I remember being there when they marched down Thomas Street in Portadown, which was quite a narrow street and the sound was indeed loud. I imagine the drummer’s ears had a short shelf life because I had to back off pretty quickly. As the drummer moved at a snail’s pace along the street, three or four men, whom I presumed to be relief drummers, walked backwards about one or two yards in front of him and seemed to be listening intently to the drum beats. All these men were of stocky build and would need a lot of strength to carry this heavy piece of equipment and beat a very fast drum roll, as well.
It was fascinating to watch. They were very skilled and dedicated to the job in hand, even though the real purpose was to scare the life out of the Catholics. Listening to the drums on a summer evening as we went about our work became quite hypnotic in the end.
On twelfth July the marching bands set out for their different venues, all dressed up in their finery. A lot of drinking would be done, of course, and then they would go to the field set aside for the speeches which would be given, mostly, by the politicians. And the theme for day was a repeat of every other day over the years, which was “Down with the Catholics”. A politician who could think up a good bigoted, memorable phrase was well on the way to being elected.
The method was used to create a siege mentality among the proletariat and make them think the Catholics were going to take over if they didn’t turn out and vote. This scenario was pure fantasy, as the Catholics could never have a majority under the gerrymandered rules of the time. Anyway, the politicians whipped the people into a frenzy and they duly delivered them their majority. I remember the first time I was able to read the newspaper, apart from Curly Wee cartoons, I was amazed to read phrases like “A Protestant parliament for a Protestant people” coming from the minister of home affairs.
Of course, when a politician became an MP or a minister, he had to get on with the business of governing the country and all that hype was forgotten. It all seems very familiar.
My mother, who came from a more mixed Protestant and Catholic area, said everyone got on very well until election time. I suppose this was because we were all cut from the same cloth, as it were, as I remember reading a history of the British Isles by Trevellyn and discovered that in the very early times Ireland had been invaded from the south by a tribe called the Scots who settled there and also invaded Scotland, hence the name Scotland.
Arthur’s mother, Teresa, in the garden
So when my mother was a young girl during election times, her Protestant friends would be embarrassed by the bigotry of their politicians when they met their Catholic neighbours on the road and would stare at the ground rather than meet their eyes. The elections were like measles, which caused a high temperature and were no good to anyone, except the politicians who were obviously the virus.
Another annual summer event was when Eileen’s employers went off on holiday and one year she arrived home, not with Alsatians, but with a little child called Robert, the son and heir of Captain Carson and his wife. Robert was about three years old, I suppose, and we soon got used to his presence. Eileen was Nanny, Peter was Nanny’s Daddy and Jim Joe was Uncle Jim.
At the beginning, the school children would shout probably rude things at him as they passed, but Nanny told him they were just naughty boys and that’s the term he used dismissively when they were going past.
Of course, in a week or two Robert became part of Hughes’ household and was accepted, just like the donkey called Daisy, which also arrived and was installed in the front garden, presumably for Robert to ride.
We presumed wrong, however, because Daisy was in foal and one day the most beautiful little foal called Rosemarie appeared in the garden and mother and daughter became an attraction for passersby to admire.
I loved donkeys and tried to ride Daisy, but she just kicked up her heels and I went flying over her head.
When I was very young I had a craze about these pretty animals. I wanted a donkey and was told I couldn’t have one, as children have a new ‘want’ all the time and they usually pass as something else catches their eye. But my donkey longing persisted and if anyone came to the house I usually asked them if they had a donkey.
Gradually people got to know about me and would tell me stories about their donkeys. Dr. Girvan was a regular visitor with all our children’s ailments and he told me he had a blue donkey and he would surely bring it in the car next time he came.
Adults treated children like that then – promising things that would never happen. When the doctor was coming I would be out watching for the blue donkey but, of course, there would be an excuse that he forgot and that he would bring it next time, for sure.
Then I started asking Jim Joe about a donkey and he said he and I would go to the next Moy fair, which was a monthly fair in the town of Moy, and buy a donkey. Nobody told me that this would never happen so, on Moy fair morning, I was up early getting ready, not to go to school but to the fair. As I waited, and there was no sign of Jim Joe, who was going to drive us there, I went down to Hughes’ to see if he was ready. He told me his horse had thrown a shoe and he suggested that I go back and ask Daddy if he could borrow Roger’s mare.
I think from my father’s attitude I gathered that nothing was going to happen. A sad feeling came over me and I went to school instead.
Moy, or the Moy, as it is locally known, held its fair on the first Friday of every month and was once known all over Europe, I’ve been told, because of its horse fair. People came from places like Greece to purchase horses for the cavalry.
It is a village about four miles away on the Dungannon–Armagh road and straddles the Blackwater river, the main part being in Tyrone. When we were young we often got off school in order to drive the cattle to Moy fair. We would be up bright and early, breakfast eaten, faces shining and hair well combed, and we would set off about eight o’clock, two in front to run ahead and stand in gateways and at corners to steer the cattle in the right direction. Charlie, or Jim Joe, perhaps, would be behind.
