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Through Rose-Tinted Specs
Memories of Balbriggan in the Fifties.
Copyright 2005
By Roger Turner

Part 6: Sea, Sand and Sun

Have I mentioned before that big sisters are no fun? Well, take it from me, the older they get the more crotchety they become!
All me and Rory wanted to do was cover our Pat with sand, and all she wanted to do was sit on a bench above the strand trying to look pretty, and spectacularly failing to attract boys of her own age. (She couldn't even attract flies!)
"Im not getting this skirt covered in sand!" our Pat stated, in that superior tone of hers. She might just as well not have bothered coming with us at all.
Me being 8 years her junior, I was only interested in playing, but had started to realise that I was about to lose our Pat. In fact this was destined to be the last summer she would spend with us. After the summer, a career in nursing was beckoning her, and although I would still come to Balbriggan for the next few summers, it would be without our Pat.
At least Rita and Rory were my age and far more fun than our Pat, so we all took it in turns to get buried.
Do you know what always amazes me? A few miles over the water is the town of Blackpool and that beach would be packed with people who have come from all over the north of England. Yet here we are at Balbriggan, on one of the loveliest stretches of sand in the whole wide world and there are no more than a dozen or so families on the entire beach. But are we complaining? Not at all! We loved having the sands to ourselves.

Balbriggan beach in the fifties was a very safe place for children to play and we built sandcastles just above the tide line and then dug a long moat towards the sea that would fill with water as the tide crept up the sandy beach.
While we played, Mother and Auntie Eileen sat multitasking. What do I mean, by multitasking? Well, believe me, multitasking may be a buzzword used by computer geeks nowadays, but back in the fifties, mothers did it all the time.
Mother and Auntie Eileen would sit on a blanket behind us knitting from the most complex patterns you could imagine, and at the same time hold a conversation whilst still managing to keep and eye on us.
"Roger! Don't do that to Rita!" Knit, knit, knit.."but if you put that amount of baking powder in..." Sheer skill. I wish I had a ten-shilling note for every hour I spent playing on the front strand with Mother and Auntie Eileen, or even Nan Calow, knitting and chatting behind me.
And it wasn't just knitting that our mothers did whilst watching over us children: they brought piles of socks that needed darning; shirts that wanted buttons sewing on, even to making old clothes look like new. It was a time when money was not plentiful and we had to do with home-made or handed-down clothing. Nothing was thrown away and things like old underpants were cut up and used as dusters and dishcloths.
There's no doubt that todays generation waste more than we ever had. You only have to look in the charity shops to realise this. But what we never had we never missed. Oh, happy days!
When we got fed up with sandcastles, and trying to entice our Pat to come down and get buried, we would get out the ball and have a kick-about. It's a well know fact of life that one football will draw kids from all over the beach and soon a dozen or so boys and girls would all be chasing the ball. We didn't have teams, or any rules, but we did have a lot of fun. Sometimes the Sunshine Kids would also join in.

I have to admit to feeling a wee bit jealous of them Sunshine Kids, for up at the Sunshine House on Church Street they had loads of things to do and play with, yet there were always some who just preferred to play in the sand. They always made the most of their week and built some of the best sandcastles I can remember. Mind you we always took much pleasure in jumping all over their hard work and trashing them once they had gone back to the Sunshine House for their evening meal. Cruel little beggars weren't we?
At the end of the week, my grandparents, Nan and Stevie Calow will be coming over for a couple of weeks and I'll guarantee that Nan will buy any of them Sun-shiners who happen to be playing on the strand some sweets or even an ice-cream apiece. She was a right softie was my nan.
Mind you, I once made the mistake of calling the Sunshine Kids 'Ragamuffins' and got a stern lecture from Nan that they came from some of the poorest families and if it wasn't for spending a week in the Sunshine House, they would never get any holiday at all. I don't mind telling you that Nan Calow herself came from a very large and poor family and was sent into service at a very young age. Nan had known poverty first hand and she never forgot it. That's why she would spend a few shilling just to bring a smile to them poor Sunshine Kids faces.
And it wasn't only the Sunshine kids who benefited from Nans kindness. She would also bring much needed funds to the McKenna household and to Rory and Rita in particular.

