Bugatti Lecture at Coventry Uni

Image via WikipediaToday 26Th Nov 2008 went back to university again for the Bugatti lecture at the Goldstein Lecture theatre in the Allen Berry building. Renowned bicycle engineer Dr Alex Moulton was the guest speaker. Approx 100 turned up to listen,some students and other uni literati and interested parties. Was not able to identify anyone amongst those present. While waiting in the foyer with the tea and biscuits and standing beside the 1965 Mini Cooper I was engaged in conversation with someone from the Uni. This person said he'd only been at Cov Uni for 12 months and obviously picking up my N Irish accent, reminded me that an Irish driver(Paddy Hopkirk) had been at the wheel when this Mini model won the Monte Carlo rally in 1964. I had a strange feeling that I was gatecrashing some private club for 'boffins'.

Teenage years

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    Before and during my teenage years I was in a sense spirited away from my family for the duration of the school holidays. This was most of the years when I attended the Rainey Endowed School in Magherafelt. My parents sent me off to the home of my mothers parents in cregnadovesky outside Carrickmore. My grandparents farmed a smallholding on the edge of a small mountain, they also had part of this mountain which was mostly used as a source of peat ( or turf as it was more commonly known) which was the main fuel used for cooking and heating                                                 Most farms around the vicinity of this mountain had a similar layout - a meadow providing hay, a few fields which had to be kept clear of stones and encroaching heather and a portion of the mountain. Some farmers used this mountain for grazing sheep and cattle.                                                                                           By the time I arrived at my grandparents sometime in June the turf had been cut and laid out to dry in the bog. I was mostly helping to harvest the hay in the meadow and this was mainly controlled by the weather, not much could be done when it rained and it rained quite a lot even in summer.

When the turf had been sufficiently dried usually in July/August it was taken from the peat bog on horse and cart and built into a stack in the field beside the house. There was usually sufficient turf to last for the next 12 months and occasionally my parents had a quantity as well.

Because of the elevated location the area around Carrickmore had more than the average rainfall even in summer so there were many days when not much in the way of farm work was possible so I spent much time in the surrounding hills usually accompanied by my uncle's dog looking for rabbits. There was an abundance of these around and I was kept fit up and down the hills searching. I became familiar with the paths and landmarks around the area and these activities probably explain in some way why I was not such a good team player.

 I was becoming attuned to the annual cut off from the rest of the family and was unknowingly becoming more independent than would normally have happened due to this period of isolation. This may sound like an extreme statement but in the fifties even a distance of 20 miles was a long way, most people did not have cars and bus services were infrequent and expensive for large families.
Looking back on these events now it seems not surprising that I left home at an early age and had become so accustomed to being alone that I never returned apart from occasional weddings, funerals and major football games. It seems that the summer experiences were both an advantage and a disadvantage and most turning points in life seem to be like this. 

Olympics

Today 24th August the Olympic games finished in China and will now move to London in 2012. The first games I remember was 1956 in Melbourne This was held in December, the Australian summer. This was the first year I began to take a serious interest in athletics. I was a part of the Rainey Endowed school junior athletics team which came second in the Northern Ireland Grammar School athletics championships held at Cherryvale in Belfast. It was the year Ronnie Delaney won a surprise gold medal for Ireland as he also set an Olympic record in the 1500 metres. The next Olympics was 1960 in Rome. This was the year I left the Rainey School and set off for England. Ireland did not win any medals in 1960.

