Tea and Talk

by Alice Taylor

  ‘Oh, I know who you are,’ Paddy assured him in delighted surprise, holding out his hand in welcome. ‘Long ago, you were in hospital with my father. He never forgot you, and over the years my mother and himself often talked of you. I felt that I knew you too. Come in! It’s great to meet you after all these years.’

  Donal was greatly relieved to be so warmly welcomed to the home of the man who had been so kind to him all those years before. Many hours later, after a long conversation, Donal left, delighted that he had taken the time to call. It was as if the years had rolled back. The stitches of the relationship that had been put on hold had been picked up and the deep bond of friendship between him and this family rekindled. It was a good feeling.

  After that, Donal became a regular caller on his way to West Cork, and Paddy and his family visited him and his family in Dublin. The friendship that had begun between the two men of different generations many years previously blossomed again between these two men of again different generations. Over the years, the friendship enriched both their lives.

  Due to his earlier brush with polio, Donal was eventually confined to a wheelchair, but this did not diminish his zest for life. He took up woodturning, a skill to which he introduced Paddy, and they both hugely enjoyed the shared hobby. Over the years, Paddy often talked of Donal and his skill as a wood turner, and when Paddy became similarly skilled, his products were much appreciated for our local fund-raisers.

  Earlier this year, Donal died peacefully in his home, and Paddy travelled to Dublin to say goodbye to this friend whose friendship, as a young man, had enriched his father’s life and years later as an old man had enriched his.

  Chapter 16

  The Blue Fountain Pen

  It was a most unusual wedding present. An elegant royal-blue fountain pen, resting amidst folds of soft satin in a matching blue leather case. It came from one of Gabriel’s best friends, and we treasured it. Even though I cannot now remember what some of our other friends gave us, I can still see the blue fountain pen clearly. Back then I was too young and inexperienced to fully appreciate the depth of thought behind this beautiful gift, and somewhere along the road of living it got lost. Now I regret that. As I am a collector and hoarder, this is unforgivable. But that gift from a man who marched to the sound of his own drum is one of my most precious memories. Whenever I think of him and his pen, it brings a smile to my face and a ray of sunshine into my heart. He was born with a soul full of romance, and the practicalities of life never bothered him.

  He called himself The Twin and his twin brother The Other Fella. The Other Fella emigrated early in life, and so The Twin was left to his own devices to run the family farm. It was the ideal situation for him. The farm consisted of top-quality land and was located on the edge of our village overlooking the river valley and Dromkeen Wood. It had breathtaking views which The Twin thoroughly enjoyed, and because the land was good he lived comfortable off it with very little effort on his part.

  When he won a piano in a Sunday newspaper competition, he gave up farming completely and concentrated on teaching himself to play the instrument. He was already a superb violinist, and the piano put the icing on the cake of his musical delights. He derived huge enjoyment from his win. Callers to his house might be given a recital if the humour was on him, and I remember one Christmas Day when I was out for a walk with Gabriel, we dropped in and were treated to a wonderful impromptu concert. He was a free spirit, always doing exactly as he pleased.

  The Twin loved women and always dreamed of finding the perfect partner, but none of his many romances ever blossomed as far as the altar rails. His dream in life was of the ideal romance. Maybe the fact that he was drawn to strong-willed, managerial women who wanted to control him had something to do with his lack of success. Some of his girlfriends saw The Twin as the perfect partner – but only if he could be moulded into a different model! And that was the rock on which all his romances floundered. The Twin was not for remoulding, and in the end his many girlfriends gave up the effort in frustration. He was like an elusive butterfly who could never be netted, and what he really needed was a creative dreamer who understood him and let him fly free. But he never once looked in that direction.

  Music, singing, dancing and writing were the joys of his life, and he was part of everything that happened around the village. He made a huge contribution, not only to village life but also to the recording of the history of Innishannon. If something caught his fancy, he put pen to paper and wrote verses about it. Quick-witted and eloquent, he viewed life as a game not to be taken too seriously. He eulogised his girlfriends in verse and thought nothing of converting a poem into a song and giving a rendition at a local concert, much to the enjoyment of the audience but to the great annoyance and embarrassment of the current girlfriend. Afterwards, he was surprised when he got a sharp dismissal. He attempted to teach one long-term girlfriend to drive his car. But this had unhappy consequences, and thereafter he penned a poem about the undertaking. To the The Twin, everything was a story.

  In twelve months of courting

  She never came late

  But bright as a bird

  She was down at the gate,

  We drove to Kinsale

  And she viewed with delight

  Where O’Neill and O’Donnell

  Were beat in the fight.

  But not long after that

  We too were at war

  When she asked me politely

  To teach her the car.

  But I had no patience

  And she had great skill

  I was told by the lassie

  From the top of Camp Hill.

