Dublin in the Rare Auld Times:
Part 2
The memory is a quare thing! If I was asked
what I did yesterday I’d need a week to think about it
and double check with the people who were most likely to be
in the same place but I can remember as if it were yesterday
a little while before my second birthday. I was sitting outside
our little two-room house in Saggart swigging on a bottle (milk
of course, the other stuff was a couple of years later at me
sister’s birthday party). About a half mile down the road
was a huge farm which “belonged” to Colonel Campbell,
a hero of the British occupation who was later to die in the
same heroic manner as he lived, sitting on the toilet. My aunt,
who used to clean house for him, found him but wasn’t
quick thinking enough to just pull the chain. Anyway, I digress
– on that rare sunny, warm afternoon one of the brave
Colonel’s workers, a dairyman, happened to be passing
on his way to do the milking. He bent down, took the bottle
out of my hand and said “I need that because the cows
don’t give enough milk in the warm weather”. I remember
a scream for me mammy, a look of panic on the dairyman’s
face and me ma giving the poor bugger who was only joking the
telling off of his life. Nobody gave Mary Timmins’ kids
a hard time! I have never trusted any man who squeezes the udders
of four legged females from that day to this.
School days started very soon after that, no trauma, still had
the same pals who used to build a dam in the stream at the end
of the garden and go “swimming”, the only difference
was the regimentation, sitting in rows, not being able to natter
on (which of course I would never do, as everybody knows), having
to put your hand up and saying “Wil ceád agum dul
amách” - meaning “Do I have permission to
leave” when you need a pee – and the having to be
in one place from a time to a time. (I’m reliving that
now, having never believed I’d go full-circle). The best
thing about going to school was that my granny, that’s
me mammy’s mammy, lived about halfway between our house
and the school, in one of a block of four stone-built houses
with stairs as steep as ladders, but had one more room than
our original house. I used to wonder why they didn’t swap
until I understood renting. I found out on my last visit to
the Auld Sod (that’s the country, not me granny) that
this block had changed hands for about four million euros.
Why do I keep going off on a tangent? On the way home from school
I would almost without fail call into granny’s house.
She was the loveliest of ladies, grey hair tied in a bun, grey
stockings, always wore a bib (maybe some of the older ladies
will be able to explain what a bib was to the younger people,
I don’t know where to start), made the best cup of tea
ever, sang songs and had the best ever sense of humour. Granny
told me stories about the auld times that my parents didn’t
have enough time for because of all the other kids. One of my
favourites was about her father’s Guinness. When me granny
was a kid and the family lived near the Royal Canal her “da”
used to send her to the local pub to fetch his bottle of Guinness
every day. Having had the occasional drop on the sly from time
to time she hit on a plan. In those days the bottles were corked,
so one day she uncorked it, drank a mouthful, filled the bottle
from the canal and recorked it. It wasn’t noticed, so
next time it was a mouthful and a half and gradually she weaned
him down to half a bottle. When you take into account the fact
that neither of my parents drank, it’s obvious that granny’s
genes merely jumped one generation. Later I was in the same
class as the headmaster’s daughter and got in a whole
heap of trouble, but that’s another story.
Martin Timmins
Click here to
read Part Three of Martin's Mutterings
Top of page