One year, when Nan and Stevie didn't come over (and that was quite a rarity) she sent me postal order for two pounds because I had sent her postcard telling her I was skint (lacking funds). I was always Nans favourite and I could twist her round my little finger.
Have you ever tried to play football in soft sand? Of course you have. Bloody hard work, isn't it?
Eventually, when we all looked exhausted, our mothers would call us over and the Thermos flask of tea came into its own.
After a drink of tea and wedge of cake, a walk was in order and on this occasion, our Pat was encouraged (MADE) to join us.
If the tide was out we would walk round the headland to Black Rock, exploring the rock-pools on the way.
But if the tide was in, then a stroll on the harbour was the order of the day. I loved spending time on the harbour and knew the name of all the boats and most of the captains. My dad was friendly with Andy Reed, off the Girl Nancy, but Andy was a bit of a loner and tended to keep himself to himself, so I never really got to know him. But most of the other crews were amenable to a chat with this little English lad.

Can you still walk unhindered on the harbour and chat to the fishermen? Hmm, I thought so. Health and safety rules and all that rubbish didn't apply in the fifties and sixties. I can never remember anybody falling in the harbour. We even used to go onto some of the boat and because we never did any damage nobody ever bothered about us.
If we were in luck the coal boat would have slipped into its berth on the far side. Do you know, I can't remember ever seeing the coal boat arrive or leave? I suppose it came in just as the tide was about to change so as to slip over the sand bank on high water.
Our Pat though, never brave enough to go out to sea on one, would help the auld-ones mend the nets. She became dab-hand with the wooden needle, but was never as fast as the men.
Now I might not have told you this, but in the fifties Roger Turner was a little fair-skinned little lad with very light brown hair. Within days of arriving in Balbriggan, freckles would appear like magic on my face and my hair would turn white. We never slapped on the suncream. For a start suncreams, if available, were very expensive, and our mothers knew full well that as long as we kept moving about, the dreaded sunburn would not happen.
If I did get a wee bit of sunburn, then Mr Crilly would make up a bottle of calamine type lotion to dab on and take out the heat.
Now there's a name from the past!

Mr Crilly, was the Chemist in The Square and I remember that his shop was more sophisticated and modern than those back here in Sheffield. Saying that, he would still make up lotions and potions to order from the vast array of large glass bottles that adorned his shop. Nowadays those jars would be just for show, but back in the fifties they would be full of real ingredients as your local chemist made up most of his own medicines.
There were many patent medicines that one could buy over the counter, but when you are only eight, most of these meant nothing. I mean, just who bought smelling salts, and why?
Can somebody tell me who took Carters Little Liver Pills, and why did they want a little liver anyway?
Then there were Bile Beans (not a patch on Heinz Beans).
Nan Calow had only two remedies for all ailments: If you sneezed, coughed or complained of a headache, she opened one of them little sachets of Beechams Powders, mixed it with a little water, pinched the tip of your nose and forced you to drink it. Ugh! Sprouts tasted better! Nans other remedy was what she called Dynamite! Huge round and pink, these laxatives guaranteed you the best seat in the house within a couple of hours. And we didn't have the luxury of Ultra -Soft-Extra-Strong Toilet Tissue to ease the passage, but had to put up with squares of newspaper, strung in one corner and hung on a nail behind the door. Or, if you were lucky, hard shiny Izal toilet paper came with little slogans printed on them.

My mother, on the other hand, had her own ideas and back in Sheffield I was fed on a diet of Delrosa Rosehip Syrup, and Virol Malt Extract, Syrup of Figs and Cod-Liver-Oil. I remember the doctor once telling Mother I was anaemic and the chemist gave her a bottle of iron medicine. I wasn't taking any iron medicine until he explained that it was made from melted railway lines and if I took it regularly I would grow up to become a train driver.
Yes, a good chemist was a huge asset to any town and the fact that I can still remember Mr Crilly and his shop speaks volumes. And his wasn't the only chemist either, for there was another opposite the cinema on Dublin Street, but forever what reason my mother didn't patronise that chemist very often, but when she did, she became very secretive and I had to stay outside. Whatever it was she bought, (women's things?) it was stuffed deep into her shopping bag out of my sight.
But I seem to have sidetracked myself, for I believe I was rattling on about the harbour. Balbriggan harbour was one of those places that could never be confused with somewhere else. For a start, there was the smell from the gas works, and didn't they get through a lot of coal! I was once looking up wrecks around the Balbriggan coast and was amazed at the number of coal boats that were wrecked on their way to Balbriggan. In fact there have been many wrecks of that bit of coast especially of the Cardy Rocks. I take my hat off to those who go to sea in all weathers, and I was always amazed at how few sailors took the trouble to learn to swim, in fact I was amazed how few of the Balbriggan children could swim.
Back in Sheffield we had many indoor and outdoor swimming pools and all schoolchildren went to the baths once a week until they could swim. The more astute amongst us dragged the whole process out long after we had really learned to swim so that we would not have to do field sports (athletics they call it nowadays). I could never see the point of running without a ball to kick, and as for heading the shot, well where was fun in that. But give us a football and we were in heaven.
Did you know that the plastic football was invented in Ireland? Well I always brought one back to Sheffield after the summer and my mates thought it was great. We could only buy heavy leather footballs that needed the bladder blowing up with human puff, and after tying a knot in the end the ball had to be laced up then copious amounts of dubbing rubbed into the leather. If the pitch was wet or muddy the ball would become so heavy that should we kids be able to kick the ball into the air, and it came down and you headed it, stars appeared before your mates picked you off the ground.
But we were tough lot of kids back then and never feigned injury like these overpaid professionals do today. If they had to play with the heavy leather balls of the fifties...
But that's another story.

