MEMORIES
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John Crowley Copyright © John Cowley 2003 |
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My first job is among my favourite memories. I began my working life as a cinema projectionist. Lest anybody should think, "Oh, lucky you, seeing all those film and getting paid for it," let me at once do away with that illusion. There is so much to be done in a projection room while a film show is in progress that concentrating on a plot or even listening to the dialogue is impossible. In addition to my duties as a projectionist, I was often called on to act as a stage electrician for the amateur dramatic groups who used to stage shows in the cinema. There were sometimes unintended and unscripted comic items in these shows. On one occasion, the senior girls in the local convent primary school contributed a choral item. Anybody who has never seen about twenty young girls in all their finery, realising they were on a real stage with real lights and real curtains, has never experienced chaos or bedlam. There were hysterical prima donnas in floods of tears, ribbons lost and frocks not pressed. At length all was ready. I opened the front curtains and at once there were shouts, cheers and laughter from the audience. I glanced back over my shoulder at the stage and just caught a glimpse of a figure in black robes disappearing into the wings. Apparently the Reverend mother of the convent had come on stage at the last minute to say a prayer for the success of the concert, never realising that the curtain was about to go up. Naturally, if I had been asked, I could have easily held the curtain until the lady had made a more dignified exit. Like many stage mishaps, the audience may have thought it was meant to be like that. |
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Helen Kahn Copyright © Helen Kahn 2003 |
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In the early 40s a parcel from America was a rare arrival, something normally seen only at Christmas in many Irish homes. In our family, the American parcel came less predictably but usually twice a year – Autumn and Spring – and it carried not presents but merchandise. A relation worked in Boston for a rich Irish-American family. In addition to her salary as nursery governess, she was given the barely-worn cast-off clothes of her charges and her employer. She sent these back to her family in Ulster who disposed of them to my mother and her sister neither of whom had any objection to buying for their children or themselves clothes originally belonging to another. To call those clothes second-hand was to disparage them, in fact they were beautiful, and we accumulated fresh wardrobes at low cost. My mother had two evening dresses, a green fur-trimmed coat and a suede jacket, I had party wear in organdie and shantung sulk, blouses in poplin or linen, all beautifully finished and with elegant buttons and the zip fasteners which were new to us then. Some of these clothes had come from Ireland in the first place, for they were made of linen or fine lawn with edgings of Irish crochet lace. Most of the colours were muted , navy or blue or dark brown or cream, with occasional touches of colour. There were no red or pink clothes, and I used to wonder if the little girl to whom they first belonged could be red-haired like my mother's people, for if you were a red-head then you did not call attention to yourself by wearing colours that clashed with your hair. But I never learned anything about that girl or her mother, except that they must be rich. The parcel ceased with the return to Ireland of their sender in the late 1940s. Many other things finished about then, including my childhood. But I have never forgotten those lovely clothes, from a world far away from the one we knew. |
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Noreen Wrenne Copyright © Noreen Wrenne 2003 |
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I was born and brought up in Douglas village – as it was always known – before the war, so a lot of memories about the place come to the fore. Ours was one of the first houses built on the Cork Douglas Road by a gentleman named Ned Kirwan who owned a shop at the juncture of the crossroads with the main Douglas Road. The nearest church at that time was in Douglas and we walked to Mass every Sunday morning via the back Douglas road. It was the time of door-to-door delivery of milk and bread. The milk arrived in a pony and trap equipped with a large churn, from which the household jug was filled with the required measure. The bread deliveries came in a vehicle, something like a caravan, drawn by a large horse, and inscribed on the side of the van was the name Henry O'Shea. Gradually our lives became urbanised with the development of public transport and domestic service, until the war provided a setback. Then we cycled to school and suffered shortages in gas and electricity, as well as food and drink and, of course, cigarettes; items of clothing also became difficult to purchase and we females were forced to attend social functions in the same costumes or dresses worn on many occasions. |
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