Memories of when I was a boy in Fair Hill, Cork city

THROWBACK Thursday reader Michael Ryan has updated us with more great memories of growing up on Fair Hill.

“This is by way of filling you in on the missing pieces, so to speak,” he said. “Halfway up Fair Hill, Moriarty had the Post Office. There were six bungalows in this square with a green area in the middle. I was one of eight reared there in one of those bungalows.”

Most evenings, as soon as they were beyond toddling stage, a large group of them would play there on the green, says Michael.

“Our neighbour Tommy, his lads, my brothers and dad, any in-laws or out-laws, basically anyone who wanted to get involved. It would go on for hours.”

The Blackstone bridge was the main haunt for these boys of Fair Hill, but up the road, reveals Michael, was another haunt, known as ‘The Rocks’.

“I would describe this as a load of boulders pilled on top of one another,” he recalls. “That was where our imagination took over and transformed the boulders into one film scene after another. Who was going to be a cowboy, who an Indian?

We enacted every cowboy move from those flicks we had seen, like getting shot and falling of the rocks.

“I also remember a time we went paddling down the stream to the Blackstone bridge in the roof of a car. We were living the dream, we thought, just like Huckleberry Finn and Mark Twain.”

Getting back to the soccer, Michael says, by day they played in ‘The Square’ that was around the corner from the family bungalow.

“It was a concrete area surrounded by three-bedroomed houses with a green area next to it. We would play for hours until we got the call for dinner. You learned your soccer skills there pretty quick. If you didn’t, you’d be battered and bruised. There were no prisoners taken.

“Once a year, we had Bonfire Night on the green. The women would go from house to house collecting, to throw a party for the children. They would buy sweets and lemonade, and, I assume, a few harder drinks as well.

The fire would be lit around nine, the chairs would come out as the men and women would sing to their hearts’ content, the kids would dance around the fire with sweets and lemonade in hand. 

"There were no issues with health and safety that time.

“I will fill you in more about ‘Dolser’,” Michael adds. “He wore a wide-brimmed brown hat, with beige pants and braces. He would stand at his door like the lord of the manor. I’m sure some of our readers would have more info on him.”

Well - anybody else remember the legendary Dolser of Fair Hill? Do tell us if you do! He sounds like quite a character.

And now to a query which we aired last week from Milo Carr, concerning a band from the mid-1960s called The Chymes, with whom Rory Gallagher is said to have gigged a few times before heading for London.

Johnny Campbell was quick and obliging as always with his information, as who should know better, since he himself played many a season with Rory in Hamburg back in the day.

Should we show again that wonderful old picture Johnny shared with us of himself and Rory living (well, surviving might be a better word!) underneath the stage in Hamburg? Yes, everybody shouts, do! Here it is, then, on the left.

Back in September, 2020, Johnny featured on our Throwback Thursday page with his great memories on those heady ’60s days. Here, we include an excerpt from that date in case you had forgotten (or indeed had yet to discover Throwback Thursday!) “I started playing with Rory in January, 1966, as the Impact group, and that found us in Hamburg in August of the same year. (This was before Eric Kitteringham and Norman Damery’s time).

“When we landed at the Big Apple Club in Dehnheide, we were dismayed to find ourselves billed as the Fendermen. Those kinds of things tended to happen when you were dealing with a showband manager.

“The line-up was Rory on his Stratocaster, Oliver Tobin on bass, and myself on drums. I changed over to playing bass for the group’s second trip to Hamburg because Oliver had to quit about ten days before the gig and we couldn’t find a replacement.  I found it hard to get back to drums again after that, because people preferred me playing bass.”

Of that photo of Johnny and Rory in their somewhat insalubrious digs underneath the stage at the Hamburg club, Johnny said: “Yes, it was pretty grim by modern standards, but very much comparable by all accounts to the Beatles’ early days in that city. We were playing the music we loved and were young enough not to care about the living conditions.”

They played five 45-minute sets every night, and sometimes an extra one on Saturdays!

The Chymes, explains Johnny, was actually the first band he himself played in, along with Jimmy Evans and Tadgh Kidney.

“We thought of ourselves as a beat group but had been sailing dangerously close to showband waters before deciding to box the band in and go back towards the beat group iteration. (These things were deadly important at the time!)

