Sep 27 2015
‘All quiet on the western front…’
Sure God be with the days when you wouldn’t see a sight like this. I mean to say there’s not a sinner in sight, never mind a dead dog floating in the water below. Saturday afternoon and not one Young Fella in the canal having a swim. And where’s all the Young Ones who used to take the chislers for a walk in their pram? Every Saturday after the Ma’ had us all clean the house from top to bottom she’d tell to go up to the canal for a long walk. ‘Go up to Ashtown…‘ she’d say ‘…and take yisser time’. And there’d be the Da’ standing behind her looking over her shoulder at us walking up the road and him with a grin on his face. It took me many a year to figure out what that grin was all about, but there you are. And as I say, not a sinner in sight. Sure who would have believed it back then? Look at all them Blackberry bushes next to the train tracks full of “Belly-Busters” and they roaring to be made into jam. What’s the world comin’ to at all, that’s what I say…’