Day 83 #100DaysOfOldDays

The first time I went to England to visit my cousin I got the ferry from Dún Laoghaire to Holyhead. My first time to leave Ireland! Flying wasn’t an option because I couldn’t afford it. It was the summer of 1985, just a few months before Ryanair began to grace the skies with their affordable flights—I’m not even sure if they were affordable in the beginning. 

I sailed on the ferry with my aunt and her three small children. It was very exciting getting onto the big boat. We dragged our bags behind us as we walked through the crowd from one end of the boat to the other to find a seat. My aunt had a buggy for her youngest child, and the bottom of it was loaded with bags. We eventually found a seat where we sat and ate our packed lunch. 

I went off exploring, swaying from side to side like a drunk. I couldn’t believe the boat had shops and bars and restaurants. I was such a culchie! I didn’t buy anything on the boat because I only had about £80 to last me for a week. A Cavan culchie! 

A lot of passengers were sitting on the floor because there were no seats available. Excited children ran around the boat with stressed mothers after them. 

I climbed the white painted steel steps to go out on deck. It was fierce windy, I had to hold on tight as I leaned across to look into the sea. White foamy waves crashed against the side of the boat spraying my face with their saltiness. The boat was noisy and didn’t move very fast at all.  

Ireland had disappeared. I couldn’t wait to see England. I returned to my aunt and we ate biscuits. I tried to sleep but I couldn’t.

I went back out on deck as we approached Holyhead. I felt very grown up but also quite vulnerable and nervous. Already I was thinking about the return trip that I had to do alone.  

People had started to move to the exits as the ferry got closer to docking. Some passengers still lay on the floor, in no hurry to move. Children who had run around with excitement earlier, were now crying with tiredness.  

The ferry docked and we walked off and made our way to our bus, which was included in the travel deal. Passports weren’t needed for the ferry back then; all you needed was your ticket. It was all so easy and stress free.

I expected everything to look different from Ireland but it wasn’t. The roads were the same, the tress were green and the people were just like us.  

My pale pink flowing skirt was very creased by now and had chocolate biscuit stains on it. I was hot and sticky in the blue knitted top I wore. I had no idea how to dress for travelling. 

People on the bus smoked and I gladly inhaled their passive smoke. I had ten cigarettes in my bag but at seventeen, I didn’t smoke in front of ‘adults’, so in my bag they stayed.  

I think that bus journey was about five hours—I thought I’d never get there. My belly was full of sandwiches! 

My cousin Louise picked me up at a bus station in some part of London, and my aunt and I said our goodbyes and parted ways. My cousin had a job interview to attend and she brought me along with her.   

She was being interviewed for a typist position in an office of some sort. I felt awkward, dirty and tired. But they were nice to me in there, as if it was a normal thing to do—take along your culchie cousin when you attend a job interview. They gave me tea. (It wasn’t Lyons tea but it was grand.) 

Part of the interview was a typing test to show how many words you could type per minute. Louise must have made an impression with her typing skills because she got the job. But she didn’t accept it for various reasons. One reason was, the price of the daily train fare would have taken a huge chunk out of her wages.

Well, I had a great first holiday in England. I saw Barbara Windsor crossing the street in London and I met Lewis Collins in a pub in High Wycombe, and I got his autograph! I was a massive fan of The Professionals.

I managed to get back home to Ireland safely! It was my first of many sailings with Irish Ferries. I was 26 before I got on a plane!  

Day 80 #100DaysOfOldDays

We were always told that our school days were the best days of our lives. Of course, we didn’t believe it at the time. But it wasn’t the case for everyone. 

Not all children were treated equally and a lot were treated unfairly because of their social status or their intellectual inabilities. Teachers were often rough and corporal punishment was legally accepted.  

Going back to my parents’ generation, school was much different than it was in the 70’s when I was at school. 

They walked to school (sometimes barefoot) and for some it was miles from their home. They took a shortcut through the fields when they could. They carried their few books under their arms along with a small lunch—sometimes no lunch.  

