Cabra History.Com

‘We had something not too unlike this in our kitchen on Killala Road. Imagine the Corpo’ only putting in one socket for the whole house and it down in the kitchen of all places. Well it didn’t stop my Da’ from sorting it out. Sure we must have had at least five double sockets plugged into it, never mind the extension wire for the light in his shed. Us kids used to love sitting in our kitchen in the dark and watch the sockets sending red, white and blue sparks shooting across the room. It was like something out of Star-Trek. And we also had a Wireless that had a loose valve in the back and the Da’ would have to stick his hand in and tighten it so it would go. That is, until one morning he put his hand on the wrong thing and it flung him across our kitchen floor. You’d want to see the sparks flying then and the Da’ looking like a Punk with his hair sticking up and his hand all black. And then it takes the Ma’ to come into the kitchen and state the obvious ‘There’s something wrong with that Wireless’. Then there was more sparks flying about and us kids running for cover. Sure I used to plug our Record Player into the light socket in our bedroom and then I started doing the same for the guitar amp I got a loan off from someone or other. We also had to turn off all the lights in the house so that the light in the shed would work because one time when we didn’t the wire out to the shed went on fire. The Da’ said he needed a light in the shed for when he was counting all the rusty nails and bent screws that he had or when he was looking for a washer he’d dropped one time but never found. And then we had to have a light up the top of the stairs for the Christmas Crib and that was plugged into the light socket on the Landing. Sure the oul Da’ had great intentions but he knew nothing about electricity. I think that’s because he was brought up on Oil Lamps in their tenement room. Sure now, that’s how it was and that’s how it goes…’