Memory Man

by Jimmy Magee

  One day when I was eight or nine my father was going somewhere and he left the accordion in the house. My mother told me not to touch it, but I went over to it anyway, because I was fascinated by it. It had what looked like ivory keys, and I started pressing them and began to play a tune. Haltingly, a tune came out: ‘Boolavogue’. I couldn’t lift the accordion, so it was still on the floor, and I could only go on playing for a certain bit of time. I deeply regret that I didn’t learn how to play properly. I can play notes with my right hand but I can’t play chords, and I can’t play the bass. I was fascinated by how my father could play all the chords and how you put the keys together and where you put your fingers.

  But sport was always my main passion. And even though, as I told my new boxing friend Rinty Monaghan, I passionately loved sports commentary, my main dream was to be a professional footballer, though truthfully I wasn’t talented enough. I was playing sports every spare minute. I played a lot of football, but not hurling, because it wasn’t really popular in my area. I don’t suppose there would have been a single hurley stick in that part of Co. Louth at the time. And of course in my imagination I played for every team in the world that I described in my sports commentaries. I always ensured that a young Jimmy Magee scored the winning goal in injury time.

  Any aspirations I had to play football professionally were killed off completely when, at the age of sixteen, I received a nasty knee injury while trying out for Dundalk. Even though I hurt the knee during the trial, I told myself, ‘I’m not going to let this stop me.’ I continued going, because I felt this was my big chance to shine. But the pain was horrendous, and they eventually had to bandage the knee up for me. I wasn’t sent for an operation, and it did clear up eventually, but that was the end of my ambition to play professionally. I played a few minor matches with the injury, and I still don’t know how I managed to put up with it. But even when it did clear up eventually it was never enough for me to take part in a real football match.

  I decided then that one thing certain was that commentators lasted longer than players, which is true. I don’t know where I got that wisdom from at such an early age, but I was right—as I’m still going strong to this day.

  Chapter 2

  | WORK AND MARRIAGE

  My idyllic childhood was shattered the day my father died in 1949 at the early age of forty-three, from pulmonary tuberculosis. Overnight I was forced to leave school and become ‘the man of the house’ and put food on the table for my mother, who, to make matters worse, was pregnant at the time of my father’s death with my younger sister.

  I can’t recall how long my father had TB, a contagious bacterial infection that attacks the lungs, but it must have been for a considerable time, even though he never said he was suffering from it. He was seriously ill and bedridden only for a short time, maybe a year at most. I visited him every day. In retrospect, I’m amazed at how he managed to remain a very upbeat man despite the fact that he was suffering and was at death’s door. He must surely have known he wasn’t long for this world, and yet he found the courage to remain cheerful in front of me. Perhaps he didn’t want to upset me, but we never had a conversation about the fact that he was dying.

  There was always someone in the house to visit him—doctors, nurses, priests and lots of friends—as my father was a well-liked man.

  He was a great man for the advertisements and testimonials promising cures in the newspapers. He would read them out to me and say, ‘Ah, I have to get that, Jimmy. Will you be a good lad and run down to the chemist and see can you get that for me? Thanks, son.’

  I can’t remember how many times I came back with some of these so-called cures, but I remember the pharmacist one day asking me when I went in to order the latest remedy, ‘Who’s that for?’

  ‘My father,’ I replied.

  ‘It will do him no good, you know.’

  ‘Well, he thinks it will.’

  ‘Ah, well, if he thinks it will do him good it will do him good.’

  I remember my last conversation with my father. It wasn’t really a conversation as much as him telling me, ‘You’re the man of the house now, Jimmy.’

  I remember thinking during this poignant conversation, ‘I’m going to be some man of the house at fifteen years old!’

  Then he said: ‘Whatever you do, look after your mother, Jimmy. Make no mistakes: just look after her. And of course you can’t look after her unless you look after yourself first.’

  ‘I promise,’ I told him, choking back the tears.

  I found it difficult with everyone looking at me in that room and listening to everyone telling me that I was the man of the house now. But the advice my father gave me was really great advice. My mother thought the sun shone out of me.

  Shortly after the last time we spoke, my father passed away during the night. I knew he wasn’t long for the world when I saw my uncle arriving with the parish priest. Outside the bedroom I listened to the faint mumblings of the priest reading my father the last rites.

  My uncle, my mother’s brother, was very kind to me and kept saying to me that I would be the man of the house soon, preparing me for the worst. Eventually he came out of the bedroom and came over to me. ‘Jimmy, it’s happened,’ he told me.

  With my eyes welling up, I went up to the bedroom and I looked at my dead father. I was devastated. It was a massive shock to lose my father when I was still only a teenager. But I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult it must have been for my mother, now expecting her fourth child. During the ordeal she was always very good with us, but I suppose we were also good to her and making sure we never gave her any trouble, because it was obvious that she could do without it. If she said to us, ‘Don’t do that,’ we wouldn’t, because what would have been the point in annoying the poor woman?

  All the neighbours thought, ‘Jaysus! This is the end of the world. Sure this young fella won’t be able to mind them.’ But in fact I was able to look after my mother, and become a father figure to my two sisters, Mary and Patricia. It’s amazing how you can find the strength and determination in such adversity.

