Memory Man

by Jimmy Magee

  ‘I’m going to travel to all these places,’ I would reply, and I’d list off the various countries I was dreaming about visiting.

  ‘Not at all. That will never happen.’

  I vowed to her that it would happen. She probably thought I was a mad dreamer, but she was thrilled when I proved her wrong.

  Happily, Marie never really minded me travelling on my own. But it made no difference to me at the time as, if truth be known, I was going regardless, because I was determined to advance my career. Perhaps it was somewhat selfish of me, but I never really stopped to ask if she minded me going away—but at the same time it wasn’t as if I was going on holidays: I think Marie understood that it was, after all, for work and to put food on our table.

  But even though I enjoyed seeing the world and witnessing at first hand some of the most important and iconic moments in twentieth-century sporting history, as well as the stars themselves, I did often become homesick and miss the family. Hotel rooms can be lonely places.

  Luckily, however, I was mostly around when our first children were infants, as I was only getting my foot in the door of broadcasting then and hadn’t yet begun to skedaddle off and travel around the world to cover events.

  Chapter 3

  | BREAKTHROUGH

  While working in British Railways I was itching to get my shot at broadcasting. I decided to again write an audition letter to Radio Éireann—though in a more professional-looking manner than my childish squiggles at the age of eleven.

  In May 1956 I finally got an audition for a new programme beginning at the time, which was to be called ‘Junior Sports Magazine’. It was to be presented by Harry Thuillier, who was one of Ireland’s biggest radio stars at the time—almost like his generation’s Larry Gogan or Gerry Ryan. The show also had some top sports reporters, such as Seán Diffley, Fred Cogley, Tony Sheehan and Leo Nealon, names that meant something back then. I had pestered Harry, who had represented Ireland in two Summer Olympics in fencing, by constantly phoning him, looking for my break. I must have worn him down, because he eventually rang me back and told me to come up for a voice test.

  Two or three days after my audition my life dramatically changed when I received a phone call from Harry. ‘We listened back to that; it was quite good for a newcomer. Will you do a report and commentary on a game for us on Saturday?’

  I was slightly nervous doing my first report, but I knew what I was doing. Also, without being cocky about it, hadn’t I done it so often in my own head, walking around the fields? So I told myself there was no problem.

  Afterwards Harry invited me to work on the show as a freelance; and it was simply the best feeling in the world to finally be doing something I had dreamt about ever since I was a boy sitting in front of the wireless listening to that memorable all-Ireland final from New York.

  ‘Junior Sports Magazine’ was a great learning experience, because when you came in with your written report you also brought in your commentary tape, and you spliced the tape down in the editing suite for broadcasting. I had to present them every week with about one-and-a-half minutes of commentary. Though I didn’t realise it at the time, it was like a training school.

  It was also great learning to work on a shoestring budget. Radio Éireann once sent me to the White City in London to cover the Emsley Carr Mile, which was a famous athletics event at the time. It was the first appearance of Herb Elliott in Britain, the man who was eventually to break the 3.55 for the mile.

  When I arrived at the event I was asked, ‘Have you a producer?’ to which I answered, ‘I’m the producer!’

  I was then asked, ‘Have you a statistician?’

  ‘You’re looking at him. I’m the statistician.’

  And the BBC were there with their big team: Harold Abrahams, who featured in ‘Chariots of Fire’, was one of the commentators; Rex Alston; two producers; race readers; timekeepers. I was the entire Radio Éireann team! I was paid a bit extra each week for doing all the tasks, and I did it as well as the BBC team.

  My first big interview on the show was with the golfer Arnold Palmer when the Canada Cup, today known as the World Cup of Golf, was held in Portmarnock in 1960. It’s a competition that’s probably best described as two-man teams representing their own countries. The American team that year had two giants of the golf world, Sam Snead, who won three Masters, three PGA and one British Open, and Arnold Palmer, who is generally regarded as one of the greatest professional players in the history of the sport, having won seven major championships—in fact Golf Digest in 2007 ranked him in sixth place of the all-time greats, an amazing feat when you begin to think about the pantheon of great golfers.

  At the time Snead was the older of the two and the big figure of the day. Even though Palmer had won the British Open in 1960, he was still perceived as ‘the coming-along boy’.

  I was sent out to get an interview with Snead for ‘Junior Sports Magazine’. I asked Snead and he was less than forthcoming, almost dismissive. I was beginning to wonder what I would do when Palmer came over and said he would do an interview for me. He was being called to tee off, but he told me, ‘Come with me.’

  We walked together up to the tee and recorded a five-minute interview there. For him to do that for somebody who was of no benefit to him at the time was a very nice thing to do. There was an old priest I served Mass for when I was an altar boy who taught me, ‘You judge a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him,’ which is a lovely saying. It’s an adage that sums up Palmer’s affable and generous character. To this day, particularly in the light of what a legend Palmer later became, it is one of my fondest memories, being out there doing an interview as he prepared to tee off.

  I mentioned to Palmer when I met him on a couple of other occasions that it was my first big interview, which always put a smile on his face.