We lads did all the running, which was usually only for the first mile or two as the cattle soon got tired, and we plodded the last couple of miles at a steady walk. When we turned up the final three-quarter mile road to Moy, we always dreaded meeting the fat cattle the drovers were taking to the railway station.
These were beef cattle, mostly bullocks, weighing about ten hundredweight each. I think we only had the misfortune to meet them once. They were just like in the western films, about 100 cattle filling the road and the footpaths and back as far as the eye could see. The drovers used their sticks and voices to keep them going fast so they wouldn’t have time to get into any gateways. They completely ignored approaching farmers with their half dozen calves or maybe just one cow. If a calf was caught up in the drive it would probably end up at the railway station, so we looked for a house or a field with a wide gate or gates set in from the road and got our cattle into the shelter and then made as much noise as the drovers, and tried to head off the herd as it went past.
The square in the Moy was large. The side that we came into was the cattle side and we found a convenient space that was in a good position and just stood there waiting for buyers. The cattle were now tired and gave no trouble.
The horse fair was on the other side of the square and we liked to make a sale early so that we could go and have a look at the horses – we found this much more exciting. We would watch and listen to the bargaining, which involved lots of spitting on hands, walking away then coming back again, and more slapping of hands.
The seller’s assistant would run with the horse on a short rein to show his paces. If they were horse dealers, which they usually were, then the seller would take a piece of ginger that he had been chewing, lift the horse’s tail and push it into the horse’s bum. The horse would suddenly come alive, probably buck in the air and take off at a lively pace, with the other man hanging on to the rein. Whether this impressed the buyer, I don’t know, but if the horse had a dodgy leg,
the smarting rectum would take his mind off it at the time as he tried to get away from it. After a lot more spitting and slapping of hands they reached a price and the deal was done – or so we thought, but we hadn’t reckoned on the luck penny.
The luck penny would have been mentioned a few times during the negotiations. If, say the horse seller wanted £20 and the buyer was at £18, then he might walk away and come back and say, ‘I’ll give you nineteen with a pound luck penny.’ That was exactly £18 again but the luck penny would have been settled.
The luck penny, really, was a discount given by the seller and was a tradition – the seller must give the buyer a luck penny. Often, they would fight for ages over the luck penny. Maybe the buyer wanted 10 shillings luck but the seller would only offer 5 shillings luck. It would be stalemate until another man might come along who knew them both. He would drag them together and hold both their hands, slapping them together with his solution.
“Give him the 10 shilling luck and then both of you go to the pub and he’ll buy you a drink.”
The thought of the drink might just settle it as they would both be thirsty and getting ready to finish. Off they would go with their arms around each other and might not emerge for an hour or two. Then they would proceed to tell you that, “This man is the nicest man I have ever met in my life.”
If we sold our cattle it was a great relief because there is nothing so depressing as driving them home again. There is no need now to stand in gates and corners because the cattle will walk home at a good pace and we have to keep up with them. They want to get home and they remember the way.
I heard a funny tale about a couple of cattle dealers called Brian and Peter who were brothers in law, married to two pretty sisters. They travelled to all the fairs and bought perhaps a calf or two in the morning and sold it again in the evening at a profit if they could. It was a job that needed experience and judgement if they weren’t going to be left with cattle at the end of the day, which had to be driven home and put in a field until another day.
On Friday evenings they would meet in a pub in Coalisland and have a few drinks and discuss things. Brian had no family, but Peter had five little girls. Peter was a more humorous type than Brian and was always laughing and telling a joke. On this particular evening, having settled down and had a couple of drinks, the conversation took a more serious turn, when Brian asked Peter why it was that he and his wife had no success with having a family while Peter’s wife seemed to conceive if he smiled at her.
“Well,” said Peter, “You and I are in the cattle trade. I know that cows will not produce milk like they should if they are not well cared for and happy. And neither will they have calves if they are neglected and not in good health. The same rules apply to a woman and she must be cared for and cosseted by us males if we are to have a family.”
“Oh, I think I know how to take care of my wife without having to listen to you,” said Brian.
“Well, maybe you do and maybe you don’t,” said Peter. “But I’ll tell you what to do when you go home tonight and see what you think.”
“Okay, fine. Fire away.”
“First of all, go up to the chemist now and get some nice perfumed bath salts and talc and present it to your wife. Then tonight or tomorrow night when you both have had a nice long soak, you will sit in your dressing gown or negligee and have a glass of your favourite wine and relax. And then, when she is ready, your wife will get into bed and you will plant a loving kiss on her forehead.”
Peter then paused and took a long drink from his glass. Brian waited for him to continue. “Then what?” he said in the end.
“Then,” said Peter, “You send for me.”
I believe Brian wasn’t pleased with the outcome, especially as one or two people had gathered round to listen.
