The Story of Ballyferris. Chapter 3... The Road

Chapter Three

The Road Taken

                               
Journeys nowadays are speedy affairs... well that is if the traffic isn’t too jammed up... or the road works aren’t bringing us all down to one lane . But in these days that I write about, there were no bypasses or dual carriageways, so every trip was a major undertaking.
Which of course made it all the more exciting.

There was one special road that led to Newtownards. We called it, “The Switchback”.
It had no bends in it at all ... it was simply a dead straight road going up and down and over the hills. .The alternative road...the wider road was more regular, and thus deemed boring. So the cry went up from the kids on the back seat, “Dad, please take the hilly route!”.
As far as I can remember nobody was car-sick, but that may be because I didn’t want to admit to such feelings. Hauling your stomach back inside you as the car bounced over the top of the hills time after time, with Ian shouting “faster, faster dad!”, meant that I couldn’t let myself down by admitting to nausea.
Through Newtownards and the road edged along Strangford Lough, eventually turning left towards the village of Carrowdore. Isn’t it odd the feelings you get on some roads? It seemed to me that it was out in the wilds and had a wild west deserted look to it. Thinking back, farming wasn’t the pretty, crafty place that a lot of it seems in the fashionable magazines today...and the people were possibly poor cottage farmers....I'm not sure. Or maybe it’s just another example of my insatiable imagination!
 Right turn at the end of the village and we’re almost at the field, the farm, the caravan,
                                                             
                                                                     Ballyferris.

. Ah! Ballyferris! What magic is conjured up even at the mention of the name. As we come over the last hill the competition is on to be the first to shout out...“I see the sea”. ?
 I really, really want it to be me. …but usually it was my big brother Ian, Iupy ...the son‘n’heir.
Now and again we journeyed down by a different road, driving past the old windmill at Millisle, before turning right to join the coast road again. That was always a great route because dad really loved icecream, and there was a wonderful shop in Millisle selling cream ice in a poke (that’s a cone to you!) ...which was then dipped into melted chocolate and the joy as you crunched through the hard shell of the chocolate made a memory never to be forgotten.. So we were happy bunnies when we reached the field...........

 

..if also rather sick!

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.

The Story of Ballyferris. The Field

                                           

       Chapter Four

      The Field

*

I had a wonderful conversation this week with the younger son of the farmer who owned the field...Neil Hope...sadly he says no wild flowers are now to be found in the field nor skylarks singing high above the caravans...such is the way of all flesh I think...but we can all do our bit to restore these precious parts of nature in our own little corners of this country.

                                                                            

In the early years our caravan was positioned along the back edge of the field. Behind us was the potato field and beyond that the coast road, leading left to Ballywalter and right toward Millisle. In front, a field of long grass and wild flowers, beyond that the beach and after a rocky foreshore the grey Irish Sea. The field was reached down a narrow lane which led to the beach, and on the right it was bordered by another caravan field . It was the first time that I had ever seen the kind of wild flowers that I had loved in the Flower Fairy books. Heartsease, wild thyme, marguerites, buttercups and lots more to thrill the soul of a dreaming child. Skylarks sang overhead as they soared higher and higher into the air luring us away from their nests hidden in the long grass .The air was sweet and spicey and when the wind dried on your lips they tasted salty and full of the sea. In later years pride of place right in the middle of all this was a flagpole and flying proudly from the top, the British Union Jack. Dad said that the farmer who owned the field, called it the “Flag of Prosperity” -pronounced “persparety” but this may only be a family fable. Caravans of various sizes and shapes were sited all around the perimeter of the field and thus began for me a life totally separate from the routine of home , school , home, in Belfast.

National Trust: Ards Peninsula.
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■sandhoppers, a little shrimp-like crustacean

■seaweed flies, insects which are food for turnstones, starlings and badgers

■sea aster (Aster tripolium) flowering from July to October

■scurvy grass

■thrift (Armeria maritima) flowering from June to August

■sea lavender (Limonium spp) flowering from July to December

■wild thyme (Thymus drucei)

■stonecrops and squills flowering in the summer

■bell heather (Erica cinerea) flowering from June to September

■bee orchids (Ophrys apifera) flowering from April to May

■pyramidal orchids (Anacamptis pyramidalis) flowering from June to August

■twayblade orchids (Listera ovata) flowering from May to July

Of course I didn't know the names of any of these wonderful bits of nature, I just reveled in their beauty and in my new found freedom.