The Story of Ballyferris. Chapter Eleven. The Road to Ballywalter

 I'm excited...we are going to see the film "Ballywalter" this afternoon in Warrington.

We were there in July...walking along the beautiful silver beach and loving the wild marine daisies that grew by the old caravan in the field at Ballyferris. Just along the road from the little town.

It was a perfect Co Down coast day. The breeze was soft...the sea was gentle..birds swooped over the water..and Leo..Rosie's dog lept in the waves with joy.

Later that day we met up with an old friend that we hadn't seen for 60 years...that was special...but that post is for another day.

I'll let you know if the film lives up to all my expectations!!

I'm leaving this story as a recap...in case you might like to know what Ballywalter meant to me..x

The caravan was moved to the edge of the field by the beach after a couple of years and so after breakfast it was merely a matter of stepping out of the door and running down the sand to the sea and the magic of rock pools and little darting creatures in the water.

But as we got older, well at least older than eight or nine… we became more adventurous and we started to wander ever further away from the relative safety of the beach. One of our favourite places to go was  the little town of Ballywalter, a small fishing village on the east coast of the Ards Peninsula some two miles south of the caravan site at Ballyferris. This was the first of the local metropolises ... or should that be metropolii? It would become a flame to us little moths. At the top of the lane to the beach we turned left on to the coast road. Being the 1950s, there was very little traffic on country roads and any that there was tended to be tractors with trailers or fastasmagorical medieval-looking contraptions for doing various jobs in the fields. How was I to know what they were for, I may have been the child of a farmer’s son, but I was also the daughter of a city loving mother.

I mentioned previously that I rarely wore shoes during my time at the caravan, and so it was that very often I walked the road barefoot. I’m not pretending that it was painless, the roads were tarmacked and stoney and it was my own silly fault when I regularly ended up with aching soles! There was of course the grass verge I could have kept to but nettles and unknown creepy crawlies deterred me from taking that choice. Most of the time we were laughing and joking so much that we didn’t notice any physical discomfort.

There were land marks on the way to keep us interested. Greystone Road was off to the right opposite the farm. So called I believe because of the enormous grey stone perched on the right hand side. This road took you to Carrowdore…you remember Carrowdore?... the little village that time seemed to have passed by. I never questioned the reason for the stone then I simply accepted it’s presence, but I suppose that it was dumped there after the ice age for the whole of County Down is known as basket of eggs country, officially drumlins.

Different farms and other sites were passed as we walked though these we dismissed as lesser establishments than our field. Half way along the road to the town on the right hand side, was an old abandoned farm house no doubt left empty when the residents either died or left for a chance of a better life elsewhere. The Irish diaspora in England,  Australia and the Americas left the island with a small population in those days and many of my friends took the Liverpool boat in search of a future myself included.  With our vivid imaginations and no doubt encouraged by one of the older members of the gang, we came to believe this old house was haunted. So to prove our lack of fear we would creep up the tangled path and peer in the grimey windows, until one of the gang jumped out and shouted “boo!” Sometimes if I passed by on my own, I would take a sidelong glance and hurry on as fast as my little legs could carry me. Well you know the old saying...there’s more to heaven and earth than any of us realise.

 Fresh air and the salty smell of sea was ever present and even now when that wonderful ozone once again hits my nostrils, I’m catapulted back in memories to the sensuousness of it all. 

One of the reasons I liked to walk along the road to Ballywalter was that some of my relatives had  caravans on a site close to the town. They had their vans pitched on Robinson’s field with the farm on the landward side of the road and the vans tight up against the edge of the coast. Aunt Cis, was my father’s sister and she and her husband John occupied one of these sites with their three sons. And Aunt Sally and her husband Cecil, dad’s nephew, had another site close by with their two daughters. Both men had built their caravans before dad made ours, and the legend was that they were so good at it that even the line on the screw heads were level throughout. Quite a boast. Sometimes Aunt Cis's boys went out rabbiting, not to catch or kill but to bring back some little wild ones to have as pets by the caravan. Then I assume that at the end of the summer they set them free…well that’s what I want to assume! I’m not saying that dad didn’t catch rabbit for food, oh yes he did, and mum was expert at turning it in to best chicken! She was a magician. And talking about chickens, none of these sites were the clean cemented establishments that so much of today's caravaners know. Chickens, ducks and various fowl wandered at will in among the caravans.

