Throwback Thursday: Summer childhood adventures in Cork's southside

READER Dermot Knowles has written very firmly to set the record straight on those claims by the people of Blackpool, St Luke’s and Dillon’s Cross that they were to be envied in their childhood summer playground.

Hang on a minute, he says, they weren’t exactly at a disadvantage down where he grew up.

“Referring back to your columns of a few weeks ago, when Northsiders were waxing lyrical about halcyon days trekking through their beloved Gouldings Glen, this reminded me strongly that we on the Southside had our own version of said Glen, but even more so.,” says Dermot.

“I am referring to that vast tract of adventureland that ran from the Cork Corporation dump, which had as its perimeter the old West Cork railway line, the embankments of which provided an endless source of trees and logs to be cut down for Bonna Night.

“Upon crossing the tracks, you had the Tramore River, which we dammed to our heart’s content to create a little swimming pool on hot summer days.

“Beyond this was De Bog, a huge stretch of marshy land that ended on the boreen leading up to Vernon Mount, better known to us Southsiders as Lanes Wood.

This bog was a source of endless fun and adventure. It was teeming with wildlife of every variety, foxes, badgers, hares, and god knows how many varieties of birds: curlews, waterhens, wagtails, plovers, and of course wazzies galore.

“In the middle of said bog was a little pond that housed a family of otters. David Attenborough would have got a whole wildlife series if he had brought his BBC crew out our way!”

But who needed Attenborough? asks Dermot rhetorically. “We had all this literally on our doorstep, and remember, Jo, this was all within a 25-minute walk from Pana.

“Then, in the winter months, we had the amusement of Tommy Foley et al and all the crazy, dare-devil motorbike scramblers churning up mud all over Vernon Mount. What a sight to behold.

“Always held on Sundays, these scrambler events attracted entrants from all over Ireland and even from the UK. There was an entrance fee of wan and six (a tanner for children), at the gate leading into Vernon Mount, but by cutting across De Bog, we could easily duck in and keep our tanner for you know what.”

Tommy Foley, one of the well-known central coterie of daredevil riders, lived on Congress Road on Turners Cross, says Dermot, “just around the corner from where we lived, so I would have passed the house every day on the way to and from school, going into town, etc.

“Tommy was a local character/legend that everyone in the area was familiar with. He was forever outside the house tinkering with his motorbikes. He had two sons and a daughter close to my age and I would have been on saluting terms with them all.

“The big old mansion, Vernon Mount House, was, I believe, the headquarters of the Munster Motorcycle Club, but to us it, and its outlying buildings, were just another playground for endless games of cowboys and Indians, or German and Americans.

“It broke my heart to see a recent headline, ‘Historic Georgian Gem, Vernon Mount Gutted by Fire’. What mindless thugs would commit such a vile act? Didn’t they know they were treading on my dreams?

“With the school summer holidays approaching, I am reminded of the scrapes my friends and I indulged in back in the 1960s when the days always seemed to be long, endless, and sunny. (Distance does lend enchantment to the view.)

We were always looking out to make a few bob/pennies ‘to keep body and soul apart,’ in the immortal words of Dorothy Parker.

“There were a couple of sources of said dosh, and this is where the City Dump was in a class of its own. It was literally an Aladdin’s cave of enrichment for us.

“Now I think some context is needed here, Jo,” explains Dermot. “For kids growing up in Ballyphehane, Turners Cross, and all around the South Douglas Road area, the Dump was a veritable playground. On a nice summer day, it was a hive of activity. Kids of all ages, even girls, would be mooching around.

“You’d never know what you’d come across. A broken cap gun that could be fixed up with a piece of twine, an old tennis ball, glassie alleys. Anything at all. Fudgies of all 57 varieties.

“My friend and I found what looked like a punctured ball and when we got home someone sourced a nipple and bicycle pump and voila, it pumped up perfectly. What a find. Imagine throwing out a perfect ball that would cost the princely sum of half a dollar in Woollies or three bob in McCarthy’s toy shop on Douglas Street? (Must have been someone from Montenotte.)”

The Dump wasn’t fenced off, he explains, the entrance then being from South Douglas Road, directly across from Jackie Crowley’s pub The Tory Top (brother of Starry Crowley of Western Star fame).

“Corporation trucks wheeled in and out all day long tipping their cargo onto the heaps. A cry would go up from the driver, ‘Hey, young fella get out of the way, or I’ll bury you alive.’ Occasionally, an expletive would be thrown in for good measure. Of course, Health and Safety was a totally unknown concept back then.

As I hinted at the beginning, making a few pence was always uppermost in our mind, to fund a trip to De Pictures, or truppence for a swim down De Indoor Baths (Eglantine Street), and this is where the dump was a very handy source of income.

“No.1 source was picking up empty lemonade bottles which returned a bounty of tuppence. Not bad.

“But the prize catch was a Bulmers Cidona bottle which paid out the handsome sum of fourpence ha’penny. These bottles were highly prized and not easily sourced. Not even in the dump.

