Just one day in February.

 On Friday we drove up the M6 to the old house in West End Morecambe and popped the heating on to warm it up.

...then  switched on the electric blanket to air the bed...

...and off to Arnside in the wind with big skies and rainbows over the Bay.

A train goes off to Whitehaven again.

It looks like a toy train as it trundles over the bridge on it's way up the west coast of Cumbria.

We sit and stare and promise...we'll do that trip this year.

 

...my mum loved seagulls...her favourite book was " Jonathan Livingston Seagull"...

Rosie bought it for her.

...we used to watch them from the old caravan at Ballyferris...fighting the winds and soaring over the wild seas.

...we were just in time to catch the "bore" as it powered it's way up the Kent ...roaring like a tractor...

...sudden downpours...

...caused many rainbows...I love a rainbow...it tells me " All will be well"...

(Julian of Norwich...thankyou..)

...then back to the old house and fish and chips with the blessed son...who now lives on The Bay.

A big fire in the grate and rugs around the knees and we talk of this and that ...

and are thankful.

The Story of Ballyferris..Donaghadee....reviewed...April 25th 2013

Here is a chapter in the Story of Ballyferris......reviewed, pushed around a bit and rescripted until I felt more satisfied with the rhythm of the story....I hope you enjoy... even if you had already read it the first time!


It was always just a little town. Not that much going on really, yet it was Mecca in the days when we were teenagers and needed a place of excitement away from the caravan field.
To get there depended on whoever had a car and also if you were "in" on that day with those who considered themselves our leaders!
 In the early days of our life at Ballyferris, it was upon the kindness of Mr Hope,  that we were dependent. Few buses passed along that country road.
But eventually the McClellands' had their own transport.

That's dad...and a very shy..Rosemary... standing beside him. We could really pack family and friends into this car. No seat belts then....  and so four folk seated in the back with three others on their knees was not at all unusual.
But best was when the oldest one in the gang  who had managed to pass the driving test and get a car....might say, "Anyone fancy a trip into Donaghadee for some chips?" The cars were always wrecks! but that  made it so much more interesting. It might not make it there and back, you might have to walk all the way back in the dark...but it would be with the farmers' lads.
There were two main attractions, three at the most. A fish and chip shop, a pokey little amusement arcade and an ice-cream cafe.
Fish and chips were as everywhere else in those long gone days, eaten out of a newspaper. I assume that there was some greaseproof paper in between the chips and the newspaper...but I couldn't swear to it. The smell of the lard on the chips, the vinegar they were souced with and the special smell that only comes from a harbour...of sea, diesel and ozone.... never leaves you as an eternal memory. We leaned against the harbour wall eating the dripping morsels, ignoring the chill wind coming off the waters separating the mainland from the Copeland Islands.
Now.. we go down to the coast to relive these memories, and lean and dream against the harbour wall.
It's only right and proper.

  The harbour was a great draw. Harbours are.There were always ancient fishing boats moored up alongside one another. One in particular was called, "The Brothers". Some of the older members of the Ballyferris gang knew them well enough to be invited to crew with them.  That meant that somehowyou  had a kind of a tenuous link.... and so when you went out stream fishing with them, to catch mackerel, you could almost believe you were part of the crew!
Rubbish of course!   I always had to pay!
It was and still is a way for fishermen to supplement their income during the summer months.
We fished with line strewn with vicious hooks, and we caught many, many mackerel.  I longed to take some back to the caravan and have them fried in the pan, glossy with butter and tangy with lemon.......but was  informed by mum that they were the rubbish bins of the sea and she wouldn't touch them with a barge pole!
What would she say today about my  mackerel pate? "Nice dear ...but I'll have a tomato sandwich if you don't mind"!

Further along the promenade, turn left up a little narrow street, cross to the other side, and there is the icecream shop...

.., even today  "The Cabin Ice-cream Salon".

 Dad loved good ice-cream. He would stop the car anywhere if he'd heard that the product was a winner. And the Cabin was one of the best,  still is to have endured for 50 years. In fact if you pop over to this site you may be amazed at how long it has actually  been open.
 My favourite spot to sit and eat was up the steep stairs to a seat by a little window. The big decision was always whether to have a poke or a slider! A poke was what is  called a cone now, but maybe it's still called a poke in Donaghadee. A slider is of course a sandwich of ice-cream.

The oldest pub in Ireland is in Donaghadee, Grace Neill's Bar, but I didn't get to enjoy the pleasures of this old bar...I was much too young ... much too good! ...what a missed opportunity that was! The story going around was that Mr Hope had some link with the bar and that was why his younger son was called Neil...but that may have been simply the romantic babblings of some of the locals.

Watching over the town was the Moat.

Rather shabby then and broken down. Not any more... as the rest of the town has  also has been gentrified over the years. I love the new colours, well I love colour... however I adored the grey that was then the hue of the local buildings. It was a Co. Down colour, everybody recognised it and now it could be Cork or Southwold or wherever.

The gang didn't stay together for long. Life came in and changed all of that. Jobs and college and universities beckoned. And it being Northern Ireland we all went our various ways often abroad or at the very least over the water to the mainland.

But a last little gem about Donaghadee....we loved sweets  and chips of course...
... but....I loved dulse! Seaweed with a salty, tangy, mineral kind of  flavour. Deep red and  delicious. Well my opinion. Locally gathered from the rocks around the coast.
 I always keep a  bag of dulse at the back of the food cupboard, and now and then  take it out, open up the bag...and take a long dreaming smell of it,
And I'm transported back to those heady days again.

The Story of Ballyferris. Music at the Caravan.

Music at the Caravan

When we were all rather young, that is, before we became teenagers, a barn was set aside at Turkington’s caravan site, ( the one on the Millisle side of Hope’s) 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 if 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 !

In the fifties in Ireland I don't remember singing many national folk songs. You would be more likely to hear a country and western being rendered..or mangled, depending on how it came out. But the enthusiasm was boundless.In fact my drama teacher was surprised when upon winning a 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 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... in Lemon’s Café and Fish and Chip emporium..., 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 in distant lands. Could that be one of the reasons why so many  left Ireland for distant shores, as soon as  teenage years were behind them?

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 than that,  played and sang regularly in local pubs. A fount 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 even Ballywalter...and 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 sound was something that entered my soul and  stayed with me ever since.

Though a  rough diamond, he was kindly. He seemed to recognise something in me and encouraged me to sing. 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, she informed me that if I continued to sing in the lower register I would absolutely ruin my voice. Ooops!

Ah me 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 Mr. Cathcart wherever you are.