Aunt Sally had a little saying about her girls. The farmer’s son was John and like many of the farmer's sons locally, he was a flirt,  so Sally with a wry smile would ask him quietly to remember that she was always watching out for her beautiful daughters and he should be a good boy. Hmm! That seemed to me even then like a lost cause. They were such fun the country lads, but good, no they were not!

Aunt Cis

Food  played a big role in my wanting to stop here. Aunt Cis was renowned for exotic sandwiches. Always the crusts discarded...a feast for the gulls. The white bread would be “sliced pan” no doubt from the Ormeau Bakery, buttered with best Ulster butter. There might be some amazing combinations such as freshly cooked ham sliced to within an inch of it’s life and maybe on top of that some thin slices of pickled peaches. Where did she get such luxuries in those days of belt tightening? Best not to ask! Onions also played a role with thin sliced beef and even thinner slices of onion rings on delicious wheaten bread. I missed Irish bread so much when I first made my way to these English shores and really I still do..

The Ballyferris gang were always eager to be on the move... eager to get to the multifarious delights of the town of Ballywalter. So reluctantly I would have to leave the gourmet pleasures of Aunt Cis’s food and the verbal joys of Aunt Sally’s caustic remarks and join them. I didn’t ever want to be the one who missed out on the big happenings at the town.

I'll write another missive on the activities we got up to there...but I just want to mention this painter of Irish landscapes and seascapes, Kenneth Webb. As a bit of an artist myself now...I studied Fine Art degree at the college in Birkenhead... how I wish I had known that he lived in the town of Ballywalter even while I was there during the caravan days. Mum was an amateur oil painter of Irish landscape but I don't recall her ever mentioning him...that's not to say she didn't...just that I may not have payed attention to her!

Ballywalter Harbour

Artist

Kenneth Webb

The Story of Ballyferris. Chapter 7.The Farmer and the Farm.

  The Farmer and the Farm

Mr. William Hope owned the caravan field and the surrounding farmland. In fact we were eventually to find out that he also owned much of Millisle and large swathes of Donaghadee too! Of which town much more later. But without meaning to be disrespectful, even at the tender age of eight or nine, this would have seemed to be a fairly tall story to me. "Wully" Hope was the complete essence of the Ulster country man. Rough farm clothes, strong and almost unfathomable County Down accent, and add to that a ripe vocabulary, introducing me to expressions that I had never heard of in my safe narrow life. What an education for a good city child! But a man of property? Ah no, I didn't think so...then. How often are the definites of our lives and beliefs turned upside down for better or worse.

Anyway the farm was run by Wully and his two sons, young Will the older son and Neil the younger. the farmhouse itself was kept in order by a housekeeper, Miss Gilchrist, who also ran the dairy. Mr Hope was a widower. To be allowed to enter the house required a lot of feet wiping on the sacking provided at the back door, watched over the whole time by a scowling Miss Gilchrist. Now, I understand her feelings with mud walked in from the hidden garden beyond the house here and clay dust creeping in under even closed doors from Alan's ceramic studio next door. 

Very early in this history mum and Miss Gilchrist became friends and so we were allowed the amazing treat of sitting on the living room floor in the farm on rainy days to watch television. But for me the best thing about the farm, was going to the dairy room to collect milk, cream, butter and eggs from Miss Gilchrist. this aways entailed being extra polite as there was the possibility she was busy preparing  family food, cleaning or some other part of her busy life. I didn't wish to receive a sharp slice of her tongue. The whitewashed walls, the scrubbed slabs, the gleaming buckets full of steaming fresh milk....what joy. Spotlessly clean cloths covered the jugs and buckets and she would uncover one, plunge in a ladle and fill our container for the caravan.

The back of the farm was reached by turning right off the lane...then the farmyard.To the left a large open barn used for storing hay and straw. Woe betide you if you were caught on the top of the bales at harvest. Either the farmer or young Will would "gulder" at you...(shout)... with many expletives ....      . "get the f... off the f...ing bales before I f...ing come and drag you off the f...ing things mesel".

Clear enough!

However if Neil, the younger son was home from boarding school - Campbell College- it was often a different matter. Any young farmer's son knows that the best place to do a bit of courting is in the hayloft, and with the daughters of the caravanners around  the choice was increased.

