Throwback Thursday: Cycling up Cork city hills, delivering 480 eggs!

YOU all enjoyed Willie Desmond’s memories of childhood school avoidance and extremely early job experience in last week’s Throwback Thursday, so here are some more from our proud Northsider:

“One of the hardest jobs I ever had was as a messenger boy, with one of those bikes fitted with a huge basket,” recalls Willie. “It was twice the size of me, I tell you!

“I delivered for Moynihan’s butter and eggs in the English Market. I dealt with Mrs Moynihan, a lovely lady, God rest her soul.

I remember having to push 40 dozen eggs up to the top of Sunday’s Well on that bike - it nearly killed me!

We’re not surprised, Willie, that’s 480 eggs!

“But the messenger boys were a world of their own,” he continues. “Did you ever hear of the Messenger Boys’ Strike? Oh, that was a powerful event.

“We all stuck together, we were very close. If we saw someone breaking the strike, we’d just take his bike from him and throw it into the Lee!

“There must have been dozens of those same basket bikes in the river at one time!”

Willie adds: “In our younger days, we had some great schemes for making money too, me and my brothers. We built a box car, and that formed the basis for many of our exploits.

“One day in the week, we would concentrate on bottles. We would go round to all the pubs and collect empty bottles, and take them down to Jennings off Paul Street - where the multi-storey car park is now. We’d get tuppence for a Paddy or Power whiskey bottle, 4d for a wine bottle, and even more for another one - what was it now?

“Then, on another day, we’d go for waste paper, because there was a place for that on aul Street too where you could bring it and get paid for each load.

We weren’t stupid - we arranged a contract with all the shoe shops in town. We’d go in and collect all their empty shoe boxes, and they were pleased because it meant they didn’t have to pay to have them taken away by the bin men.

“We’d flatten the boxes, pile them in our box cart, and take them down to the waste paper place to be weighed. Then you’d get a voucher and take it upstairs to the office for your few bob.

“Oh, we were very well organised.”

Well that really showed entrepreneurship, didn’t it? Talk about street education! One wonders if today’s children possess any of this enterprising spirit of yesteryear?)

And here are some reminiscences from Michael Ryan about his own youthful education.

“After enjoying the stories of school days in many Throwback Thursdays, I’ve decided to tell you a few of my own,” said Michael.

“I went to school in Farranree in the 1960s. At that time there was no boys’ school - it hadn’t been built then. Just a mixed school. So I was taught by the nuns.

“I particularly remember Sister Agnes, She was tough, no doubt about it. I remember one incident in class where a pupil got some question wrong. She stood him in the corner of the classroom , and placed a cone on his head with the letter D for dunce engraved on it, for the whole duration of the class.”

Michael added: “I vaguely remember doing Irish dancing on stage with girls. I was very young at the time, and it didn’t go down well with me. I think that’s what put me off Irish dancing. Sure, if I stuck with it I could have been another Michael Flatley!”

 He made his First Communion in Farranree church.

“The church itself was only opened a few years earlier (in 1958) by Cardinal Cushing. From there I moved on to Easons Hill, or St Mary’s National School if you want to be precise.

“John Sheehan, a young fellow from across the road, was going there, and he took me and my brothers.

“I thought Eason’s Hill was a good school. They put a lot into their teaching, especially Irish and history. I don’t know if there was a Republican element there or what.

“Singing was with Mr O’Mahoney upstairs overlooking the graveyard. On a warm day you would nearly pass out from the heat coming through the window, and be blinded from the glare of the glass. If you didn’t pay attention in class, he would threaten you with his small bamboo stick.

“We did lots of Irish songs, and in a way it gave us an idea of what the Irish language meant. In history, we had Jackson.

What I do remember most in school was the ponnie of milk and the creamy bun at lunchtime. Later we got a bag of Perry’s Crisps instead of the bun. They came in a light blue bag.

“After that, it was out to the yard to play. It was a long and wide yard with big surrounding walls - must have been 15ft at least, no way for the prisoners to escape!

“Now, I know a lot of locals went to Easons Hill. One particular family were the ‘Den-a hys’ (Dennehys). Their father was a coal merchant from Cattle Market Avenue. A kind, decent man, he made it his business to hand in tins of sweets (remember those billy cans that the scouts used?) for the classes at Christmas. He might have done it at Easter as well. Michael was his name, I think. He reared a very sporting family. One represented Ireland in soccer in some degree.”

