Thursday Writers Group

Bold Street Writers

Today Margaret was the prompt giver and she laid out a number of strips of paper each with an opening sentence from which we had to write a dialogue.

This was mine!

So just about fifty minutes later and a lot of scribbling...well you can see that from the pic!...this was the script I came up with.......

(...Belfast voice...)

Dad:- "What have you done with my pills? I need them! I know you've moved them mother, you're a bloomin' nuisance with your tidying up all the time. Land's sake let the dust lie, It'll be there when we're dead and gone. And I'll be dead and gone if I can't find my pills.

 I can feel myself comin' over all faint already. I'm gonna sit down a wee while and collect my thoughts, pull myself together.

Mum:-  "Sorry"

Dad:-   "And what the heck has happened to that cushion? You know I have to have yon there cushion at my back otherwise I will end up with one of my agonizing backs again, and I'll be laid up in bed for a fortnight and then you'll know all about it.When you're traipsing up and down those stairs! I can't be sitting in that chair with that cushion there...even if it does match the chair better that mine. 

I know how your mind works, I really do."

Mum:-  "Sorry".

Dad:-  "Has the paper arrived? I haven't seen it anywhere. Don't tell me that paper boy has given up again.

 I can't stand lazy people like him, no get up and go and no loyalty to his customers. 

Well mum you'll just have to pop across to the newsagent and get it, and while you're at it tear a strip of  that woman over there for not making sure her best customers get their Dailies on time. 

What's the point at getting the paper at ten in the morning? Sure it's old news by then. I'd go myself but I'm feeling a bit woosey,  I need to get those wee red pills. 

What have you done with them you auld fool?"

Mum:-  "Sorry".

Dad:-  While you're over at the shop get me some ciggies. I'd give you the money but sure my wallet's up the stairs in the other jacket pocket and I couldn't make it up there at the moment. Sure I can pay you later after I get over this wee bout of dizziness.A cup of tea before you go would see me through 'til you're back, and make sure you put the three sugars in, last time I'll swear there was none, and the tea was flipping bitter.

 I'll just have a wee bit of shuteye 'til you're back."

Mum:-  "Sorry".

Dad:-  "Have you gone yet? 

Mother do you hear me? 

You're deaf you auld biddy!

 Deaf as a doorpost.

 I could be dying here and you'd not give two hoots!

 Do you hear me?

 I'm not going to shout! Sure I don't have the energy.

 I would have the energy if I could get hold of those bloody pills.

Are they down the side of the couch where you sit? Why would you move them?

 I said why would you move them?

 I may as well talk to the wall for all you care.

 Is that cup of tea coming? Three sugars mind. And the paper would be grand before lunch for crying out loud.

If that's you by the front door I'll do without the tea, if you're on your way across. 

Ciggies, remember ciggies.

 Mind like a sieve mother, mind like a sieve.

God I feel lousy. Where the heck are those wee red devils? If I were a fit man I'd be up looking for them. I would. I know I would. That's the kind of man that I am. That's the kind of fellow, feeelooow, fellooo.....".( falls to the ground).

Mum:-  "Sorry!!"  (Slams the front door and gets into a taxi with a suitcase )

We are often a gruesome lot of writers at the group...we women!!!

The Story of Ballyferris.Chapter Fourteen.Carrowdore 100

Official photo..Commando 961

I love  the growly roar of a powerful motorbike ....what could make me enjoy a noise like that?

Perhaps it was because when I was young the infamous aunt, Helen, took me north on the train to the seaside town of Portrush up on the Atlantic coast of north Antrim. And there we watched the North West 200, and if I remember correctly, it was held every year on the narrow roads of the county. 

Possibly still is!

 Aunt Helen worked for an engineering firm  servicing and selling  Daimler cars, Norton bikes and David Brown tractors. She was a woman in a man's world ....and she was fiesty with it! The company also owned a greyhound racing track and a speedway track in the city..... but that's another story and nothing to do with Ballyferris..... so I mustn't get sidelined !

Anyway, I  really loved the eardrum-splitting noise of the engines as they screamed around the track on the roads of Co Antrim. And I lay on my stomach on the top of a roadside verge with my nose literally inches away from those gloriously smelly monsters absolutely unable to hear anything that aunt Helen might say to warn me to be careful...what did I know of danger!

A gang of friends waiting for the start of the race.

So therefore in Ballyferris, at the top of the lane that lead down to the caravan field having motor bikes speeding past in a major race...that was a delicious joy!.

The Carrowdore 100.

It was so called as the bikers started from  the little town of Carrowdore...you remember Carrowdore... and filled the roads along the shores of the Ards Peninsula with noise, dirt and a smell of oily excitement.

 Not raced over as many miles as The NorthWest 200, and perhaps not thought of as important internationally, but it was ours and and a day to remember.

   A farmer's field was always set aside for the riders and their growling steeds.We made it our job to be there in the field. Tough men in their leather biking gear, scuffed boots with straps and buckles and unnumbered unknown acoutrements, had our eyes popping out of our  heads...and our hearts beating wildly with excitement....wondering...what could all that gear be for?

The smell of  hot engine oil,  the sound of a never-ending accelerator noise as the competitors prepared riding up and down the field waiting for their race, waiting for the signal that summoned them to the starting line, had us too jumping with anticipation.

As townies we always hung around with the farmers' lads, they knew many of the riders by name. And if you were lucky there was a possibility of  getting up close to one of the bikes or even being allowed to sit pillion behind one of these "gods of the road".... though I must sadly tell you, it was not my fortune ever to be chosen!

Such innocent days. Yet in that little tucked away spot of nowhere, death and tragedy struck most years.

 As in the Isle of Man T.T. races nowadays young men died, striving to be the first to cross the line and win the accolades from those who stood around adoring! I don't think the fear of dying was ever as strong, is even now as strong, as the longing and love for excitement and danger.

At the end of the races we trudged down the lane towards the sea and gathered in one of the caravans ...excited, noisy and smelling of  fast engines and fresh air. A wonderful combination! The noise was still going on in our heads......

zoom...zoom...zoom... 

...while outside the windows of the van, the grey Irish sea whooshed us into a dreamy quiet state.

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The last death stopped it all. Now there is no more Carrowdore 100.

 I 'm sure this is right... and yet... those  "magnificent men on their racing machines", and the

memory of the noise and the smells, went into the rest of the mix which made my teenage years  ever more memorable.

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