  ‘Junior Sports Magazine’ was a very good programme, which I thought would go on indefinitely, but sadly it abruptly ended in the late 1960s when, as the cliché goes, television killed the radio star. I stayed on until its final broadcast.

  Harry had me running around every weekend doing all the matches nobody else wanted to do. He got me to go out one day to do a women’s hockey match out by Ballsbridge. I couldn’t believe my ears when he told me, ‘I want you to go to the dressing-room and interview one of the winning players—’

  ‘But,’ I interjected, ‘this is a women’s final!’

  Even though it was unheard of at the time for a member of the opposite sex to go into the dressing-room, and it still wouldn’t happen often, Harry insisted. I didn’t want to do it, but at the same time I knew I had to comply with his orders if I wanted to continue working on the show.

  Nervously, I went out to the game. I approached one woman whom I knew who played centre-forward for Pembroke. I explained the position I was in, and she told me not to worry, that she would come to me ‘in the little alcove afterwards, and we’ll do the interview,’ which she did.

  In fairness to Harry, who I suppose was my first boss in RTE, he became a mentor to me. He was a big influence on my career and I liked him a lot. Harry and I often worked together, but nobody really pushed me: I’d like to think I achieved it all on my own talent, to be honest. I wouldn’t like to be in debt to someone for any reason like that. I was a bit conscious of being young, inexperienced and maybe even gullible in the early days, so it was great to have Harry by my side.

  After I had got my foot in the door of Radio Éireann, my first child, Paul, was born in January 1957. Tragically, he was to die at the age of forty-nine from motor neurone disease. I remember the day he was born very well and people commenting to me, ‘Sure how could you be a father? You’re only a child yourself!’

  Shortly after Paul was born I received some unexpected news. It was something that I never dwelt on, but I knew deep down that my mother must have been very lonely for all those years without male companionship. When she was out on her own again in New York the inevitable happened and she
met someone else and fell in love and decided to get married again. He was an Irishman called Gerry Byrne, who was a few years younger than her. She probably picked an Irishman because she didn’t trust any other nationalities!

  I did like the man she married, which helped me come to terms with it all. My mother took his name, which also took me time to adjust to. When I heard about it all I joked that she did nothing but change her name! Unfortunately, I didn’t go over for the wedding; it was a small private wedding. I probably would have found it to be an emotionally difficult wedding to attend, as I imagine that painful memories of my beloved father would probably have crept into my mind; but I couldn’t go because of the convenient excuse of work commitments. I think my mother was slightly disappointed, but she told me she understood. However, in retrospect I’m annoyed with myself for not making more of an effort to be there for her. I might have been contracted to do something and felt I had to do it, but of course now I know that if you need to get out of something you can usually get out of it.

  Regardless of my initial discomfort with my mother remarrying, it proved to be a strong relationship, and they remained together up to her death. Gerry is still alive and is still over in New York, though we haven’t been in touch for a long time. I never severed the connection, but we just haven’t kept in contact. But I will always be grateful to him for making my mother a happy woman again.

  ——

  Two-and-a-half years after Paul was born my eldest daughter, Linda (who probably won’t appreciate me giving away her age) was the next to arrive, in 1959. Linda, an excellent dancer, from ballet to pop, has devoted most of her adult life to being a professional teacher on all aspects of the art of dance. We then had two more beautiful girls: June, who was born in 1962, quickly followed by Patricia, who arrived in 1963. The baby of the family, my second son, Mark, was born in 1970. By the time he arrived we were already living in rented accommodation in Stillorgan, but with five children it was going to be too cramped, so I decided finally to get a mortgage and we moved to a large house, with a lovely back garden, in the same area.

  The atmosphere in our house was brilliant when the children were growing up. The family was pretty close-knit; we all got on well, which was great, and enjoyed being in each other’s company. I believe parenthood is the only job in the world with no training for it. It’s a big responsibility, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think they all have fond memories of their childhood, and I hope they have no bad memories, which is the way I think it should be. They wouldn’t have any memories of shouting or roaring, which is scary for children, I think. I never hit my children but they might have been threatened if they stepped out of line. They didn’t need a slap as a threat, as using an admonishing voice usually worked: it was normally enough for me to say, ‘Don’t do that again,’ because they were generally well-behaved and respectful children.

  We went loads of places together and we had a lot of fun in all its forms. But when I reflect on my memories of raising my children my mind always wanders back fondly to the times I had with the five children in our back garden. They were all interested in sports, and we used to have fantastic games out in the garden. It was as if everything had gone full circle: here I was in fatherhood doing what I had done as a kid, pretend commentary and playing imaginary games all over again with my own children. We would pretend our back garden was Croke Park at the all-Ireland final, or Wembley for the FA cup final, or whatever city happened to be holding the final.

  Now, our back garden was modest in size, but even still we would find the space to play those magical games. Paul and I would be the two captains, and we would have comical rows, giving out to each other in jest.