  I was now head of the household, and any plans and ambitions I had went out the window. I had to leave school, a decision that was made very reluctantly, because I had always been passionate about my education. I decided I would do the matriculation, though it was hard studying at home at nighttime and I wasn’t really able to keep up with it, because I was too tired after I started in a job.

  Soon after my father died some of his friends informed me that they had heard about a job going for someone to serve their time as a pharmacist in Carlingford. I applied for the job and got it, probably as a result of my father’s friends having a word with the proprietor. My mind was made up then—I’m very single-minded when I put my mind to something—to settle down to a career as a pharmacist, because at the very least I would have a good qualification.

  I started off on the pittance of £1 a week, out of which I got one shilling and gave the rest to my mother for feeding us all. Now you would get little enough for twenty shillings, which was the equivalent of a pound, and feck-all for one shilling; however, even though the money wasn’t great it did put food on the table. There wasn’t a lot of food, but it was enough to keep everyone from starving.

  We grew our own potatoes and vegetables. We used to get clothes and parcels from family members in America, which was a great help. I would be dressed in these hand-me-down suits, which were beautiful but at the same time the most outlandish suits, of a kind that you couldn’t get in Ireland. I thought they were fantastic, but my friends used to say I looked like Al Capone.

  I stuck it out at the pharmacy bravely enough for nearly two years. I walked the two miles there and two miles back until I got an old ramshackle bike. However, I knew I had to get a job with better pay, and when I was seventeen I applied for a position in British Railways (later called British Rail), along with, I suppose, every other able-bodied person in the district. At the time the comp
any had an extension to the Dundalk, Newry and Greenore Railway, which became part of the Great Northern Railway somewhere along the way. Luckily, I got one of the jobs at something like £4 a week, and the extra money made a big difference for us.

  However, I was only in the place six months when it closed down. I hate hearing people saying today, ‘Ah, the country’s in ruins.’ It was actually worse in the 1950s, and we didn’t die. It was an awful shock to hear that I could be out of a job, but thankfully I was one of six people who survived the cull, and I was transferred to offices in Dublin. I was eighteen, and I thought it was the beginning of a new life and was determined to pursue my dream of becoming a sports commentator and getting to meet all my heroes.

  I moved to digs in Fairview while working with British Railways as a clerk. I was miserable doing the job. I suppose the digs were all right, but I missed having my family around me. I got a bit more than my £4 a week, with a removal allowance, which made life easier; and whatever money was left after my living expenses and the digs was sent home.

  Most fellows I worked with were thinking of how some day they could be the stationmaster at Dundalk or piermaster at Dún Laoghaire, but that never entered my head: I was still dreaming of getting my foot into the world of broadcasting.

  I became friends with a colleague in the company’s North Wall office named Peter Byrne, who would go on to become one of our finest sports journalists. We were both in the Passenger and Import Office, and all the goods came through us. Peter and I both began to do freelance bits and pieces while working there, he for the Evening Press and the Evening Mail while I managed to get my foot into Radio Éireann. It’s funny how we both ended up in the media; Peter is now president and I’m vice-president of the Association of Sports Journalists in Ireland. Peter and I sometimes have a laugh about how we both ended up in journalism; after all, he could just as easily have been the piermaster in Dún Laoghaire—and I could have been the train-driver.

  Peter likes to tell a story about our time working together in British Railways, which he calls the elephant story, because, as people say, an elephant never forgets. Naturally, he always blames me, and vice versa, for this comedy of errors of misplacing a road roller, which county councils use for rolling tar on roads. This road roller came in and we checked it in, and whoever was putting it away put it against the gable end of the shed, which is where the hay for the horses was being kept. The hay was eventually piled up around it.

  When Meath County Council came to collect it, it couldn’t be found, even though it was checked in on the manifest. After a long and exhaustive search it still couldn’t be found. Months and months went by and we were still unable to track it down, with the result that compensation was paid.

  One day someone was getting hay for the horses and they saw a funnel sticking out. They investigated, only to discover this phantom road roller that had been hidden away for almost a year.

  If you’re reading this, Peter, I still don’t believe it was my fault!

  ——

  It was truly a case of love at first sight when I first met Marie Gallagher in 1953. I was only about eighteen and was newly arrived in Dublin. I fell head over heels immediately after first noticing this beautiful brunette with a beguiling smile and warm laugh at a ballroom beside the Gate Theatre, but I have to be completely honest and add that she was probably nonplussed about me and that it took a lot of effort and charm for me to win Marie over.

  Even though she didn’t jump at my propositions for a while, I continued charming her until she relented and agreed to dance with me. I was taken by her jovial personality. In truth I had always been—and still am—attracted to women with a smiling face. Marie’s smile from that night is still etched in my memory. When I finally got to know her well I discovered that she had a tremendous cheerful personality; she was someone who was always jolly and never became grumpy. I would jokingly tell her years later that grumpiness appeared in her demeanour only after years of her patience being tested by yours truly.

