Aug 07 2010
The Fab Four
My mother had sent my brother and I on the 22 bus across the city to Dolphins Barn. Billy Quinn from Swilly Road had opened his first butchers shop next door to the Picture House there. Before moving to Swilly Road the Quinn’s had lived next door to our family. Billy Quinn had told my mother to send one of the boys over to the shop and he’d ‘look after her’. So off went myself and my brother Brendan with a shopping list for sausages, rashers and whatever else was on offer. Having done our shopping we headed back for the bus home. The bus sauntered along the South Circular Road as Brendan and I sat upstairs with all the smokers. There were a few lads about our age of 12 – 14 years old sitting behind us. They were talking about a new band that they had heard on the wireless the night before. ‘199 Radio Caroline, the station that serves the nation’. Brendan and I sat there munching a mouthful of Cleeves and earwigging in on the lads conversation. They were arguing about the names of the band members that they were so keen on hearing again. One fella threw out a name and one of the others told him he was wrong and so it went on until the bus turned into Camden Street. It was then that my brother Brendan turned around in his seat and glaring at the lads behind us said” It’s John, Paul, George and Ringo and they’re called the Beatles”. Brendan sat back in his seat as the lads behind us went all quiet. He then looked at me and I said ‘who are the Beatles”? With disgust he turned away and looked out of the bus window for the remainder of the journey home to Cabra West. That was my first official introductin to the Fab Four…the Beatles.