Throwback Thursday: When jam-jars could net a Cork boy a small fortune!

WELL, we got a huge response and reaction to the lovely memories that Dermot Knowles shared with us in last week's Throwback Thursday column here.

Jack Lyons wrote to recite Dermot’s line: ‘UCC girls in mini-skirts, smoking lipstick- stained cigarettes in the Savoy, with college scarves carelessly thrown around their shoulders...’ and said: “What a wonderful picture painted by Dermot Knowles.

“This is why Throwback Thursday is so vital and dynamic for people to remember the good days of our lives. Keep up the good work, Jo Kerrigan!”

Will certainly do so, Jack, as long as you great readers keep on sending in your memories!

Tim Cagney is one who often shares his recollections, and he also voiced his appreciation of Dermot’s vivid descriptions.

“Just finished reading the article by Dermot Knowles in today’s Throwback Thursday. 

What a joy it was! His recollection of the names of sweets, the prices, and all of the other elements of his childhood, were nothing short of photographic, added to which was his delightful interpretation of the phonetics of the Cork accent. 

"Feel quite free to share my appreciation of his efforts with him!”

And we are doing just that right here, Tim.

So pleased was Dermot with these and many other appreciative comments that he shared some more of his memories with us.

“I was talking about the Dump, how we played there, and how we always had one eye open for the possibility of making money by returning Cidona, bottles etc,” he said.

“But I must tell you that the really big money in the Dump was to be earned from jam-jar returns. Ogilvy & Moore in Parnell Place were paying the princely sum of a ha’penny for a pound pot and a penny for a 2-pound pot.

“Now Jo, let me tell you there was serious money to be picked up here,” adds Dermot.

“But unfortunately, serious hard graft was involved also. The old saying ‘Where there’s dirt there’s money’ was truly applicable.

“The jam-jars had to be washed clean before they were accepted, so that stream running down the side of the dump came in very handy.

“My co-conspirator in this little recycling endeavour was my younger brother, Martin. In fact, he came up with the idea. 

Not that we were in the vanguard jam-jar-wise, since lots of our friends were in on the act also. Competition was definitely the name of the game.

“How we didn’t end up with typhoid, rheumatoid, haemorrhoid, Android, and every other -oid and disease unknown to mankind is a miracle in itself.

“My mother would have had a canary if she knew about our money-making endeavours. I can still hear her harsh warning ringing in our ears as we headed out the door, ‘I’m warning the two of ye, if I find out ye were anywhere near that Dump, ye won’t darken the outside of this door for a week! Bringing diseases into this house. What next?’

“Not a woman to be trifled with, mind, and the thought of being grounded for a week was a sentence beyond endurance. Although, in fairness, a 24-hour grounding was usually her limit before her heart softened.

Dermot continues: “Ultimately, the lure of filthy lucre tipped the balance, so her dire warnings were parked, because we still had the headache of getting our wares to market.

“One of our buddies, Donie, was the proud owner of that Rolls Royce of two-wheeled transport, a 1964 reg, state-of-the-art, ball-bearing powered Box Car. Being the little entrepreneurs that we were, we decided to cut him in on the action. Not a full third, mind. After all, we had a lot of the donkey work done, but he would definitely end up with three or four bob.

“Now let me tell you, Jo, getting a box car full of jam-jars from the Kinsale Road to Ogilvie & Moore in Parnell Place was definitely hard labour, especially for an 11-year-old and two 12-years-old who were all skin and bone.

“But we persevered, and I can still see the bulging gleam in our eyes when the girl in the office, after carefully totting up the total of 1 and 2 lb. jars, handed us our reward - 2 ten-bob notes and a couple of shillings. 

This was serious dosh. This was like First Communion money!

(Oh, who remembers those innocent days of First Communion money, back when it was a sixpence here, a lucky half crown there, not the frighteningly organised brown envelopes that seem to have taken over at today’s religious ceremonies?)

As an aside, ponders Dermot, whatever happened to the 2 lb. pot of jam?

“This huge pot of Fruitfield’s Strawberry Jam was my go-to treat to stave off the hunger pangs when arriving home from school every day.

“A slice of skull or basket loaf plastered in delicious strawberry jam was just heaven.

“I can still see my schoolboy self rushing out the door, a slice of jam-coated bread in either hand, my trusty hand-tooled, bespoke, lovingly cared-for Winchester 73 (a hurley with a broken boss) tucked under my arm, to join the lads for a game of cowboys and Indians, with my mother’s ringing warning in my ears, ‘When that jam is gone I’m not replacing it. Ye have me eaten out of house and home. Cheaper to feed a racehorse!’ But that (fortunately) was another threat she never carried through.”

There was one other money-making scheme that was popular throughout the lazy days of summer all over Cork back then, and that was collecting waste paper.