Derry win this time

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 WikipediaAfter Derry's first Ulster Senior Championship in 1958 they advanced to the final to meet Dublin. They were defeated but happy just to be there. This may have been the main reason for failing to win who knows.
The next time they were to appear in the All Ireland Final was 1993. This was a different team in many ways. They were better prepared. They wanted to win. They knew that they could win.
I had watched the semi final against Dublin in St Finbarr's club in Coventry as they exacted revenge for the defeat of '58. Now they were to meet Cork in the final at Croke Park and I'd managed to get a ticket( not easy to get hold of)
The Castledawson Gaa club had organised a coach for the trip to the final for those lucky enough to have tickets. I travelled on this coach along with some family and local neighbours. We arrived in Dublin well before the 3o'clock kick off and watched the preceding minor final like it was the first course of a great feast. Derry played Cork in the final and were deserving winners. I can remember seeing famous past Derry players before and after the game, players like Henry Diamond (a classmate at the Rainey school), Roddy and Owen Gribbin, John Murphy, Harry Cassidy and Pat Keenan(captain when Derry won the league title in 1947).
 On the return journey I travelled back with my brother Seamus, himself a Derry player in the late 60's and early 70's, and his wife Jane and son Michael(who won an all Ireland medal for the Derry under 21 team soon after). It was an unprecedented day for supporters of Gaa in Derry and a privilege to have attended at such an historic occasion. My father spent years following Derry around the fields of Ireland with little success but much frustration. He would have enjoyed 1993. 

Tyrone miss out

Image via WikipediaImage via WikipediaDuring the summer of 1957 while I was staying in cregnadovesky for the school break there was an air of excitement about the performance of the Tyrone Gaa team. Having reached the All Ireland semi-finalthe previous year and losing to Galway(a top team in the fifties) they had reached the semi again after beating Derry in the Ulster final. There was great expectations on the team as they went to Croke Park to play Louth and hopes were high that they could reach their first All Ireland final.
There was no TV in those days and everyone not at the match crowded around radios on the Sunday of the game. As my uncles radio was not working I went to hear the game with my uncle Jim who was home on holiday from England to the neighbouring farm of Paddy Kelly. Paddy's wife was sister of Frankie Donnelly, the legendary Tyrone record breaking forward from the local team Carrickmore.

 
At a crucial part of the game Tyrone were awarded a free kick and Frankie Donnelly unluckily sent it wide. I made what I thought an apt remark about his kicking ability and immediately was confronted with the sight of Mrs Kelly brandishing the poker taken from the fireplace. There was a prolonged silence for the rest of the game and I never knew if she was joking or serious. Tyrone never posed a serious threat again to win the All Ireland for almost forty years.

Is cycling safe?

Image via WikipediaMy first experience on a bicycle was best forgotten and by some subterfuge of the brain/memory it has been. The only reason that I know about it was when I asked about the scar on my ankle when I was about 12. I was told that when I was about 6/7 my father put me on the bar of his bicycle to take me back home after a visit to Anahorish to my grandparents home. The lane in front of the house was uneven to say the least and somehow my leg got entangled in the chain of the cycle. This must have been painful at the time but I have no memory of the event.
It was several years later when I was about 16 that I eventually got possession of my own cycle, a blue racing bike, and was to use this to go to school at the Rainey in Magherafelt for about 2 years.

Most days I would meet a classmate Bartley Stewart, a farmers son from across the main Castledawson to Magherafelt road where we lived in aughagaskin, for the journey to school. There was one morning during the fifties as I was on the way to school there was a commotion near the courthouse. There had been a bomb attack during the previous night and the roof had been burnt down.

There was one occasion I think it was 1958 when I cycled to cregnadovesky near Carrickmore to my maternal grandparents where I spent most summers of my teenage years. This was a journey undertaken with much trepidation, it was the furthest I had been away from home on the bike and was at that time quite a physical challenge. There was also the dangers from dogs appearing out of farm gates . This was greatest where I had to dismount from the bike because of the steep hills encountered on the way. However I arrived safely but exhausted about 2 hours later.