“I was always curious, even as a young fella, as to why they paid out so richly. Was I misremembering things in my dotage? A friend of mine, Pat O’Keefe, who worked in the soft drinks industry with Cantrell & Cochrane, obligingly confirmed for me that, yes, fourpence ha’penny was the correct return.

“Because it was a flagon size and the amber glass was more expensive, manufacturing costs were greater. But, and this was a crucial detail, it had to have the black stopper cap. No stopper. no mulla.”

Dermot continues: “Now Jo, again for some background, fourpence ha’penny bought a lot of goodies. Two tuppenny Flash bars and a square of Cleeves toffee (a ha’penny), or a thrupenny Urney bar. a penny blackjack, and three caramels (6 for a penny), or five five-a-penny bulls eyes and a jawbreaker (a gobstopper) again a ha’penny, or a penny ice-loll, three Peggy’s legs at a penny each, and again the proverbial jawbreaker.

“And if you were willing to travel a little further afield than our local corner shop, O’Leary’s Ballinacarriga Stores on Mount Pleasant Avenue, still going strong, we would head into Barrack Street where said fourpence ha’penny bought three slices of delicious donkey’s gudge at a penny ha’penny a slice in the Ciste Milis milk and cake shop.

I tell you, our little brains were severely taxed in working out the mouth-watering, sugar-laden permutations. You had to be good at your sums, boy. Fortunately, De Brothers in The South Mon saw to it that we were.

“The details regarding the sweets, their prices, what they looked like, well, I suppose these are ingrained in my subconscious. The prices seemed to stay the same throughout my childhood: six caramels for a penny, five bullseyes for a penny and so on. My wife constantly reminds me that I can’t remember yesterday but I can remember stuff from 60 years ago. Should I be worried ?”

Nope, we assured Dermot, trawling up without effort our own memories of those prices of yesteryear. Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut, eternally 6d, Fry’s Cream Bar, 4d. For those of really limited resources, Giftie and Sailors Chew, a penny each, one rock-hard, the other jaw-wrestling, and both almost certain disaster to your teeth and fillings.

Indeed, confirms Dermot.

“Crunching through gobstoppers and blackjacks and Cleeves toffee might well be the reason I woke up one morning with a severely abscessed tooth.

“I well remember my mother placing me on the No.4 bus into town (thruppence to the City Hall, fourpence ha’penny to the Statue), with a half crown wrapped in a carefully worded note to be handed in at the Dental Hospital on Mulgrave Road. ‘Lose that money, and your life won’t be worth living,’ she muttered to me, before issuing strict instructions to the bus conductor to see me carefully onto Patrick’s Bridge and show me the route to the Dental Hospital. He didn’t dare remind her that wasn’t part of his job! It was, after all, my first-ever foray north of Patrick’s Bridge.

I did reach my destination safely, but to my chagrin, I was informed by the nurse on duty that the fee had increased to 2/9. My forlorn expression and pain must have softened her heart, because she said eventually, ‘Look, we will do it for 2/6 this time, but tell your mother for future reference, extractions have gone up by truppence since the first of January’.

I neglected to tell her I still had fourpence ha’penny in my pocket for the bus home, and after the dentist did his deed, and the pain had subsided, I decided to walk home and spend the money on sweets instead!

“If you were really greedy (and patient), you could hold out until you had sourced three Cidona bottles at the Dump. Now you were really in clover. You had the entrance fee for that prince of cinemas, the magisterial, mystical, romantic, luxurious Savoy with its Art-Deco surroundings, Fred Bridgeman at the organ, and the Talk of The Town restaurant And that was before the picture even started!”

Dermot has particular memories of the restaurant. “One might glimpse mini-skirted girls trailing cologne, sipping nonchalantly on a coke, their UCC scarves tossed carelessly across their shoulders, cigarettes bearing lipstick traces enveloping them in a swirl of smoke, discussing perhaps, the merits of The Stones versus The Beatles, looking like they just stepped off the pages of The Great Gatsby. Such sophistication, such glamour it seemed to our little innocent eyes.”

He adds: “My gang was more animated about who was the fastest gunslinger in the West, Audie Murphy or John Wayne. But the peerless Savoy had everything. All for wan and a penny.

“What a hallowed, and never to be replaced, theatre of dreams. Or we could go downmarket and hit the Assems (tenpence) and blow the truppence ha’p enny in the sweet shop at the entrance (now an auctioneer’s, I think). So, as you can imagine, those Cidona bottles (plus their stoppers, very important), were highly prized. The same return, incidentally, applied to a Bulmers Cider (Jungle Juice) bottle, just for your readers’ info.”

Dermot, this is pure gold in childhood memories. Wonderful detail. We note you finished by apologising for any faults in punctuation, and observed that Joey Kerrigan at the Tech in those days would not have approved. Well, this writer can tell you (and I should know) that he would have commended you heartily for your adventurous spirit and entrepreneurial instincts!

Follow Dermot’s example, the rest of you, and send in your memories of childhood! Email jokerrigan1@gmail.com. Or leave a comment on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/echolivecork.