Throwback Thursday: Recalling the shops of Blackpool in the ’60s

The saga of The Rock Steps continues!

You will remember that last week I showed a picture of what I thought might be the Devil’s Chair there on the Cork city steps, and sent out a call to anyone who might confirm or discredit this.

First off came this response from Aimee Walsh.

“My mam wanted me to email you about the article you have in The Echo on Thursday, July 10. My mam’s family came from the Rock Steps and lived in No.1, Rock Steps. Six children, four girls, and two boys. My grandparents were the Crowleys.

“The picture you show is known as the Devil’s Chair. My mam and her sisters knew it straight away when they saw the picture and they wanted you to know. Hope this confirms it for you. Regards, Aimee.”

Great! So we’re there then?

Nope. Fintan Bloss also heard my call-out and checked in promptly.

“Tá mé anseo. I could have met you if I had known you were on a Miss Marple mission! For security reasons, the gates are not always open,” he said regarding my comment last week that I couldn’t complete the lowest section of the Rock Steps, going on to the North Mall, as the gate was locked,

“I have a key,” explained Fintan, “as a niece and also a first cousin live on the Rock Steps.

“Madeleine Lehane, née Cuthbert, is at the back row of that photo of mine you featured a few weeks back, first on left, but I cannot remember anyone else in the photo. She still lives at Abbey Square, North Mall.”

Fintan sent on a photo (left) and explained: “The location I am showing in today’s picture is the one and only Devil’s Chair. It was taken just now of me with my two-year-old granddaughter, Cali. I am sure other readers will confirm.

“Over the years, the chair was desecrated, for want of a better word, and it looks like a botched upholstery job now, with cement added to the red brick. But it is the one and only.

“Old Nick certainly got ripped off over the decades with regard his chair as it is now almost unrecognisable.

“Back in the day, one child could certainly sit on it, or even two smaller kids.”

Fintan adds: “Oh and by the way, my father-in- law, Jim O’Connor, reckons his mother is the lady in a headscarf walking down the Rock Steps on her own in the other photo featured in Throwback on Thursday, May 29.

“Keep up the excellent column, Jo. By the way, I did ask the question on the last Census form, to be opened in a 100 years’ time: Is Throwback Thursday still featured on The Echo?”

Well, we sure hope so, Fintan!

Another reader, Catherine Walker-Hopkins, writing from the U.S, also confirms Fintan’s identification of at least one of the kids sitting on the steps in that photo featured a month or so back. Hey, Fintan, she might even be a relative of yours!

“Hi,” writes Catherine, “on my recent visit to Cork (I live in the U.S), I read your article on the Rock Steps. I grew up in Abbey Square, North Mall, and my cousin, Madeleine Cuthbert, is the girl in the top far left of the photo. She still lives there today!”

Isn’t it great the way these Throwback Thursday pages bring people together from all over the world, to share their memories of old Cork?

Here is another contribution, from Tom Jones in the Florida Keys: “With regard to the Devil’s Chair on the Rock Steps, I will attempt to direct you to its exact location, forever embedded in my memory.

“Upon ascending the narrow steps located at the side of what was then a Garda Station on North Abbey Street to what was then known as the Rock Terrace, there were three or four steps to climb before, they turned to the right.

“Thereupon the Devil’s Chair faced you directly, or perhaps welcomed you there.

“If that is the position in which you took the picture, I believe you have identified it.

Tom adds: “Further up, at the Rock Steps Girls School, is a turn to the left to a little incline to access Blarney Street. As a child I used to cling to the rock face there to see how far I could travel up the steps without setting foot upon them.

“There was also a railing in the centre of the steps, where I used to ‘wax’ both up and down, again trying not to set foot on the steps.”

Well, Fintan Bloss’s confident identification in the picture here that he so kindly had taken must mean that this was in fact the magic setting recollected by so many generations of children.

That it looks nothing like a recess, or indeed chair, now is due to the passage of time (and possibly the activities of energetic council workers).

The one I pictured, a little further up the steps, must just have been a natural recess, holding nothing of the fear and fascination of that at the bottom.

Given their relative location, maybe mine was the Angel’s Chair?

But Tom Jones isn’t done yet.

“So sad, as you discovered, that many of the old lanes, byways and passageways of times gone by are now no longer open to traverse,” he said.

“I too discovered some years ago that where my grandparents once lived on Hill Lane off Dominic Street is also now blocked by a gate.

“Incidentally, there once were the remnants of some type of quarry on Old Friary Place in my childhood days, and there looked like they may have been openings that once went under Dominic Street…”

And finally, here are some magical childhood memories of shops and people in another Northside local neighbourhood, sent to us by Sheila Cahill, nee McMahon:

“Turn right when you come out of Millfield Cottages, fondly known as The Village, and it brought you to Blackpool,” said Sheila.