Michael said that Cork RTÉ presenter John Creedon did a walking tour of city one night on the TV, and around the Shandon area, he revisited his old school, which was of course Easons Hill.

“Jack Lynch, our former Taoiseach, was born only a stone’s throw from the school,” said Michael. “It was one of the houses down the lane to Skiddys Home. I’ve often wondered did he go to Easons Hill?

We went on school tours once in a while. Don’t ask me where we went, because it was irrelevant at the time. Just to be going somewhere was thrill enough.

“Everybody remembers the school tour buses, especially the smell of diesel coming up through the floor of the engine. It would make you sick in your stomach!

“Maybe some of your readers can fill in the gaps for me or correct me if I’m right or wrong. Could somebody please tell me where we went on those tours?”

Well, Michael, we hope other former students of Eason’s Hill will be able to help out on this vital issue. Where did they go on their bus trips? Somewhere suitably educational or to the Eden of a sunlit seashore? A museum or a mountain? Do let us know if you have memories to match Michael’s!

Mention of those smelly diesel buses made us think of trains and the part they played in our lives back then. Who knows the beautiful old engine displayed at Kent Station?

Dating from 1847, it served the Cork-Dublin line for decades, and it’s the oldest steam engine on display indoors in Ireland.

“I saw that Ealing classic film, The Titfield Thunderbolt, on TV the other day, where the villagers, their engine having been wrecked, haul the old antique out of the museum and run it successfully on the local line. We wonder now if there would be any chance at all of running that old Cork beauty again?

Surely it must long to get out on the rails again and enjoy life as it did in its heyday? Irish Rail, are you listening?

But back to schooldays. One correspondent who does have similar memories to Michael’s of harsh teachers is Joan McCarthy.

“Great pieces in these last few Throwback Thursdays,” said Joan, “although I have to admit that they brought me down some particular lanes I’d rather forget.

“The nuns (and some of the teachers) seemed to believe that cruelty was the only way to instil education.

“The wooden ruler was a favourite punishment when I was in primary school. I can still hear and feel the crack on innocent, outstretched hands - and woe betide anyone who pulled their hand away before the ruler made its mark. That just earned you another slap.

Too many memories to list here...but I know many teachers did not give us a yearning for further education. They often made us run for the hills as soon as we were able.

Joan added: “But the stories about Sullivans Quay especially brought me back to memories shared by my late brother Don. He attended the Quay as a lad and he had both good and bad (horrific actually, and probably not even fit for printing) memories.

“I’m attaching a photo of his time there from perhaps 1963 or 1964 - Don is sitting fifth from the left in the front row. I believe standing to the right is Brother Cusack, whom Don loved and only ever had good things to say about.

“That particular brother was a great teacher, very kind and keen to see the boys get a good education. He had just the right blend of care and discipline to ensure his charges knew that education was important, but far more important was the way you treated others.

“My very dear brother Don, in fact, returned to education in later years, ending up back where he had started in Sullivans Quay, except this time as a teacher in the early years of this century.

“Sadly, Don became terminally ill, and had to leave his beloved job, but I would love to know if any of his students remember him.”

Joan, I sincerely hope that many do recall him with love and affection, and we look forward to hearing from them!

But Joan has less pleasant tales of teachers at the Quay, told to her by Don, but one where courageous opposition from a victim triumphed.

“One ‘master’ who taught him was overly fond of the leather strap, and inflicted pain on the boys whenever he saw fit.

“One day, though, when the master was out of the classroom, one of the boys simply had had too much. He got the strap, opened the window and flung it out right across the quayside where it landed in the River Lee, never to be seen again.

“That master never did find out (though he tried in a desperate manner!) who was responsible for discarding his inhumane form of punishment, but that brave young lad became the class hero amongst the other boys!”

Next week is the last Throwback Thursday before Christmas, and we are asking for your own fond recollections of the scents and aromas of this exciting time in everyone’s childhood.

Was it the baking going on at home, or the wonderful pine trees wafting the feel of the forest from their stack by the Coal Quay? Straw in the Crib or that glittery wrapping paper in Woolworths?

And we also want to hear your most treasured memories of those days leading up to the biggest one of all.

What did you most look forward to? The shopping? The visit to a Santa (we never really thought he was the real thing, did we? But he was there, and gave us a present, so who was complaining?)

Tell us quickly, so we can get it in next week. Email jokerrigan1@gmail.com. Or leave a comment on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/echolivecork.