Butlins

Well as mentioned in previous posts there was not a lot of cash in our house but Mum was very resourceful. She had enough initiative to not only make sure we had great summer days out, but she also managed to bring half the neighbourhood with us. She would hire out double decker buses from CIE (to this day I still think of them as 78 seaters as that was the single most important piece of information needed to manage a good day out). I think we managed to put 3 people on each seat. I can't remember who else may have been involved in organising it but we would arrive at Mosney (Co Meath) as if it was Lanzarote and half of us would bunk in without paying. You didn't need a wrist tag or anything back in the day so we were free to roam the campus and get on any of the rides as many times as we liked.

I remember my Mum sent me down for a few days with my godmother (her sister Mary). This was great of course only she didn't know how to do my hair and I used to get very upset when Mary did it because I have afro hair (literally I have a black persons hair type - that thick thick Irish head of curls). Anyway Mary didn't beat around the bush, well she did as I guess I've heard my hair called 'bush' more than once in my life. She would reef the brush through my hair and not even realise it. I remember my Mum used to say 'brush that head of hair the state of it!' and I would reply 'The cheek of you, I get this hair from you' and I refer her to her wedding photo on the sitting room wall where it is very clear indeed that she has brushed her hair for her big day but it is without any fancy 'anti frizz' products if you know what I mean. She still looked amazing in it though.

Back to Butlins though, when we did used to stay over for a week we used to enter the bonny baby and the mother and child competitions. Mum loved all that, dressing up was one of her favourite things to do. I will have to write another blog entry on that subject.

The funniest thing I ever saw her do in Butlins was when she togged out to for a swim and I was shocked but I didn't know why (the reason I later found out was because it was just not something she ever did as she hated and/or was afraid of water). I was following her around in amazement as she would never normally show much flesh, especially not her arms, although they were perfectly good arms. Maybe even back then the scourge of the shameful batwings existed but I don't remember her having them. Anyway, I digress again, it turned out that the plan was to sit on the edge of the pool with her feet in the water, she then struck a pose as if to dive in and her friend or some relative took out a camera and took a photo. Quite promptly after that she was dressed and in her usual position as lifeguard of her brood. She would not have been much use if needed eh! Maybe she was not a genius at everything then. I'll have to move her down a slight notch on that pedestal I have her perched upon.

My most favourite activity in Butlins was the outdoor skating rink as it was purpose built (cement!) and I never owned a pair of skates and it was such a feeling of freedom, almost like when you start driving and discover the thrill of speed - pathetic eh but life's pleasure can be very simple sometimes I am sure you will agree.

Anyway, thanks Mum for all the holidays in Butlins, they really were the best of times xx


(I have no time to really proof read so apologies for any misspellings or grammar mistakes)

Home Cooking

Home Cooking

I often think of the amount of cooking Mum used to do for us.  I swear I have no idea how she did it.  She didn’t have any mod cons either.  I remember my brother and I bought her very first automatic washing machine for her for Mother’s day present when we were both in our late teens and we were 3rd and 4^th youngest of 10 siblings which meant she washed our clothes using a twin tub with detachable mangle for years and years.

    

 (These images remind me most of what it was like: courtesy of Google images)

Anyway, back to the cooking.  Homemade lemonade (and I mean with lemons and citric acid and all that stuff…).  It would quench your thirst alright but it was only a few degrees of separation away from the aforementioned tart vinegar.  Rhubarb with dumplings and custard were regularly on the menu.  The rhubarb was grown in our back garden and was well sprinkled with the urine of the local rats and our very many feral cats.  I guess once it’s peeled and washed it’s all the same.  Mum was what has to be called a hearty cook (i.e. no frills attached).  She threw suet and flower and margarine together with yeast (these are the ingredients I recall) and she would drop it into the pot of boiling rhubarb and up it would rise and it was delicious.  I remember having to get the bus into town (Dublin people call Dublin City Centre ‘town’) to go the yeast shop in College Street in the heart of the city to get this culinary miracle worker.

(The Irish Yeast Company, College Street, Dublin 2. Courtesy ofhttp://www.dublincitycenter.com/locations/irishyeast.htm)

Mum also used yeast to use up the milk in our fridge that had gone sour.  She made soda bread and brown bread which tasted magnificent.  It was always a good idea to stay close to the bathroom within an hour of consumption as it was a definite case of ‘it does exactly what it says on the tin!’ i.e. it gets you going if you have not been in a while and it keeps you regular if you have, either way you get a result.  In later years Mum had to allow milk to go sour in order to make her bread and she only had to go to the local shop for the yeast.