  There’s no doubt that, just as I did, my children derived their own love of sport from me, as I did from my father; but, unlike me, they all went on to become quite accomplished at different sports. Paul went on to play professional football and won a League Cup medal with Shamrock Rovers in 1977. Growing up, they all played hockey or camogie, and they all bowled to a fairly high degree of proficiency. Patricia once held the record for the number of pins dropped in the European Championship. All of them have remarkably low single-figure handicaps in golf. Paul was down to a handicap of a mere six when he took ill.

  In a very interesting double, Patricia won the captain’s prize in Kiltiernan, and when the club broke up she moved to Coolattin, Co. Wicklow, and years later she won the captain’s prize there too. June also won the captain’s prize at Coolattin. So they won three captain’s prizes in two years, which was amazing. I was very proud of them both.

  My younger son, Mark, who is one of my best friends, is also a very good golfer in single handicap, but he doesn’t often get the time to play, because of family and work commitments.

  In fact they all played better than me, who, typically enough, was the odd one out. I was an avid golfer until I discovered one day that I wasn’t getting any better at it, so I gave it up. Nobody could believe that I just stopped playing, but it was annoying me that I wasn’t getting any better. In truth I thought that, rather than improving, my game was in decline. ‘I’m getting brutal,’ I thought one morning as I missed yet another putt that I had visualised sinking perfectly, and I decided I was better off sticking to what I knew best: being a sports fan who was lucky enough to be able to give his opinions over the airwaves.

  Chapter 4

  | GOING PROFESSIONAL

  After a few years of freelancing with Radio Éireann I took the plunge and decided to give up my pensionable job at British Railways. Perhaps my boss was relieved to see the back of me, because I probably wasn’t the best timekeeper in the world. I was always rushing off on radio assignments or going into Radio Éireann’s editing suite, which was in the GPO at the time.

  I would never have made the big move without the support of Marie. I assured her that I wouldn’t let her down. ‘I know I can do it if I could get a chance,’ I reassured her. A lot of the successes I had enjoyed up till then were because I made my own chances. I’m a firm believer that you make your own luck in this life.

  Funnily enough, when I went to Radio Éireann full-time I ended up being the best timekeeper I know. At British Railways, if 9:10 a.m. was your starting time they would draw a red line, and if you were underneath that line you were a ‘big late boy’. They would have given me a small bit of trouble for my tardiness as I juggled my full-time job with my freelance broadcasting work on ‘Junior Sports Magazine’.

  It was a dream to go full-time as a freelance with Radio Éireann, but it was a hard time to give up the British Railways job, because it was guaranteed money for life—a pensionable job, which was the dream of everyone at the time. I must have been either silly or confident—and maybe a little of each, if truth be known—to leave it for the precarious world of freelancing at Radio Éireann.

  ‘Junior Sports Magazine’ paid £1.50 a week, and then for sponsored programmes you got maybe £3 or £4 a week. If you put these all together you could get a decent living—provided the programme stayed on the air. I was making more than I had in British Railways; but it could all fall apart in the blink of an eye if the sponsor pulled the plug because they ran out of money, or the contract might be up and they wouldn’t renew. Thankfully, I was mostly working, but there was the odd occasion in those early years when work dried up.

  I found everyone at Radio Éireann in those days to be quite nice and even taking pity on this young fella Jimmy Magee. They couldn’t believe it when I arrived in one day with a couple of children with me. I was asked, ‘Are they yours?’ They probably thought they should start giving me a bit of work when it dawned on them that I was a married man with commitments (though that wasn’t the reason I brought the children in).

  Luckily, I was always able to come up with ideas for sponsored programmes. I was familiar with all the workings of the fifteen-minute sponsored programme. It’s like writing a song: you have to have a hook that will grab them. If I may say so, I was good at it. I would
come up with an idea, and the sponsor would usually love it. And most of the stuff I did was done through Harry Thuillier, who was brilliant at pitching ideas to sponsors.

  Even though the sports programme was hugely successful, Harry wasn’t satisfied with just one thing: he always had to think of something else to do. Harry was a brilliant broadcaster, and this was because he was innovative and would always think up some fantastic ideas for new shows we could propose to Radio Éireann and the sponsors. We would make a presentation to the powers that be in RE, and if they approved and gave us a time slot we could then seek a sponsor to give us a budget for the show and basically pay our wages.

  The period from 8 to 10 a.m. was split into fifteen-minute segments, the same at lunchtime and the same at night, so RE had this space available, and the advertising agencies would come to RE’S commercial department and book fifteen minutes for their clients. RE would have to get a programme for them; the programme in turn would have to meet the RE guidelines.

  We used to do a programme for one of the sweets manufacturers, and on it we gave a guinea or two (£1.05 or £2.10) for spotting our deliberate mistake. I was in the studio pressing the buttons and Harry was doing the programme, and he made a lot of mistakes—and the programme was live. So I said to him, ‘Harry, you’re going to be in trouble delivering the prize today.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. If it comes to that point I’ll say, “Well, I know I made a lot of mistakes today, but did you spot the deliberate one?”’

  Who else could get away with that?

  Afterwards Harry said that we needed to come up with another idea for a show to pitch to Tayto Crisps for the next morning! ‘Jimmy, you’re the ideas man. You must have something in your brain.’