What next

Image via WikipediaThe aftermath of redundancy from Massey Ferguson was neither predictable nor planned. 1992 was an unforgettable year in many ways. My wife and I had befriended an elderly widow a few years previously (or rather she had befriended us). She had come to Coventry from South Wales after the first world war and married a local man. He died during the sixties and she had spent thirty years alone but was very active and spent a big part of her time socialising and visiting friends. She had been living in Baginton just outside Coventry but moved after her husbands death into the city because the poor bus service restricted her movements.
One of the properties she lived in happened to be near to where Sonia Rosenbaum lived. She was our landlady when we first married and rented a room in her house in King Edward road. This is where we met up with Olwyn. One of her friends was Sir Edmund Liggins(deceased) a former president of the Law Society, who advised her on all matters legal and property wise. When he advised her to make a will I was appointed joint executor along with another Mr Liggins (no relation) from Baginton.
During 1992 I started on an honours degree course at Coventry University. Near the end of this year Olwyn who by now was suffering from dementia(she was 92) accidentally had a fall at home which meant her being admitted to Coventry & Wawickshire Hospital. She never recovered from this and passed away as a result of contacting pneumonia. This was a particularly stressful period. A year difficult to forget but one which made the following years seem better.

Massey Ferguson

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Image via Wikipedia

I was employed at Massey Ferguson for just over 22 years. It was only a mild surprise when the company decided to make me redundant in 1992. They had been having annual culls for more than 10 years, aided by the Union bashing regime of a certain M. Thatcher. It was ironic that the year previous to 1992 I was, along with many other clerical staff taken out of the union membership and given 'professional staff' status. (This was as the company explained to create greater job security). The years spent there were mostly enjoyable apart from the posturing of a few individuals, who will be nameless for now, in positions of authority who were trying to control people who in many respects were their superiors.
Massey Ferguson made tractors mostly for export(they priced themselves out of the UK market) but the larger and more advanced models were manufactured in France. The Unions in France were a lot stronger so it was inevitable that when the market shrunk and decisions about closures were to be made the company chose the easy option and closed the manufacturing plant at Banner Lane. This is now being turned into a housing estate. The company have retained a token 'European headquarters' office at Stoneleigh outside Coventry. There are other tales to tell about MF at a later date.

Looking for work

Image via WikipediaIt may or may not have been fortunate for me that the sixties were a period when jobs were relatively easy to acquire. At this time the transport system in Coventry was run by the City Council and the main bus garage was only 200 yards from where I was living at the time. I was interviewed at the Council house and was offered a job as a Cash Clerk in the cash office of the corporation bus company at Harnall Lane. The manager when I started was Norman Brown. When he retired Peter Jones took over the reins. He is now retired but writes a weekly Ex Services column in the local daily 'Coventry Telegraph'.

The job involved mainly counting the daily bus takings and there was 8 or 9 people employed to do this. When I started to work there counting was done manually, but machinery was introduced which was able to count coins when separated into silver and bronze.
I was nineteen when I started to work there and the youngest employee. One of the older workers was Mrs Millie Moorcroft mother of David Moorcroft a well known international athlete and world record holder at 5000 metres.

I stayed in this job for 8 years mainly because a) it was virtually on my doorstep and b) when I moved to my present address, the free bus pass that all employees were given.
When I decided to move on it was into the tougher world of manufacturing. I applied for and was given a job at Massey Ferguson, at the time one of the best employers in the Midlands.
This is another story.

Leaving De La Salle

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 After spending a year as a student teacher at Our Ladys in Birmingham in 1960 I was all set to go to the next stage. During this period I was staying at my aunt Alice's house in Stockton Road as a sort of paid lodger. In her favour she did not always take the weekly monies, however it may have been better if I had found somewhere else to stay. Shortly after I started in the Training college in Manchester I was requested to return to Coventry to attend court as a witness. My aunt and her second husband, both now deceased, were having some problems over their daughters custody. The details are sketchy but there was some sort of assault, which happened while I was still there, which explained why the case went to court. (If I had been elsewhere I could not have been called as a witness and I would possibly still have continued to finish the teachers course, instead I decided to return to Coventry and look for work).
These major changes are the ones which determine the future for generations to come, yet are initiated by relatively minor events.