is because of my sojourn in Carrickmore each year. Very little sign in June but growing wild everywhere when I returned in September. I recall we used to cut paths through these nettles and disappear into the tunnels created.

Important teams

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 I came to Coventry at age 18 the year previous to the football photograph below. Stayed first in Birmingham at the home of Mrs Eaves, school secretary at Our Lady's school (see school photo to right) where I was a temporary teacher. I then moved to Coventry to stay with my aunt Alice (RIP) . I travelled to Birmingham by bus and train daily up until July 1961. Headmaster at the school was a Mr Murray(from Armagh) and the deputy head was Gerry Dudgeon (from Tyrone). The school staff and Four Masters gaelic football were the first teams I joined after leaving school at the Rainey Endowed School in Magherafelt.

Teams are important in the whole process of growing up - I was never a great team player, some of this a failure of the system, some self inflicted. While at the Rainey School I was starting to become shortsighted (I was not aware of this, but it should have been spotted by the school health checks) With hindsight I now remember sitting at the back of the class at school and not being able to read the blackboard.

This obviously affected my ability at sports like rugby and gaelic football as I seemed to deteriorate in both sports from roughly age 15. I remember playing for the Rainey 1st fifteen at 15 but not being able to get in the team 2 years later. The same short sightedness must also have influenced my academic studies as I always tended to sit at the rear of the class in most subjects. What a great thing hindsight would be if it could be activated in the present.


Good day to start Friday the 13th?