The schools had fires lit in the classroom and the children had to bring in money to cover the cost of coal. I’ve been told stories about a teacher who stood with her back to the fire all day long, thus preventing the heat from getting around the room. She only allowed the well-off children to stand around the fire. The less privileged children stayed back in their seats.  

Children got caned regularly for very little. Teachers had favourites. I remember my dad talking about a teacher that was a very nice woman. She treated all the children with kindness. I think her name was Miss Carroll. 

Another story I heard was; a teacher who used to ride her bicycle to school didn’t realise her bloomers were on show as she pedaled along. A certain group of children whom she passed on the road, would have a great giggle at her under frills! 

A lot of children, especially boys, left school very young; some as young as twelve. They left to work on the home farm or a bigger farm nearby. Some emigrated and never came home. Girls left early to work in shops or the local boot factory. 

My school days were quite okay to be honest. I liked school, most of the time. By the 70’s, classroom conditions had improved, although we still had the big fire. We loved getting picked to go out for coal and always took a bit longer than was necessary. I never remember being cold in school.

One half of our school—St Anne’s—was for the boys and the other half was for the girls. In the playground we were separated by a barrier, and we didn’t dare enter the boy’s side nor did they enter ours. Of course, there were one or two daredevils who just couldn’t resist the challenge of running along the wrong side of the barrier. (I did it once.) 

I remember in junior and senior infants—low infants and high infants as it was called—we wrote with chalk on little black slates. My favourite subject in every class was nature—I don’t think it was called a subject though. I knew the names of every leaf and bird. I hated sums and I still do. I liked English reading. 

In this photo I’m holding my new reader, Maura, Sean and Rusty the dog. 

Mam covered our books with wallpaper, or brown paper that was once a bag! 

The Spraoi annual came at Christmas. We were always a year late getting ours; at the jumble sales!  

I was in third class when Miss Traynor came. She was young and enthusiastic. She sang a lot and played a guitar. She loved nature study and art. She always smelled of lovely hand cream. She was my favourite!

We ate our lunch in the classroom or outside on a good day; in the shelter or on the grass. I had bread and jam, or maybe a corned beef sandwich, and diluted orange in a glass bottle. In the winter I brought soup or tea in a wee Thermos flask. Then it would break and I’d be back to bringing the bottle for a while. I was always envious of the children who had cake for lunch. 

Our desks had the little ink wells in them but we weren’t of the quill and ink era! We had pencils and sticky crayons that I can smell right now! We had wooden pencil boxes. Then at Christmas we’d get a wallet style pencil case that was filled with colouring pencils. I remember the first day I got a geometry set. It didn’t encourage me to like maths any better, I just liked all the bits and pieces in the tin box!

When the health inspectors came to school, we had to line up in our vest and undies to get examined. An awful practice that was!  

The cane was still very much a part of school life in the 70’s. Although, the ruler was more common. That stung!  

I was about seven when I got a few hard slaps with the ruler from one teacher. She left the room to talk to someone who had come knocking. Everyone in the class was dying to know who she was talking to, daring each other to look. I said I’d do it so I ran to the top of the room and looked out the door. (It was Pauline Reilly’s mammy.) As soon as the teacher came back in, a chorus sang out, “Please Miss…Gloria McEntee went up and looked out the dooooorrrr.” I never felt so betrayed in all my life! 

She slapped my hands with the ruler as she recited slowly, “Curiosity killed the cat.” I got a slap for each syllable!  

The same teacher wouldn’t let me go to the toilet when I asked three times. I peed on the floor beside her desk. My mam wasn’t too impressed with that. She told her before I had a weak bladder! 

However, I did like school. We had a lot of fun and most of my memories are good ones. We lived a short walking distance away, and there was always someone to walk home with. On rainy days we’d often get a lift to or from school with a neighbour. Phil Dunne had a big van and we’d all pile into it! And some days we had money for Mrs Fulton’s on the way home.