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.
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.
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