The Story of Ballyferris. Chapter Ten. Music and Derek's Caravan.

 Music at the Caravan

When we were all rather young, before our teenage years, a barn was set aside at Turkington’s caravan site (the one on the Millisle side of Hope's farm), in which  caravanners could gather to have a bit of a concert . Well that was always such a good old sing song, and in the inimitable Irish way if you felt like it, you could get up and strut your stuff musically! Noone minded if you got all  the notes ...even when they were not exactly in the right places!

I remember one of the regular favourites was... “Look over your shoulder, I’m walking behind”……now who on earth sang that? Does anyone remember?

Google tells me it was Eddie Fisher !

I don't remember singing many Irish folk songs in the 50s. You would be more likely to hear a country and western rendered...or mangled, depending on how it came out. But the enthusiasm was boundless. In fact my drama teacher Graeme Roberts was surprised when upon winning a science prize at school I opted for a book of Irish "come-all-yees"...dad's name for Irish songs.

This was at the end of the fifties when Elvis broke into our music world and thrilled us with songs such as "Teddy Bear” and “ Jail House Rock”, and you know…. we kids wanted to rock it up in the Barn.

 I remember one day in particular at the swings in Turkington's yard with Vicky, another caravanner and close school friend, when we must have sung "Teddy bear" constantly all afternoon...and I mean...

all afternoon!!

In  Ballywalter the Lemon family had a café and fish and chip emporium where we often gathered in the store room at the back of the shop to feed our money into their exotic juke box. Bill Haley, Little Richard and The Big Bopper fed our fertile minds and brought us dreams of faraway places and possibilities of distant lands. Could be one of the reasons why so many of us left Ireland for distant shores as soon as our teenage years were behind us?

For me, even more important than all of this, was the scruffy caravan in Hope’s second field. A musical cooking pot full of enormous significance for my young enquiring soul.

The van was owned by Derek Cathcart.

He was much older that me, and in my young eyes very worldly-wise. He played guitar and more importantly than that played and sang regularly in local pubs. A font of musical knowledge of a genre  I had never heard before.

I often waited until the other van kids were in his scruffy abode some early evening... before he sallied forth to the bright lights of Donaghadee, Millisle or Ballywalter...and would creep in to sit  at the back of the caravan... near the door. A thick smokey fug filled the space and  meant that you could hardly see to the opposite end... and I’m sure more than contributed to his throaty singing voice.

He sang the usual country and western songs of those days. Do you remember..."It wasn't God who made honky tonk angels" ? or Jim Reeves and "He'll have to go"? Oh my ...you  and I are old!!

More important to me however was the jazz that he sang... and in particular the blues  I heard  for the first time in my life.

From Derek I learnt to sing "Beale Street Blues, St Louis Blues" and many many more.

One song in particular that I loved to hear him sing, was his rendition of "Miss Otis Regrets".

I still sing it today.

I was probably only ten or twelve at the most when I first sat in that caravan, and I had already had quite a few years studying drama and music, but this new music was something that entered my soul and has stayed with me ever since.

Though a  rough diamond, he was kindly. He seemed to recognise something in me and encouraged me to sing. And I found that I had a natural inclination to harmonise and so when he launched into some blues piece, I would quietly sing along  absorbed in this wonderful world of music. More often than not I received an encouraging word  from him at the end. That did more for my confidence than all of the scales and classical pieces given to me by my singing teacher .

 I have a memory that once, in a lesson, my singing teacher informed me that if I continued to sing in the lower register I would absolutely ruin my voice. Ooops! I don't think she ever knew about my jazz , my gospel albums or any other stage work I did.

I was a young teenager sitting at the back of his tiny caravan in the coastal district of Ballyferris, Co Down but I was always encouraged by Derek to sing. 

He sang the blues and black American Gospel to a tinny old guitar.

He was the sophisticated older member of that early seaside gang who sang in the local pubs and bars... a thing unimaginable to me and my strict church upbringing at that point in my life...and therefore, all the more exotic and unattainable .

I mostly remember blues like ...Beale street, St. Louis Blues or St James's Infirmary. Or country and western songs which were always popular in Ireland.

So I pestered mum and dad for a guitar of my own. Left adverts sitting around on the mantlepiece and the breakfast table.

"Almost new guitar for sale...very resonably priced".

 So with great rejoicings and merrymakings I got my first guitar on my thirteenth birthday.

It's not hard to learn three chords from each of the major keys! So that's what I did... and not much more. But I got the reputation for entertaining my friends when we got together in our family caravan as the teenage years went by.

I didn't know what had happened to Derek...I lost touch with most of them from the smokey caravan. But the phone call recently from Neil let me know that he had emigrated to Australia. I loved the music  he had introduced me to and when other friends were revelling in Elvis, The Beatles and The Stones...I was listening to late night jazz and buying up Billy Holliday and Peggy Lee records.

I dabbled a bit in the university clubs in Belfast and sang at some of the student balls and rag concerts and on one occasion was at the same glee club at Queen's in the 60s, when an older singer called Ottilie Patterson took the stage. Being young and arrogant, I remember being quite scathing about her singing.

....Ah me the foolishness of youth!

When she died, and I read through her obituary, it hit me like a ton of bricks....she was possibly the inspiration for Derek and therefore myself all those years before in the late 50s.

She was born in Comber...and that's just a spit away from Ballyferris and the caravan. So I realised that Derek must have been following her music and listening to her in the early 50s in the pubs and clubs where he himself then used to perform.

She married Chris Barber and sang with his band...but like so many singers she struggled with a throat problem and eventually disappeared from the scene.

What a great memory. Who could better that instruction with so much fun thown in? 

It was many years before I met any one else who had such confidence in my vocal abilities.

Thankyou Ottilie....thankyou Derek...and many thanks for the memories....

...oh that could be a good song title....

....stop being silly Geraldine!

Singing at "Jazz in the Garden"...here in Penketh.