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.