On the road outside our house
two dogs meet at the bend
They stop and sniff intently
at each other’s nether end
They take their time and seem
to ponder long on every smell
What it conveys to them
only they alone can tell
It must have significance
what they analyse
Does it tell them much more
than we can realise?
Could it be that each sniff
is like a urine test
If that is so, their analysis
is surely of the best.
Job done they scrape the ground
and then they start to play
No need for files or notes,
the facts are stored away
Will these facts be used
for instinctive solutions
Or do they become part
of canine evolution?
Chapter Eight
Each year tinkers would arrive in the area and stop for a week or a fortnight just over the high bridge on a quiet road that had no traffic. There were very wide grass verges along this road, so they parked their caravans or maybe just one or two tents on the grass verges, and during the day they would sit there, tap tapping away making tin cans, large and small, half pint and one pint tins, jinny lamps, which were always made of tin, and many other kitchen utensils.
Their wives or their children would go around the houses selling these goods and they were very good and didn’t leak. We’d often stand and watch them for a while as we passed by – it was fascinating seeing how deftly they cut and shaped the objects and then gently tap tapped around the edges until it was sealed. They were very skilled.
Then as suddenly as they had arrived, the tinkers would be gone and the grass would be littered with little pieces of tin.
Everything had its season. In the country we didn’t have the parks and swings and amenities that children had in the towns, but we had seasons of country pursuits. In spring it was birds’ nests. After school we went hunting for birds’ nests: along the hedgerows for blackbirds and thrushes, under the thatch for sparrows and starlings, among the heather for larks, which were difficult to find and we mostly stumbled on them by chance, as they laid their eggs on the ground and were well camouflaged.
The first wren’s nest I found impressed me very much. It was so well constructed. It was completely round with a tiny hole just big enough to insert one finger. It was very soft and made of little feathers, hairs and moss, I think. We had to learn not to touch the nests and not visit them often, otherwise the bird would forsake it and build another one elsewhere.
The blackbird’s nest was made of hay, straw and grass, all coiled around and around, and the thrush’s was plastered inside with dried clay just like hard wall. On the ground we might find a curlew’s nest or a peewit or lapwing. I remember bringing tea down to Charlie, who was cutting rushes in the bog, and there was a nest of young curlews, just hatched, and running around all over the place. They were smaller than day old chicks but resembled tiny turkeys covered with black spots on an orange background. That’s how I remember them.
The Brilla was full or corncrakes. My brother Shamey and I would chase them through the meadows and they would lead us a merry dance. We’d hear them croaking right beside us, very loud, and would dash over there but, of course, they wouldn’t be there but would suddenly crake again much further away.
We could find their little runs in the tall meadow grass. Of course, we wanted to find their nests, but we never did. I think they were probably deliberately coming close, calling to us and drawing us away as we were getting too close – the same tactics as those employed by the larks, pretending their wings were broken. We rarely saw a corncrake, as they kept under cover, but we heard them all right. At night they set up such a din, we could hear them in our house.
One night my father came home and said, “Come out and listen to this.” It was a very still summer night and we all went out onto the street to listen. It was like a massive orchestra of corncrakes coming from all directions.
Some nights it would be the frogs coming from what
was once a tributary of the Blackwater River, now turned into a swamp containing thousands of frogs, and the noise they made travelled for miles on a still night.
Rats were a great threat around the farm. We didn’t like mice but we hated rats. Every dog and every man hated rats. One rat could destroy more in a barn than a dozen mice because, where the mice would make a small hole in the base of a sack, a rat would rip it apart from top to bottom, and a ten stone sack of flour, or a two hundredweight bag of cow meal would be destroyed.
We had a Wheaten Terrier dog called Jack and he had a brain and could think, as I found out. The street in front of our house was almost twenty metres long, running downhill. Pipes were laid from a sort of well at the top side, running under the street until it emerged at the hayshed about thirty metres away, where the water poured out and ran down the hill.
There was a rat which I think was attracted to the hens’ food in the top garden and Jack had chased it once or twice. But it jumped into the ditch and disappeared into the water pipe under the street and reappeared in safety, way down the hill. Then one evening I heard Jack after the rat and ran up in time to see the rat and Jack drop into the ditch. The rat was making for the escape tunnel and disappeared down the pipe but, instead of Jack sticking his head into the pipe as he had done before, he took off down the street with me at his heels. He flung himself on top of the pipe exit and in seconds out came the rat and wham! that was the end. Dogs have instinct but it took a reasoning brain to work that one out.
Of course, if I told anyone that at the time, no one would really believe it because we all loved to tell a yarn and make it better than it was. So, apart from my family, I told no one.
Another dog which I must mention in despatches is Sport. He was a black and white collie with a few greenish spots as well. When the threshing machine came it was usually a big date for boys and their dogs, for we all knew that underneath those hay ricks the rats would have nested and they all had to be killed. Not one could be left because it would breed and propagate dozens of rats.
Living in the Past: A Northern Irish Memoir Page 7