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.