“I have such fond memories of the little shops there and the people that ran them back in the 1960s.

“On the right hand side going down, the first of these little shops (mostly converted front rooms of people’s houses) was the lovely Kathleen Stack, a very slight lady who crossed her arms, leaned with her elbows on the counter, and looked at me so kindly as she chatted.

“I was sent to these little shops sometimes for ‘messages’, as they were known back then, and on occasion went to Kathleen for dates, that were sold in an oval box (which I think is still the case today).

“The next shop was Miss Shinnick’s. This had two sides with a little strip of tiles in the middle. To the right there was groceries, I can’t recall what was on the left.

“It was where we used to go to get the Green Shield stamps, which we used to save for what seemed like forever to get a flask or whatever at the time.”

Sheila continues her mental journey: “Next was Barry’s Butchers, where Mrs Barry used to take the money in a little hut with a hole in the window through which you spoke.

“Then there was Crotty’s. On the right hand side of the shop, where the veg was stored, Mr Crotty and his son Joe weighed out the potatoes. On the left was the grocery side.

“I remember, on the day of my confirmation, Mrs Crotty gave me a half pound box of Milk Tray, which she discreetly passed across the counter!

“Further down there was Ina Foley’s, another grocery shop. Simcox was next, a lovely shop where I mostly looked longingly in the window at the pink, white and mint green coloured meringues. I remember Miss Simcox as a very glamorous lady.

“There was Dunlee’s, a tiny little sweet shop where I sometimes stopped on my way home from school, and O’Flynn’s butchers where we went in later years, as Barry’s must have closed by then.

“I can’t forget the lovely bakery, which opened when I was in my teens. It was owned by Dick Tobin, such a gentleman, he never called me anything but Miss McMahon. I loved his cakes, in particular the jam turnovers and coconut deep filled pies.

“Dan Lyons was another of the two-sided shops, then Miss Collins. I think that was the last one on that side.

I remember getting a Christmas cake, fruit or madeira and a red Christmas candle from her and Miss Shinnick, and I’m sure other shops we also frequented.”

Sheila’s remarkable memory banks continue to deliver the goods.

“On the other side of the street,” she recalled, “we used to go to Dominic O’Shea’s, the chemist, later run by Aidan O’Shea, with the barley sugar twists on the counter.

“This was facing the side of Blackpool church where I was in the children’s choir with Miss Hickey, the organist and music teacher.

“Nurse O’Shea, who I think was Dominic’s niece, was the midwife who delivered me and so many babies at home. I heard her spoken of so fondly, so many times.

“There was Arthur O’Leary’s with the lovely tiled outside wall which seemed to me a very posh shop. There was another butcher on that side as well, it was also called O’Leary’s. Donie Cronin’s is where we used to go to for the cooked ham.

“People shopped every day for their daily needs. Our bread was delivered by Murty, the bread man from Donnelly’s in Shandon Street. Our milk was delivered by Tommy Buckley from Ballinhina. No ‘best before’ or ‘use by’ dates back then. Local fresh food eaten on the day.

Sheila continued: “Just as you went up Dublin Hill near the grotto, was Renee Lawton, a brilliant seamstress and dressmaker. She made a beautiful flower girl’s dress for me when I was six years old. It was a deep salmon brocade, stood out from the waist where it was gathered, and had a little rosette on the left hand side of the waist. There was also a hairband to match. It felt very special to be measured and go for fittings. She made the most beautiful wedding dresses also.

“One other shop we went to was at the start of the Commons Road where Miss Clifford worked, such a lovely lady also. It was owned by a Mrs Connolly and it was a haberdashery shop.

“Turn left coming out of the village towards the Mallow Road past the Sunbeam textile factory. The Echo was sold from outside the factory gates by a man called Jimmy, fondly known as the Echo boy.

“I remember the ladies in their blue overalls streaming out of that factory at lunchtime and at the end of the day.

“Further up the street was Kitty Goggin’s, a tiny shop where we used to get Palm Grove choc ices and very generous wafer ice-creams that she cut really thickly.

“Mrs. Colman on the corner had a small shop on the left hand side as you turned to go right under Garvey’s Bridge.

“To all those wonderful people who, when you think about it, all ran their own businesses back in the ’60s and before, I say thank-you for the memories.”

And thank you so much for yours, Sheila.

Do the rest of you have fond memories of those childhood shops that played such a part in your life? Share them with us. Email jokerrigan1@gmail.com or leave a comment on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/echolivecork.