Pies Yum!!!  Mum made mince and onion and curried mince and onion (not enough cash for steak and kidney).  I can’t remember where she got the foil casings from (they looked like what we see now in the shop, the ones we throw away after one use).  Well my Mum would wash and dry them carefully to reuse over and over again.  Portion size was a bit off the scale in our house.  To eat 2 or 3 pies was not unusual as I think we had the mentality of eat it while it’s there as it may not be there tomorrow.  Alas, we did not have dinner every day (in the early years) but as if by miracle my Mum used to make those days even better because we got to have ‘Goody!!!’.  What is that you ask?  Well it was stale bread mixed with hot water (and a little milk if you were lucky) and a good lashing of sugar.  I tell you no word of a lie it was delicious and I loved it.  We probably ate the equivalent of a whole loaf of bread each during those meals.  This bread was seconded from the local bakery, I can’t remember exactly where it was but I do know that Mum would give one of my older siblings a black plastic bag and send them to the bakery and when they got back it was full of bread that was not suitable for sale or was past it’s best or something like that.  I’m not sure if any money changed hands for this bread or if they just gave it away to those who asked for it.

Steak: the holy grail of all mealtimes (not!).  This much sought after delicacy was reserved for the Dad of the house only.  Mum would buy rib steak i.e. tough as nails steak and turn it into the most succulent and tender steak imaginable.  How?  Well she used to boil it for at least an hour first and then fry it for god only knows how long and then smother it with onions and put it alongside a tin of peas and a mountain of mash.  Dad never complained.  Mum said this was something to do with the fact that he suffered with his teeth (aka a morbid fear of dentists) and was grateful that he didn’t have to chew it much.  She said the doctor once remarked that if he didn’t get his teeth sorted out soon he would not see out another 10 years with the state of his pie-r-eea (spelt phonetically as I don’t know how to spell it).  I later referred to it as gonorrhoea when I unfortunately picked the topic of my Dad’s bad teeth to talk about when I met my sister in law for the first time.  Let me just say it certainly broke the ice and 20 years later I still get ripped for it but I don’t mind.  Getting back to the steak and to my Dad’s terminal diagnosis, Mum used to say that it would take more than that to take him down and she was right as he is still going at the age of 81 in the year 2011.

I remember my Mum had cousins who lived in Wexford, Enniscorthy I think, and they had a farm and when they came to visit they would attach a trailer to their big car (my Mum and Dad never drove a car).  In it would be a couple of months worth of potatoes (an we went through a shit load of potatoes in our house I can tell you), there were other vegetables too but the one I remember the most and probably the only vegetable I never took to was Beetroot, like real beetroot, not in jars or anything.  They looked like pink potatoes.  Out would come the biggest pot in the house (later to be replaced by a pressure cooker) and in they would go to boil for hours.  I have no idea how my Mum got the colour of that bloody beetroot off her teeth.  My world seemed to stay pink for as long as it took to consume all of the beetroot which could be a couple of weeks.  I think most of us in the house ate it but I just couldn’t, something to do with the texture repels me from it.

Speaking of teeth again, Mum lost all her original teeth in her early twenties through pregnancy.  Is turns out there is some truth in the saying that the unborn child is a parasite within the body.  It’s a bit like the tax man; he/she always gets fed/paid first.  Anyway, dairy products were not in abundance for my Mum and her babies (and I guess that makes me a guilty party also – sorry Mum) got all the calcium and as a result my Mum got false teeth.  I never knew my Mum with real teeth so I spent my formative years just thinking that her dentures were her real teeth.  She was very careful to keep them in all day (not like our neighbour across the road, Mrs Dalton, who regularly went about her house with hers out which I found a bit scary when I was over playing with her little girl).  As you can imagine, pearly whites were not a common feature in Ireland and I just thought my Mum must be a superstar to have such white teeth which gave her the most perfect smile.  To this day I fail to see the negatives of having dentures but not having tried them I guess that it is an easy comment for me to make ….

Memories of my Mum

My Mum – The veritable genius!

Introduction

I have started this blog to help me to cope with the loss of my Mum 10 years ago this month (July 2001).  It's only for me but I thought that a blog was an appropriate platform for me and I hope anyone who reads this will agree.