“The Impact had gone off to London in the autumn of 1965, and returned to Cork for a Christmas tour. This turned out to be a bit of a disaster and when the band decided to return to London in early ’66, Rory and the drummer quit and remained in Cork.

The Chymes were looking for a lead guitarist and I had the temerity to ask Rory whether he would join. He declined, but said he would stand in for some gigs if he was available.

“That arrangement kicked off in late January and continued until late May when Rory called over and told me that The Impact had phoned to ask him to rejoin the band for some gigs in Hamburg and to ‘bring a drummer’.

“So, the following Monday, we packed our gear on the Innisfallen and headed off...”

Technically, Rory was never a member of the Chymes.

Johnny adds: “I think the other ‘Chimes’ mentioned by Milo Carr was actually a Limerick band already registered with the Irish Federation of Musicians, and they obliged us to effect some change in our name before giving us their imprimatur.”

So, who was the drummer who remained in Cork when Rory quit The Impact? “That was Eamonn O’Sullivan,” says Johnny.

And this writer seems to remember that The Impact when in London were given a distinctly questionable name?

Yes, affirms Johnny, “the band was briefly known in London as The Erection, I believe. Apparently, the manager told it to a club owner in what he somehow imagined was jest, but it was taken seriously and billed accordingly.

Well, Milo, we hope that information is of some use to you. And ‘dowtcha’ Johnny, for your long and accurate memory.

Pat Kelly was delighted with the picture shown last week of children enjoying ice creams.

“That photo was taken in the children’s and girls’ playground of the Model School, with sixpenny wafers from the Cold Storage on the South Mall,” he explains.

Ah, the wafers from the Cold Storage. They had a unique flavour all their own, but their chief attraction was the enormous size of the wafers.

Most shops were economical with the slices, but at this great place you could get one that was difficult to get your mouth around!

Pat also knows details of the Model School that might escape most of us passing by.

There are four projections on the front and, carved over these, from left to right, the words Infants, Girls, and two for Boys. The four large bays were lit by daylight from the north, south, east and west.

Since he isn’t in the city that often these days, confesses Pat, he only recently heard that Elverys are back and about to open in the erstwhile Roches Stores.

Elverys was, of course, part of Cork since time immemorial with its signature elephant mounted on the street frontage.

“I remember when the elephant was taken away,” observes Pat. “Many people protested because they liked it there, it was part of the city, but Elverys owned it and they had the right to remove it. Hopefully it will now return!”

On the South Mall, he recalls, was another shop, the Eagle Printers, with a large gold eagle in flight, mounted on the front.

“All of these were symbols you looked for every time you passed,” he says.

Our city is changing fast, I have to say, and it is no longer the city that we grew up in.

And finally, here is a lovely handwritten letter which came into the office. No address given, not even a name, but in the top corner of one page is written Rose in Ballyvolane, so we will take this as coming from you, Rose, and please accept our apologies if it didn’t.

“To Throwback Thursday - a big thank-you for all my childhood memories from growing up in the Barracks, a great place to grow up at that time, and going to school in North Pres, where the nuns scared us.

“We wandered all about the Dillons Cross area, the Glen, out to Rathcooney, picking blackberries when it was all country, calling to the Fox & Hounds for lemonade and crisps, handing in our money over the half door, as we were not allowed inside.

“And not forgetting MacCurtain Street with all its wonderful shops, which was the limit of our explorations in younger days. We didn’t go any further until we got older, but those shops gave us enough pleasure just looking in the windows. Then back up Patrick’s Hill and home.

“We didn’t go to town often, but always round Christmas. Then I went to work at the age of 14, at a factory in Paul Street, and didn’t leave until I was nearly 28. I got married at 23, and went back to work. I met my husband in the Stardust. We were in a flat for a while, and then bought a house, where else but back where I started, in Ballyvolane, even though he was a Southsider.

“It was great to see that Pat Fitzgerald knew my husband from the old soccer days on Church Road. His wife was also a friend, lovely Helen. 

I used to meet her in Dunne’s until lately and used to have a good laugh about the old days. Keep them going!

Well, thank-you so much for taking the trouble to write and post that letter, Rose of Ballyvolane (if it is you).

And Pat Fitzgerald, who has often featured on these pages, do you have anything to add to this? Anyone else with memories to share, do send them to us.

Email jokerrigan1@gmail.com

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