This writer’s brother, Tommy, was a fervent practitioner, and so was Dermot Knowles.

While Tommy worked the offices up and down Washington Street, where the family bookshop was situated, Dermot was a house to house man.

“We would go door to door with a coal bag, and hoover up all the old Echos and Examiners and Sunday Press’s and News of the Worlds and what have you, and when we were full, head down to the Coal Quay to the waste paper company situated across from the Bridewell.”

Now since you were paid by weight, reveals Dermot, the trick was to get a big ‘rocker’ (for those readers uneducated in Cork-ese, this was a good-sized-to-large stone, geological formation unimportant) and wrap it in about 50 Examiners and place it surreptitiously in the middle of that bag. 

“That would add considerably to the weight. One catch though. One particular employee of said wastepaper company was wise to this stroke. If you were unlucky enough to get him, he would always rifle furiously through the bag for rockers and if he did discover our dishonesty, the bag would be confiscated and no money handed over. All our sweat wasted!

It was a common sight to see some kids chickening out and disposing of said rocker heading down the Coal Quay. A bird in the hand, etc...

Ah those were great days indeed, muses Dermot, “when Elvis was at number 1, our beloved Cork Celtic were top of the league, and Audie Murphy was the fastest gun alive. The world was our lobster!

“Sadly, the playgrounds of my youth have fallen victim to the relentless encroachment of tar and cement. De dump, de bog, and our section of the West Cork railway line are buried under concrete and houses, and the South Link motorway. 

Progress is no respecter of schoolboy dreams. Our little city, like all cities, is changing irrevocably. 

"The hackneyed lyrics of a Barbra Streisand classic seem so appropriate ‘Memories light the corner of my mind, Misty water-colored memories of the way we were...’”

And in a slight acknowledgement to Northsiders who have sung the praises of their own summer playground in past Throwback Thursdays, Dermot kindly attached a picture he glimpsed and captured on the wall of Canty’s Pub. “Presumably, this is the Glen Distillery of Goulding’s Glen renown?” he asked.

Well done, Dermot Knowles. Everybody else with golden summer memories, sit down this minute and share them with us!

We were wondering, though, how many people still collect jam pots and jars for further use?

Yes, you can take them to the recycling centre, but does anybody still practice the ancient craft of home recycling?

Back in the 1950s, when mothers made jams and jellies all the time, jars were washed and stored against the next big boiling-up day. Little discs of greaseproof paper were cut and laid on top of the jam in the filled jars, and then a top either screwed on (if you had kept enough of those lids) or one made of a further greaseproof paper circle secured with a rubber band.

Then the new supply was proudly placed on the larder shelf, gleaming security against the hazards of winter. Just so did mothers view with a sense of comfort the preserved fruits, vegetables, cordials, and even wines.

Most country homes had a venerable bottle of sloe wine or sloe gin tucked away agin’ an emergency. (We will say nothing of the mysterious unlabelled big lemonade bottles containing colourless liquid, which were tucked away in the turf pile or the hayshed, and referred to, if reference had to be made at all, as ‘rolls of carpet’. They were believed to be a strong cure for all known illnesses, long preceding any HSE developments of more modern years.)

Seriously though, it would indeed be sad if we in Ireland had lost the skills and knowledge of collecting our own supplies and storing our own larders from nature’s bounty.

In Eastern Europe, you will still see housewives out gathering rose hips, blackberries, and crab apples, every autumn. And in the rural regions of North America and Canada too, where they dig underground store rooms to protect their vital foodstuffs against freezing winters. They still know the importance of living in tune with nature and its seasons. Have we lost it? Shouldn’t we be trying to get it back?

The jams and jellies made by our mothers and grandmothers, of course, depended on the fruit brought into the kitchen. Sometimes these were free, gathered willingly by the children, as in the case of crab apples and blackberries.

On other occasions, particularly in city surroundings, there was a yearly excursion to the nearest fruit farm.

“Our mother always went up to Rathcooney each summer, where the fruit farm was run by the Grove-Whites,” says Katie O’Brien. 

“I can still see it - the late summer evening, the sun setting, and Mrs Grove-White, big and beaming, her face red with coping with the crowds of customers, standing behind the trestle table in the big tent, ladling out the raspberries and strawberries into the huge pots and containers brought by her clients.

“My mother would boil up the fruit, add the sugar, fill the jars, and label them carefully with the date. We would willingly offer our services to climb the shelves in the larder and stack them in rows.

“When a new jar was required during the autumn or winter, we would climb up again to bring one down. I can’t remember that we ever dropped one - fortunately, my parents had made the shelves very strong!”

What are your memories of gathering the season’s fruit for family preserves? Or did you go out to work on a farm, picking apples, strawberries, raspberries? What summer work did you do? Tell us!

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