John Arnold: Farewell dapper wordsmith Bill - my learned friend and guide
I suppose I should say Mr Bill Callaghan because that’s how I addressed the man for years.
Now, the Follower of Fashion in the song could be seen ‘one week in polka dots, the next week in stripes’ -admittedly, my East Cork friend never went to those extremes, but he always dressed well. Though he never said so himself, words ‘a model of sartorial elegance’ could describe him to a tee. I never saw him without a tie in the four decades I knew him.
I’m not sure how I first came to be acquainted with the man who was the owner of Litho Press in Midleton, but it was probably to do with the printing of a GAA match programme back in the 1980s.
I didn’t know what to make of this debonair, well-spoken individual initially, but soon I’d say we recognised the quirky eccentricities in each other! After that, to say we got on like a house on fire would be putting it rather mildly.
But all that realisation and common likes was away in the future - years down the printing and literary road.
In my innocence and ignorance, I had thought the Mr Callaghan had come from a long line of printers, going back several generations to a time when every single letter for every single word had to be prepared and placed manually in an era when even electricity was unheard of. I soon learned that nothing could be further from the truth as regards Mr Callaghan’s early working life.
Born just outside Midleton in the 1930s, Bill qualified as a teacher and got a position in the Christian Brothers School in his native town.
In the CBS, as in nearly all Irish secondary schools in the 1950s, Latin was an intrinsic part of the curriculum. The language was needed for anyone with inclinations ‘for the Church’ and Latin was then also the ’Language of Medicine’ so doctors and chemists had to have it and it was regarded as a gateway subject for the arts.
“With a belligerent appearance, he associated the barbarian condition of the desperate and despairing gladiator as an incantation of the insidious serpent” - well, there’s a mouthful for ye now, and as Mr Callaghan explained meticulously, 11 of the words in that sentence ‘come from’ Latin!
Getting text books in Latin proved difficult for many Irish schools so Mr Callaghan saw an opportunity in the problem and began writing, producing, editing and printing the Latin schoolbooks himself. One thing led to another, and soon the teacher bade farewell to the chalk and blackboard.
He set up his own printing business, initially on Main Street, Midleton, and later at the gorgeous-sounding Roxborough Mews at the end of the town. That’s where I met Mr Callaghan first, with his trusty ‘General’ Bill O’Keeffe.
Up and down those stairs many times daily he went - in fairness, he had wonderful, friendly and dedicated staff.
Printing works back in the day were often stuffy and hot with that smell of... I think it was ink, but whatever ’twas, it was all over the shop. It wasn’t exactly an unpleasant odour but it took getting used to.
In the Fermoy/Mitchelstown area, a local newspaper was started by Liam Howard in 1978 -thankfully, it’s still going strong. Now and then I wrote bits and pieces for the paper and tried my hand at the odd ‘poem’ - well, that’s what I called them anyway!
Mr Callaghan told me “poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth” - borrowing the line, he said, from Samuel Johnson!
Bill was the first man I knew who saw the poetic and literary value of taking time out for a cup of coffee. Luckily for him, and me also, there were three lovely cafes/restaurants in close proximity to the Litho Press establishment.
Over such an interlude one day, I showed Bill a few of my poems. He was most encouraging but warned that “poetry is not the opium of the people” -in fairness, I didn’t even know what opium was!
Anyway, we agreed to go ahead and publish my little book. We called it Poems From The Priest’s Garden – I live in Gairdin an Sagart, the Priest’s Garden.
Geraldine Dorgan did drawings for me and Bill and his staff did the rest. It turned out just grand.
With Bill’s advice, I think we printed 300 copies. Over that winter I was selling them away at £5 each. I left a bundle in with Con Collins in his bookshop in Cork. Mr Callaghan was a great encourager and kept saying the book would do well.
“Strike while the iron is hot”, was Bill’s advice. He printed 1,000 copies and they sold out in a few months. Bill Callaghan was as pleased for me as if he had written the book himself.
We had some lovely times in Midleton over long, drawn-out coffees and longer conversations.
He printed a GAA club history for me in 1999 and another hurling book in 2003.
Bill’s business merged with Carrig Print and though he was getting on in years, he still kept his eye in. Another book, on Gortroe Cemetery, followed.
I found Bill to be blunt, honest and he never called a spade a shovel! He gave me great encouragement in all my writing efforts with copious and helpful criticism where needed.
In recent years, I’d meet him occasionally in Midleton. As dapper and stylish as ever, I just loved his manner of speaking. “A good speaker,” he told me, “must be a good listener”. Bill Callaghan was both.
I never knew his wife or family but I knew they meant so much to him.
Bill Callaghan died in December in his 90s. At his Month’s Mind Mass last Saturday, I met his family for the very first time.
Fittingly, his grandchildren enhanced the Mass with quotes about him and quotes he used and loved.
They say ‘If the cap fits, wear it’, well, if ever lines were written to immortalise my friend Mr Bill Callaghan, here they are;
App?
