Aug 05 2019
THE SECONDHAND FAMILY…
THE STRIPED JUMPER ON MY SISTER ONCE BELONGED TO OUR AUNTIE KATHLEEN, MY SISTER THEN HANDED IT ON TO MY OLDER BROTHER…I HOPE THIS STORY ISN’T TOO LONG…
‘I remember a time when my older brothers and a gang of lads went door to door collecting old newspapers and jam jars that they’d bring for recycling to a man down off North King Street, we used to call him Harry Littleman but I don’t think that was his real name. And the lads always made sure to drain out any bottles with a drop of whiskey or gin still in the bottom of them. I well remember the oul fella used to place his foot under the scales and move it in such a way as to show the weight of the waste paper in his favour. The money they got off him was quickly spent on sweets. Me and my pal used to bring empty lemonade and stout bottles back to the pubs or the shops and we’d get a few pennies for them.
There was a scrap man in Smithfield who used to give us a pigeon instead of money and when we’d get home and let the pigeon out they’d always forget to come back to us, my Da’ used to call them Homing Pigeons. We walked everywhere as kids without fear of man or beast, we’d walk into town to have a look around Woolworths or Hector Greys shops or go up to the Phoenix Park collecting chestnuts or conkers as we called them back then. Some of my older brothers and their friends used to swim in the canal that often had dead dogs floating on the water or a sack of drowned kittens bobbing up and down and there was always loads of old bicycles and baby prams with no wheels on them in the water, as well as rats the size of a large cat. We’d often let a dog lick the sores on our knees to make them better. And if you had a loose tooth the Da’ or one of the older brothers might tie a piece of thread around it and tie the other end onto the door handle and then you had to wait for someone to open the door from the other side and “WHAM” the tooth would be pulled out, (No Root Canal work needed then).
We often ate orange skins that we picked up off the ground and apple butts too, we even smoked cigarette butts that some Oul Fella had thrown away and sometimes you’d be sucking on a sweet and then let your pal have a suck on it too, the same with your chewing gum. During the interval in the Picture House, after watching some cowboy who fell off his horse and dragging himself to the river for a drink of water, we’d go down under the seats looking for an empty ice cream tub and take it to the toilets with us to get a drink of water, we’d flush the big toilet and catch the water in the tub as it came down from the overhead cistern. When the Ma’ was cutting up a head of cabbage of a Sunday she’d dig out the heart and cut it up between a few of us to eat raw. And if she boiled the scrap of ham in the cabbage water we’d get a cup of that salty water to drink because it was full of iron. Sometimes we’d go into the farmer’s field and rob the turnips and eat them raw.
In the winter time we’d get pig’s cheek for our dinner or maybe the Da’ would arrive home with half a pig’s head and that would be boiled up of a Saturday night. And the Ma’ and Da’ would sit by the fire listening to the radio of a Sunday night eating pig’s feet or Crubeens as the Da’ used to call them. My most favourite things of all to eat was the Cow’s Tongue and Cow’s Heart or Ox Tongue was delicious, we only got that on special occasions. Of a Friday in summer we got a bowl of rice that had been boiled in milk and a great big dollop of jam to mix in with it. Also in the summer we always got salad sandwiches for our dinner on a Saturday, two slices of bread with a leaf of lettuce and some chopped up onion in between them. In the winter months we got a bowl of porridge before we went to school each morning, the porridge was steeped in water overnight and then boiled up in the morning, sometimes the porridge came in big lumps, depending on the Ma’s mood. Some Fridays, depending on the household cash flow, the Ma’ would send a few of us to the local Chipper for six or eight bags of chips with loads of salt and vinegar, when we got them home she would cut each bag in half with the bread knife and give us one half each for our dinner.
On Easter morning we all got a boiled egg each with a face drawn on it by the Da’ and with our names on it as well. On Christmas morning we got a fried egg and a rasher with a slice of fried bread. Everything was washed down with tea, either in a jam jar, in the early days that is, or in later years, a cup that either had a crack in it or a chip missing out of it. Some of our cups we got from the Rag Man who used to come around our road on his ass and cart collecting rags, bottles and jam jars. I gave one of them my First Holy Communion suit for a balloon on a stick with a coloured feather on it, the Ma’ never let me forget that one. Most anything we wore back then was always secondhand or handed down from an older brother or sister or maybe the cousins clothes when they were finished with them.
My older sister used to send home boxes of used clothes to us from England and there might even be a few pairs of shoes, boys or girls, it didn’t matter to us once they fit our feet. The Ma’ used to make short trousers for us boys out of old overcoats the Da’ or herself was finished with, if they didn’t go on the bed first to keep us warm that is. My auntie Kathleen gave my older sister a jumper she had worn for a number of years and when the sister finished with it my older brother started wearing it. Boys only wore Longers, long trousers, when they went out to work; my two eldest brothers wore trousers that belonged to our Da’. When the brothers went swimming they either went in their nude or wore a pair of our older sister’s nickers. We never had a bed to ourselves; there were always at least three of us in one bed. And we never had pillow cases either; the pillows were always full of stains from dribbles and the like on them but we didn’t care because we’d be too exhausted from playing out in the fresh air all day and we’d fall asleep straightaway.
There was fifteen of us, eight boys and seven girls and the Ma’ and Da’ slept in the same room as the girls. There was never any fresh air in the boy’s room. And we never wore bijamers either, the Ma’ made night dresses for the girls but us boys always kept our shirts on in bed. But so did most other lads we went to school with because you’d see all of the Hopper marks in red on the backs of their shirt collars. Most Saturday mornings the lads would have a field day killing all the Hoppers in our beds, squashing them between their thumb nails and laughing out loud as they cracked and spat out blood up into your face. For a while my older sister and her new husband came to live with us, they slept on the bed setee in our parlour. When they came home from their honeymoon they moved in with his family. His mother told my sister that she’d have to sleep on their sofa and himself could sleep in with his brothers upstairs. When my sister told the Ma’ there was an order placed straightaway with a shop in South Georges Street for a bed setee on the never never. We didn’t have a fridge back then. The milk was kept in the back porch to stop it going sour.
The Ma’ shopped every day for bread and things for our dinner. Nothing in our kitchen ever went to waist because there was a man at the end of our road who used to collect pig swill and he’d give us a penny each for bringing our kitchen waste down to him. Anything we didn’t eat our dog got. At Christmas time the Ma’ made her own puddings and hung them up in a pillowcase out in the back porch. We’d all get a go at stirring the pudding and making a wish. She also made her own Christmas cake. Our poor Ma’ was always on the go. If the Da’ had trouble with his stomach ulcers the Ma’ would boil up some tripe, that’s the lining of a cow’s or sheep’s stomach, in milk and pepper for him. When one of the older brothers had a great big boil on his back the Da’ got a ketchup bottle with hot water in it and placed it over the boil, as the water cooled down it caused a type of suction and sucked out all the poison in the boil. And we used to put mustard on a chilblain on our heels that we’d get from being out in the snow. And that’s the way it was all those years ago, I could go on forever talking about things we did and what we ate when we were young but there you go…’