Cork man gets  parking fine on his  wedding day... and other golden memories

ONE reader who was delighted with last week’s picture of Guy’s on Patrick St was Jimmy Barrett, who wrote in immediately.

“When I opened the Throwback Thursday page on yesterday’s Echo, memories came flooding back. You see, the shop on the right (then Russell’s) was Thompson’s Restaurant in 1965 and they used to host wedding receptions. Having failed to secure The Metropole (1st choice) and The Country Club (now the Montenotte, 2nd choice) my dear departed wife suggested that instead of changing the date, we should book Thompson’s for our wedding. Who was I to disagree?”

All went well, Jimmy remembers fondly, and a great day was had by all.

“At about 4pm I decided to put the 3rd tier of the wedding cake in the car which we had hired out for our honeymoon. The car was parked around the corner by SS Peter & Pauls Church, so I decided for convenience to bring it onto Patrick St. I did this and proceeded back upstairs to get the cake. Alas, when I came down with the cake, there was a fine strapping Ban Garda writing out a parking ticket. 

"Despite my pleading and protests and explanations as to the day that was in it, she insisted on issuing me with the ticket and I ended up with my new bride paying the fine at the Bridewell Garda Station!”

Luckily, he adds as an afterthought, there was no breathalyser in those days… And to prove his story, he has sent us that very receipt for the wedding day fine, duly stamped and signed! Pictured left.

Well what a shame, Jimmy, but it clearly was a memory to keep, as you held that receipt for your wedding day parking fine through all the years that followed! We are sure you will pass it on to future generations as a piece of family history.

And here is another highly entertaining contribution on the topic of parking fines. Long-time press photographer with both The Echo and the Irish Examiner, Richard Mills has a rather good memory to share – and, of course, given the man in question, with accompanying image!

“On this particular morning, I parked up quickly on Emmet Place, as I often did, dashing to the office in Academy St to develop my pictures. There had never been yellow lines there, and certainly weren’t when I parked. 

"When I returned to go out on another job, about an hour later, lo and behold, double yellow lines had been painted right up as close as possible to my car, and the one behind it, and there was a ticket on the windscreen!” 

Was our bould Richard going to accept this tamely? Like heck he was!

“I sent nice big colour prints to City Hall, showing that the car parking most definitely preceded the line painting, and they cancelled the fine ‘due to the overwhelming photographic evidence’! I must say it was nice to beat City Hall for once.”

And Richard then bethought him of a somewhat similar incident in his late father’s wartime experience which had been considered rather unfair at the time. Bert Mills was a navigator in the RAF, flying many dangerous missions and receiving the Pathfinder Force Badge, the DFM and the DFC for his achievements. Here is the excerpt from his memoirs, generously shared with us by Richard:

“The squadron was operating out of Bourn, near Cambridge, in November 1944. It was here I had my first brush with the law. We had safely returned from a mission, and had all gone out the next night to celebrate – on our bikes of course, with no lights. After closing time, though, the police had laid a trap. Those without lights were signalled by one policeman with a torch to his colleague at the bottom of the hill who stepped out and charged us with a traffic offence! The cases eventually came before the Court of Petty Sessions in Caxton Gibbet and we were each fined 10/-.”

Like Jimmy Barrett, Bert kept that official summons framed in his study for many years afterwards.

It does make you wonder what the rules and regulations were for lights vs blackouts. We know that showing light from a house window at night was a punishable offence in wartime (in the UK at any rate), but what was the rule for road vehicles? Was it fair to punish war heroes for observing the blackout? And how about the policemen’s torches?

Some more great family pictures! Mary Holly writes: “I have been reading your piece about Guys & street photography and would like to share these with you. The first is of my Holly grandparents, John and Mary Anne Holly, taken sometime in the late 30s or early 40s. (My grandfather died in 1945). See picture above.

“The second one is of my maternal grandmother, Hannah O’Donovan, my mother Girlie Holly née O’Donovan, and my sister, Margaret Holly.” 

Mary has a fascinating piece of social history to share as well, that again echoes the major role played by Thompson’s in the Cork of yesterday.