My mother passed away this month 10 years ago so, more than usual, my mind keeps drifting back to various memories of our time together.  If I had to choose just one word to describe her it would have to be the word ‘genius’.  She was born in the 1930’s into a working class family and was raised in Oliver Bond in Dublin’s inner city in a 2 bedroom flat.  I think she used to use a letter to describe which block she lived in and as a consequence I developed the opinion, when I was a young teenager that she was referring to the Maze prison in NI.  This misunderstanding came about because a guy whom I met at my local roller disco had tried to recruit me to the Fianna hÉireann (the movement for young and potential IRA members I believe).  He groomed me over a number of weeks on the plight of the poor people in ‘H’ Block and I felt great empathy for them as I knew my mum had had a tough upbringing.  He asked me if I would be prepared to march in protest of these adverse conditions (which I now know as being issues like strip searches and prisoner status).  I informed this young man that I would love to march but that unfortunately I was unavailable to do so as I had to work on Saturdays (the day the march was to take place).  That was the end of my experience as an almost member of the Fianna hÉireann.  It was not until a number of years later that the penny dropped and I realised the difference between Oliver Bond flats and the Maze Prison.  I think I saw an aerial picture of the prison on TV and realised it looked like a H.  I felt like such a fool and shivers went down my spine thinking of possible alternative outcomes to my life had I been available that Saturday and had I indeed marched in protest.  This is a prime example of how terrorist organisations recruit their young members’ i.e. through their naivety.

Anyway, I digress.  Some of my youngest memories of my Mum are musical memories.  She loved, I mean absolutely loved, to sing and was determined that all her children would sing whether they wanted to or not.  We had a kitchen table made from, as far as I know, bacolite or was it melamine?  It was a strong hard surface, red in colour and had the typical sixties style metal frame or rim and metal legs.  I remembered being informed that my father had acquired it via the canteen where he used to work.  This red table would be placed under the window and the window curtains would be pulled around in front of it to make it look like a stage.  I often had an audience in the form of the neighbours and I especially remember Mrs Ryan who lived a number of doors up and was extremely fond of reading Mills & Boon books and was a romantic through and through.  She was a lovely woman indeed.  The actual songs I remember my Mum asking me to sing were 'Paper Roses' by Anita Bryant and later by Marie Osmond and I also remember 'Close Every Door' from Joseph.  The latter was such a morbid song I can’t, even now, think why any mother would like to hear their young child sing such a depressing tune.

I would like to be able to say that I was really good singer but I don’t remember receiving much praise.  My memory tells me that it was just simply expected of me and I think I enjoyed it.  Singing was a huge part of my family life.  My parents used to go to my dad’s work related social club (he worked for Semperit in Ballyfermot) and I remember quite frequently that a group of their friends would come back to our house afterwards and sit around and continue to drink and to sing song after song.  These were real Irish urban hoolies.  My mother would crack open huge jars of pickled mackerel that she would make when my dad caught too many fish to fit in our tiny freezer.  I used to love the shock to the taste buds when I had my first mouthful of tart vinegar.  She would also have to hand copious amounts of pig’s feet and tails.  The sight of grown adults sucking and chewing on animal body parts (even as a child I knew it was a foot and a tail) was to me disgusting.  The melting fat would drip down their mouths and not a paper towel or baby wipe in sight.  To this day I cannot see the pleasure in eating such pickled fat (I feel I must point out though that as a young teenager and up to the age of 21 I worked in a butchers shop which makes me feel like a hypocrite saying these words).

Speaking of Mackerel, my Dad used to sea fish regularly and what he caught often kept us from going hungry.  My Mum, to use her words, had 17 children.  Ten survived and she lost 7 which included 2 sets of twins.  She never forgot the children she lost.  As an adult I remember I once commented that she must feel lucky to have 10 healthy children who were doing okay for themselves in the world and she immediately answered ‘not really,  I lost seven children and that’s not very lucky’.  She then recalled her experience of losing her children at various stages of pregnancy and how painful it was for her.  I mentioned the number of children by way of explaining how difficult it was at times for my Mum to put food on the table for all of us so the Mackerel was always gratefully received.  There was no room for fussy eaters in our house (save for the tails and feet of course).

Mum told me a story of how my Dad seemed never to be there to help out with raising the kids (in practical terms).  She told me that she had given birth at home one Saturday when my Dad was off fishing with his mates.  He arrived home very late that night with his friends and came in to my Mum’s room where she was sleeping (in the parlour) and asked her to get up out of bed and make some food for him and his friends who had all been drinking heavily.  In an act of defiance she picked up her alarm clock, not that she would have needed one with all those kids in the house to wake her up, and she threw it at him and struck him on the head.  I laughed as I visualised this event and wished I could have been a fly on the wall when it happened.  It always made me feel good to hear stories about my Mum asserting herself in her world which didn’t really value her (a woman) as she should have been valued.