  We had many scrapes

  And we had many spills

  But were still on track

  Till down by Jagoe’s Mills

  As she tore at the gears

  I gave a wee shout

  And knew by her face

  That ’twas all up the spout.

  That was the end of that romance!

  But with parish happenings The Twin was on much safer ground, and it is here that his strongest contributions to the community were made. As our parish hall was being built by voluntary labour, he put pen to paper to record it all as the building took place. On the night of the opening, he recited the following on stage, much to the delight of the audience, most of whom had been involved in the entire process. Even when you don’t know the people involved, you can get a real sense of local history in the making.

  The Parish Hall

  As we meet here tonight we are thrilled with delight

  In opening this beautiful hall

  Well ’tis only true that ’twas long overdue

  But we hadn’t a chew that was all.

  Then some fortunate gale blew up from Kinsale

  Father Riordan to hail as a friend

  He could cut out red tape and put things in shape

  We were soon on a great upward trend.

  Among things great and small he got at the dance hall

  And we knew he was on the right track

  He said, ‘Boys all be here, bring your sledges and gear

  And we’ll start to pull down the old shack.’

  Well the work did proceed at incredible speed

  A fresh team each night was the plan

  Gabriel would appear like a head engineer

  And made Connors a permanent man.

  Excavation took place for a sound solid base

  And McCarthy’s bulldozer did bark

  Then after excavation we put down the foundation

  And worked every night until dark.

  Soon the structure took shape true to plumb rule and tape

  All things working according to plan.

  And if stuck in a pinch we could look to Joe Lynch

  That able and qualified man.

  We had one powerful factor, Jerry Crowley, contractor,

  He had erected from sheds to lounge bars

  And the masoning by Maddens, a sad h
eart would gladden

  Sure for long years the Maddens were stars

  And our cross-country runner McCarthy from Skeough

  Put into it all he possessed

  In tradesmanship, skill and a little know-how

  To have him we really were blessed.

  All the names of the men can’t come under my pen

  Whom our head engineer did employ

  But O’Halloran hauled up the bricks like a horse

  And Tom Collins we all did enjoy.

  I can’t miss Michael Ryan, a dear friend of mine,

  All the lighting design here he planned

  An electrical genius, his lights shine like Venus

  You’d think you were in Fairyland.

  The ladies gave much, ’twas the last final touch

  They swept and they scrubbed it each night

  They painted and polished from bottom to top

  ’Till they had it all sparkling and bright.

  So with every help-out, from within and without,

  It flowered like a fine work of art

  From the smooth maple floor to the brick by the door

  It would cheer up the loneliest heart.

  Now the hall is complete, it is noble and neat

  ’Tis the pride of the village so grand

  From Cork to Dungannon, no place like Innishannon

  The loveliest spot in the land.

  By the hall you could dream amid woodland and stream

  And the beautiful bridge of renown.

  You’ve the garage by Phil at the foot of the hill

  And the Parson above looking down.

  At the time, across the road from the hall a man called Phil ran a garage and the Church of Ireland rectory up the hill beside it had a resident clergyman.

  Every parish and village needs a Twin to make its history by recounting all the small, local details. In his writings, The Twin recorded the social history of our parish, but many of his writings simply finished up inside in his head because once written he gave them away and never kept copies. Many got lost. When we began to publish our Christmas magazine, Candlelight, we rounded him up every year and got him to write down one of his stories or poems. At least we now have those for posterity. People can also enjoy the stained-glass window of the monk in the scriptorium that his two nieces had installed in our church in his honour.

  After he had read my first book, To School through the Fields, The Twin called to see me. He always spoke in a soft, whispering voice, as if he was confiding the most profound secret to his listeners. ‘You know, Alice,’ he whispered, ‘as I read your book I said to myself, she is getting it right. But will she remember the hawk? If she does not have the hawk she will not get it right. And then I came to the hawk. You forgot nothing.’ I knew exactly what he meant: the children of my childhood years spent a lot of time guarding the chickens from the hawk, and if I’d left that out he’d have felt that an essential part of the story of those days was missing. But it was there! It was a most unusual book review. He was always into the heart of the matter as he saw it. No newspaper book reviewer would approach a book from The Twin’s angle. Then, just as he was about to leave, he surprised me by asking, ‘Alice, do you remember the blue fountain pen?’ ‘It’s long gone,’ I told him regretfully. ‘Giving me that at the time, you really were casting pearls before swine.’ ‘Never mind,’ he whispered gently, ‘it did its job.’ Before I could process this statement, he put his hand on my shoulder and told me quietly, ‘You can do a lot for Innishannon now.’

  I think he felt that he was handing on the torch.

  Chapter 17

  Watch Your Step!