“Before she married, mum had a clerical job in Thompson’s Bakery. Each week the female staff contributed a shilling to a special fund. This enabled one person each week to get a studio portrait taken in Guys. The quality was superb.”

Mary also recalls that the clerical staff also used this ‘shilling fund’ to finance a ‘perm’ at the hairdressers.

“Of course this was the most expensive part of keeping up with hair fashions in the 30’s and 40’s.”

Now that is really valuable information, Mary. If you hadn’t unearthed those marvellous facts and shared them with us, we would never have known! Thank you.

And anybody else with these nuggets of everyday social history, be it on the carbolic soap used for the laundry, or the special stones used for whitening front steps, on the best place to buy a dress for the annual dinner or the top hairdressers of Cork in the 40s, please do tell the rest of us!

It is so often in research that one wishes the everyday people had written down the details of their lives – where they bought food, what it cost, how clothes were mended or handed down – all the small scraps of information that could be used by future historians to create a full picture. We always tend to get more than enough detail on battles and confrontations, politicians and leaders, but so very little on how actual life was lived at the normal level.

Blake Burke, a Corkman but living in California since 1987, and now happily retired, writes to say: “I read Echo Live regularly and saw your Throwback Thursday feature on Cork’s street photographers. That jogged my memory that I had such a photo of my mother (then Evelyn Bolton) and her father (my grandfather) that was taken on St Patrick’s Bridge some time in the 1930s. I have attached the photo here. It is important to me, as I never met my grandfather.”

“My mother was born in 1924 (she passed away in 2012) and in the photo she looks about eight or nine years old, which puts the date around 1932/33. My grandfather’s name was Charles Victor (Charlie) Bolton. He was a pharmacist/chemist and owned Bolton Chemist on the corner of Bridge Street and St Patrick’s Quay. 

"Coincidentally that very building is visible in the background on the right.”

Blake did a bit more online research, and found a picture in https://oldphotosofcork.wordpress.com/ taken in 1936, which clearly shows the name Bolton Chemist, with a sign at the top saying Standard House.

“I belive that was the building name.”

See above, the picture of Patrick’s Bridge.

“The Denny’s Bacon sign obscures the Standard House name,” continues Blake, “but you can clearly see Chemist Optician halfway down the building, and “Bolton Chemist” over the door. There are a few other photos that I have seen where the Standard House sign is visible. I believe that my mother’s family lived over the shop for a short time. I don’t know what is there now but If I recall correctly the AA (Automobile Association) were in that premises at one point.”

Well we can add to that the B&I who had their offices there for many years (after they left their Patrick St location) and it is now (or was yesterday, you never know these days!) the offices of Paddywagon Tours Ltd – the same great team who went out rescuing Irish travellers from furrin’ parts when the eruption over Iceland and subsequent clouds of ash had them stranded everywhere – remember that?

Blake himself grew up in Laburnum Park. “There were about 30 houses and probably 90 kids there at that time, and behind one side of the street was what we knew as ‘the backfield’, where the Cork University Hospital now stands. It was an amazing place for playing. There were three separate flat open grassy areas where we played soccer and hurling, and there were regular matches (and plenty of disputes) between our team, “The Parkies.” and “The Lawnies” from Laburnum Lawn who featured, among others, Jimmy Barry-Murphy in their team.

“Jimmy and I are the same age, and were usually the younger members of the group. The disputes would usually arise over whether or not a goal was scored, as the goal usually comprised of two piles of coats for goalposts. There was also a ‘mountain; in the field that we would run up and down. 

"The mountain was created by the piles of earth dug out when the first attempt was made to build a hospital there in the late 1950’s early 1960’s. They later held motorcycle scrambles there.”

Indeed they did, Blake, and I well remember shivering on the sidelines as my own father careered recklessly around the track on his James, or Sun, or Norton, or Rudge, or whatever motorbike he had at the time. We generally knew it as Dennehy’s Cross for motorbike events.

Tell us your memories! Email jokerrigan1@gmail.com. Or leave a comment on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/echolivecork