Campbell...there's a thing I could never understand, Ian and the Hendersons...Douglas, Jackie and Robin...all attended the Methodist College Belfast, and Rosie and I both followed in our time. Campbell was Methody's sworn enemy..rugby you know...and not only was it a boys school but apparently  more cultured...oh yes and snobby!Yet there was Neil, his untranslatable country accent with a plethera of expletives, encouraging girls up into the hay with many expressions that were new to me... why even the men where aunt Helen worked in Belfast may have wondered at them!

The Farmyard was a dangerous place to cross at times. Mr Hope kept geese. Geese could peck a chunk out of your leg if they took a mind to and no amount of reassurance could persuade me to put them to the test.So when it was my turn to fetch water from the farm pump I always hoped and prayed that the geese had wandered off somewhere. There were also two sheepdogs. Prince the old one and Rex the puppy. I was and still am a dog lover but I realised that they were working dogs and had to be respected and avoided. So to get to the pump was often quite an adventure. Dad had invented a trolley which could  hold a large milk can, the type you used to see waiting on stone steps outside a farmhouse waiting to be collected by the milk companies.This we trundled up the grassy field along the lane and into the farmyard. The pump was on the far side of the yard and to get any water out you first had to prime it with a little more water if you wanted an easy flow from the spout. Then it was just a matter of pumping with the handle as hard as you could until the water came gurgling out and filled the can. Of course then you had to get the heavy can hauled on to the trolley and safely back to the caravan with most of the water still inside.

A cottage was attached to the side of the farmhouse. Every year it was rented out to a well known Belfast family. I thought of them as extremely exotic with their red curly hair and the rumour that not only did they have a pub but they were catholic. I regularly walked past the back door of the cottage hoping against hope that I might see the children or even be invited inside to play. It never happened. Perhaps I was too exotic for them as well.

Close by the cottage was a byre where the cows were milked.  If Will Hope was feeling friendly and if you waited outside the entrace without being annoying there was always the possibility that he would invite you in to watch him milk. I think I was allowed to have a go at milking once, but then that may be another of my imaginings which has grown into a happening. Possibly my family will say so though I shall go on remembering it as a fact! I do know that if Will or Neil were milking in the byre you were more than likely going to get milk squirted at you. There were no modern machines used, everything done by hand and the milk swooshed into the galvanised tin buckets previously sanitised by miss Gilchrist with boiling water.Then the foaming bucket full of milk was carefully carried back to the dairy  room and left to settle before the cream was skimmed from the top.

On past the byre through a gateway and you were in the pig yard. I remember this as a smelly place with a pig house by a far wall. So far...so good. However from easter on the pig or pigs lived in a walled garden at the front of the farmhouse on the corner of the lane. Then the pig house was swilled out and dried, whitewashed inside and out and pronounced fit for a poor family to use as a holiday home. What!..I hear you say. This was the 1950s and not so long after the second world war, only just after the end of rationing. Money was tight and to have a holiday at all was a luxury. Of course as usual I thought it amazing. To make a space out of such a place seemed to me very creative. I'm sure that all of these unusual environments at Ballyferris have gone towards my joy in later life when taking properties  others have rejected and turning them into something useful and beautiful.

By the way the sow was called Susie, whether the original pig or not, and family history says that it was Rosies first word as she ran away from the caravan towards the walled garden.

Dogs, pigs, geese, ducks, hens, cockerels, and farmers sons made for an adventure to be remembered for ever as you walked through the old farmyard. 

Rosie on her way to see Susie!

Beloved Poem

Davina Murphy-Gibb

The Crop Of Stones

Were they the ruins of some forgotten monastery

laid to it's rest by Henry's henchmen

or the remains of Druidic calendar

and temple of rites?

No, they are the sacred symbols

of inhuman labour

expended to create arable lands.

The toil of a grandfather's tribe,

A crop of stones dug up with broken spade.

Raked out with iron hoes,

Clawed over with blistered hands.

A man's blood leaking sacrificial homage

to unseen gods.

For in Mayo

the first three crops are stones.

Her fertility hidden under barren veils of

Pebbles

that fit in the palm

Rocks

the size of fists and

Boulders

to break the back.

Layer upon layer.

a penance undergone for a rich man's wealth,

a poor man's pride.

Gone are the portals of history

that upheld crumbling alters,

mere rubble now of abandoned ages.

A crop of stones.

The first harvest will be corn

and the second barley

the third may be rye

but the fruits of a man's patience will be tried,

for in Mayo

The first three crops are stones.

photo taken in the far west of Ireland.