The story of Ballyferris. Chapter Six. Dad's Garage.

Dad's Garage

I'm retracing my steps today to post this little snippet about the workshop that dad used to produce the caravan 

to give the family a place to holiday and one with salty fresh air ...and freedom.

Dad's garage....was not for the car.

For on a rough wooden bench...with oil stains from sump oil spilled from the pot that was used to seal the wooden and tarred roof ....stretching across the garden end ... the important joinery was carried out.

 An ancient wooden and metal vice...with a long handle slotted through the turning screw and two balls of metal...one at either end  to hold the bar in place...was screwed to the bench.

Along the walls, held in place with strips of wood tacked on to the vertical structure, were off cuts of timber kept for use in future assemblages.

Under the work bench and to the right in the darkness was an ancient travel trunk with a domed lid and wooden slats that held down the oiled fabric on the top.

 In this trunk were kept scrolls extolling the different members of the Williamson family..mum was a Williamson... and their academic successes.

 And also in this treasure box under the scrolls were hidden beautiful 1st world war postcards with  messages of love embroidered on silken gauze and pictures woven to depict exotic places.

To the left and behind the side door, a dog's bed with straw and water dish, for dad was born a farmer's son and took a hound with him when he went hunting .He was always a country man at heart.

His woodworking tools were beautiful . Handmade by himself at the City technical college in his free time. Oak and mahogany handles turned and often enscribed with his name D.G.McC. There were wooden boxes on the top of the workbench holding nails, screws, hinges and other equipment in separate sections.

A window above the bench looked out to his garden of roses and perennials.And always a bed of sweet pea to scent the air at the end of summer.

Above his head, slotted along the roof joists were more lengths of wood. Whether they were ever used I cannot say but it all seemed to me to be a sacred place. Nowadays I suppose it would be called a man cave...and there is no doubt that it was a place of refuge from the hustle and bustle of family life.

In this holy space, a caravan was conceived and built.

Memories and dust remain.

...Y

Yet his legacy lives on in my son who studied cabinet making at Ryecotewood College at the time in Thame near Oxford...

Back!

It's nice to be back!

Back from the annual slowdown, wind down, and become a bit more human in the process.

That's what the Spanish fortnight does for us both.

We gaze out over a cork oak valley...

with earth coloured houses...

then

drive annoyingly slowly down the hill ...

[that is for the locals behind us desperate to get to the business at the bottom]

...drink our coffee

...eat our toasted spanish croissante

and tootle off to the beach for another busy day on the beach beds!

It's a hard life...but I can cope with it ...at least once a year!

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.