  A large, bouncing black dog led by a smiling, curly-haired young man ran down the hill onto the village street. In one hand was the dog lead and in the other a strange object. Could it possibly be …? It looked like one! It had to be. Yes, it was a pooper scooper! A rare sight on our village street, or on the street of any Irish town or village. The sight brought a few of us to a standstill. We were stunned. This phenomenon warranted further investigation. The man was a newcomer to the village. He had to be interviewed. It is one of the pluses of village living that you can freely chat up a total stranger on the street.

  ‘You are like manna in the desert,’ one woman told him in an awestruck voice. ‘Why?’ he laughed. ‘You’re carrying a pooper scooper,’ she gasped. ‘I would never bring my dog out without it,’ he told her. ‘Do you think you could introduce that practice here?’ she implored. ‘Are they that rare in the village?’ he asked. ‘Like gold nuggets,’ she told him. ‘Are you here long?’ ‘Just moved in,’ he said. ‘We were living in America for the last couple of years. If your dog pooed on the street over there, you would not dare walk away from it, people would absolutely not let you get away with it. As soon as your dog began to poo, people stood with pointing fingers demanding that you remove it immediately. And as well as that, it’s against the law.’

  ‘It’s against the law here as well,’ she told him, ‘but nobody takes a blind bit of notice.’ ‘But what happens to the poo?’ he asked curiously. ‘We walk into it and curse the dog,’ he was informed. ‘But that doesn’t make any sense,’ he protested. ‘Welcome home,’ she smiled.

  There are smelly unmentionables along the streets of most towns and villages in the country. They are deposited unceremoniously by our four-legged friends while their owners feel quite entitled to stand idly by as their dog does what a dog has to do. We passers-by do not have the moral courage, as they do in other countries, to insist on responsible dog-owner action. So the deposit remains, and we tut-tut over it and walk around it until a child or unwary adult comes along and sinks their shoe in it. Then it gets smeared along the pavement and eventually, after many shoes bear it away, it gets eroded out of recognition. Sounds disgusting. It is!

  There is a law, but in reality it is not worth a pile of poo. In the case of dog poo, the best law-enforcers are us, the public. We did it with the smoking ban. But do we consider that tackling the problem of dog poo is beneath our dignity? As long as we think that, it will remain beneath our feet.

  In our village, we have a new raised walk around The Bleach, and it was a wonderful facility for dog-owners, who were requested to keep their dogs on leads and to clean up after them where necessary. Young people play games here, so for health-and-safety reasons it was unacceptable to have dog poo on the grass. Neither request was observed, and now dogs are not allowed there. So the responsible dog-owners are suffering for the offences of the irresponsible ones.

  Then we have the ownerless dog – there is always one in every village. A bit like the riderless horse in the Grand National, they create havoc. Now, while the jockey will come back to claim his horse, the dog-owner never appears. He just opens the door and lets the dog out to roam free and lets him back in again. In our village the main offender is a large, overweight mongrel with proportional production rates, who has free-range rambling privileges. Half-blind and half-deaf, and with limited mobility, he nevertheless negotiates his way safely across our extremely busy main road to the other side of the street, thus maintaining equal distribution of his favours all around.

  So what is to be done with our doggy-poo problem? There seems to be no solution. Some Tidy Towns committee people keep a dustpan and brush especially for taking up other people’s dog’s poo off our street.

  Come early summer, in villages and towns all around Ireland, teams of willing workers come out of hibernation. These are the Tidy Towns diehards! They plant, brush, paint and pick litter. All for the love of their own place. And of all the pursuits that the Tidy Towners take on board, poo removal and litter-picking are probably the most challenging. When litter-picking, you need to turn off your thinking facilities or you could finish up with a very low opinion of your fellow human beings: if you can think beautiful thoughts while you pick up other people’s litter, you have definitely scaled the peak of a mental mountain. And if you can pick up the poo of someone
else’s canine delight without thinking bad thoughts about the owner, who stood witlessly aside while their four-legged friend did the needful, you are definitely in the halo brigade.

  Being a Tidy Towner is a special calling, and all over Ireland people continue to answer that call. In Innishannon, we are no different. Tidy Towns is about gaining points in the competition, but more than that it is about love of your own place. Over the years, you work to beautify your home place, and, in the process, you make great friends and have a lot of fun. Still, the dog poo continues to be a smelly problem!

  Chapter 18

  Away with the Fairies

  This year, a settlement of fairies moved into Dromkeen Wood. Last year, with grant-aided funding, this wood was revamped by the Tidy Towns committee. New walkways, steps and rails opened up the overgrown paths. People were delighted, and they poured in and enjoyed this haven of ancient trees, mossy slopes and the occasional glimpse of a rare red squirrel. People met and chatted on the pathways. There is something about a wood that encourages conversation.

  The fairies heard about it and decided that this beautiful place could have possibilities for them. Could they set up a Dromkeen Fairyland? They sent in their surveyors, who came back with very positive reports. They reported back that this wood was beautifully situated on a sloping hillside overlooking the Bandon river valley and the village of Innishannon. Perfect for a new fairyland!