Jul 09 2010
Do you remember those hazy, lazy summer days spent amongst the sand dunes on Dollymount Beach? When you ate tomato and cheese sandwiches and the sand crunching between your teeth? The TK lemonade bottle filled with water or tea that each one of us had to take a turn drinking from? Where was the health and safety people then? Sure we were healthier and safer then than we are now. It was a great feeling as we raced across the wooden bridge to see who would get to the sand dunes first. And the Ma’ pushing the baby in the pram and shouting at you to stop running before you fall. Remember the Da’ strolling along with one hand in his trouser pocket and the other holding his cigarette like Cary Grant in the pictures. It was no easy task you know, bringing a gang of kids to the beach in those days. It took a lot of planning and organising. We always had to get two buses, one into town and then one that went out along Fairview Park and past all the posh houses in Clontarf and then it’d stop near the wooden bridge at Dollymount. The Ma’ always fancied living in one of those posh houses along the seafront. The Da’ wouldn’t have any of it, afraid that the sea air might rust his bicycle. We always brought loads of sandwiches with us to the beach and a teapot. We never had any towels. We had to run up and down the strand in our nude to dry off. That’s provided the tide was in and we managed to get into the water that was always freezing cold. But we didn’t care either way. Weren’t the Ma’ and Da’ great all the same? All the things that they did for us kids and they never complained. Sure that’s the way things were back then, great people who lived through the hardest of times. I’m so glad I had the Ma’ and Da’ that I had. I wouldn’t change them for all the tea in China, would you?