  I didn’t get to walk her home that night to Crumlin: I quickly realised that was not going to be part of the scheme when Marie told me she was being chaperoned by her sister (who has also sadly passed away). I didn’t get the opportunity to ask Marie out properly that night, but before we parted she let it slip that she would be attending a party later on in the week.

  I couldn’t get her out of my mind, and I decided to gate-crash this party. I didn’t even want to go to the party; I desperately wanted to ask Marie out. Anyway, I arrived at the bash and I remember the men there giving me—this total stranger who had the audacity to attempt to barge into a private party to chase a woman—a frosty reception.

  ‘Yeah, what do you want?’ one of the fellows asked me at the door.

  I told them Marie Gallagher was expecting me, though of course she wasn’t. Eventually she came out, and I asked her for a date. I think she must have taken pity on me!

  We went to the cinema on our first date—where else would you go in the mid-1950s? I might be known as the Memory Man, but for the life of me I can’t remember what film we went to see. It may have been Blackboard Jungle, or something like that, as it was the beginning of rock and roll when I first met Marie. I wasn’t all that interested in the film anyway: I only had eyes for Marie! Thankfully, I must have done something right to impress her that night, because she agreed to another date after I walked her home. We soon became inseparable and began to regularly attend shows in the Theatre Royal, which had a variety bill that included the top acts of the time, like Danny Kaye and Frankie Laine. Marie was a huge cinema fan, but I was never really into films, and I haven’t been to that many since those early days of our courtship.

  Within two years we decided to get married. I was probably tempting fate, and I can’t believe it now, looking back all these years later, that I was only twenty when we got married. I was far too young for such a lifetime commitment; but as it turned out it was the best thing ever to happen to me. Marie was my bedrock, and getting married matured me and spurred me on with my career ambitions.

  Besides, back in those days it was completely unheard of for couples to be living together—‘living in sin’, as it was called—or having an intimate relationship before walking down the aisle. It amazes me now when I think of how times have changed to such an extent that today’s generation can do what they like without being frowned upon. Young people will probably have a giggle reading about how in my day if you wanted to advance your relationship the only way forward was marriage.

  I was a nervous wreck asking Marie for her hand in marriage. I did my best to be romantic. I wanted to tell her, ‘I can’t live without you,’ but I hadn’t got the courage then to say something so profound. Instead I found the words stumbling clumsily out of my mouth as I walked her home. ‘We’ll have to stop meeting like this! Why don’t we get married?’ I said, kicking myself because I hadn’t the courage to be more romantic. I was relieved when Marie readily agreed, and I embraced her and told her how much I loved her.

  Later that week I was very nervous when I went out to Marie’s home to ask her father, Daniel, for his permission to ask her to marry me.

  ‘Hello, Mr Gallagher,’ I began anxiously. ‘I’d like to ask you something.’

  ‘Sure I know what you want to ask me,’ he replied.

  ‘There’s no point in asking so,’ I gingerly answered, smiling.

  ‘No, go on and ask me anyway.’

  ‘Would you have the loan of a tenner?’ I joked.

  ‘Now, Jimmy, sure that’s not what you were going to ask me at all! And anyway, if it was, is that all you’re going to spend on her?’

  We both laughed, and then I formally asked him.

  It all happened very quickly after that, and on 11 October 1955 Marie was walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress in St Agnes’ Church, Crumlin.

  For our honeymoon we went to London, and we spent our time enjoying ourselves at the theatres and eating out. We wen
t to a West End show starring Benny Hill and Norman Wisdom. Marie couldn’t stop laughing, and the more she laughed the more Wisdom accentuated his performance. He got one of the ushers to come to get Marie after the show and bring her down to meet him; he asked her where she would be for the next show! She always thought Norman Wisdom was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

  When we got married I was no longer able to send the few bob to my mother. Many years later she told me she was very grateful that I had continued sending money home as long as I had done. Besides, by that time my two sisters were old enough to fend for themselves, and this meant that my mother could go back out to work. She and my sisters decided that they wanted to return to New York and begin afresh there, as many of my uncles and aunts were still living there. I was probably taken aback by the decision, but I was also happy for them, even though I knew that I would soon miss them here in Ireland.

  My mother had a real bond with America and truly loved it over there. She told me: ‘When I was in America I loved Ireland, but when I was in Ireland I loved America.’ I’m a bit like her in that regard. I never realised it until now, but she had probably waited until I was semi-settled before she made her own move back to New York, which is something I would thank her for now if she was still with us. I think she may have suggested at one time that I might consider moving back to the place of my birth, but I didn’t want to go: I wanted to carve out a career in broadcasting here.

  On the day they were all going back over I thought to myself, ‘I’m the only one born in America and I’m now the only one of us living in Ireland, which is a bit of an unusual twist.’

  We had the perfect start to our marriage. After we returned from London we moved into a lovely little house in Dalkey, which we rented for three or four years. Even though it was one of the nicest places I have ever had, I decided that there was no way we could raise a family in this small place, which was covered from top to bottom with my collection of books. I was very interested in travelling and geography and would always be coming back home with books and city maps of places like Chicago and New York. When I’d arrive home with a bundle of books under my arm Marie would sigh, shake her head and ask me, ‘What are you going to do with all the books?’