"Come on, Roger!" Mother would call, "lets go up by the convent" Now that was my favourite part of the day. Up the steps in the middle of the front strand, through the tunnel under the railway, (screaming as we ran) and then it was all hush as we walked bare-footed beside the convent. No, it wasn't because we couldn't afford shoes, but because that pavement was the smoothest and cleanest pavement in the whole of Balbriggan, and on the nice day it was pleasure to walk on, bare-footed, I mean! If we walked bare-footed back home in Sheffield our little feet would have been black with grime and cut and bleeding within a few paces. I suppose looking back; one of the main attractions of Balbriggan was how clean everything was compared with back in Sheffield.
But I've done it again, sidetracked myself, for just round the corner was the place we were heading for.
Even now the thought of opening the shop door makes me go weak at the knees. But you know what my memory is like when it comes to remembering names? I've sat here and pondered on what it was called, but nothing! I asked my Dad, but his memory is worse than mine, so I rang our Pat, but she was as useful as toothache, then my little Guardian Angel whispered in my ear, "Corcoran's." If I'm wrong, then blame my little Guardian Angel. Anyway, from hence foreword I will refer to the place on Drogheda Street where they served the most wonderful Ice-cream Soda, as Corcoran's.
It didn't matter where we had been; we always ended up there. Come on, you must remember! They put a scoop of home made ice-cream in the bottom of a tall fluted glass then opened a bottle of Cream Soda and poured it over the ice-cream whilst stirring it with a long thin spoon to make it fluffy. I always sucked mine through a straw then finished it off with the spoon. Wonderful!
When my own children were growing up I made the same concoction for them, but do you know what? I could never get them to taste the same. It lacked the Corcoran's magic.
Now here comes a wee bit of family strife, for I seem to be the only one to remember that there was another place in Balbriggan that did Ice-cream-soda and this was in the Square! Come on, help me out on this and prove our Pat wrong again. I love proving her wrong yet again. She swore me black and blue that you couldn't walk over the railway viaduct, until I showed her a photo of the old wooden prom. That put her in her place!
Back in the 50s Balbriggan, shops were all small, family-owned and had their own peculiarities like the chap who made his own Ice Pops and had the nickname of Joe Fliers, due to his habit of throwing thins for we kids to catch. A true character if ever we knew one.

And he wasn't on his own, for we were off to visit another of lifes characters in the shape of Jimmy Carton, my Auntie Eileen's father. Now I have never been one for going visiting, for I was expected to sit still and quiet. After all it was the time when children were seen and not heard.
Jimmy lived in cottage up Clonard Street, but to get to his house we passed rows of mostly women sat on a dining chair outside their front doors just waiting for any unsuspecting passer-by to become ensnared for a few minutes of gossip. My mother must have looked like meat and drink to them for we were obliged to stop when prompted.
"Ah, now there's a face I haven't seen for some time! And look at the wee boy!" She put down the ubiquitous knitting and held out the arms to hug me."My, haven't you grown!"
Here we go again. What was it that attracted old women to me? After all, I was only a little lad of eight.
Mother, however was all too fond of a gossip and was not averse to passing the time of day with whoever stopped her.
I was now faced with a dilemma. Should I hide behind mothers skirt, or would I go with Rita and Rory to see their grandfather?
Now at this point I must admit that I was in fear of Jimmy Carton, for I always found him just a wee bit grumpy, and he always spoke his mind. Fifty years on I hate visitors calling uninvited on a Sunday afternoon so I now know just why Jimmy was grumpy. The chances were that he would have been in the pub since they opened and would be happily sleeping it off in his chair.

But I must say that I can remember little else about My Auntie Eileen's parents, but can remember that after her mother died, Aunty Eileen's sister, Rita, set to and looked after Jimmy. Like Auntie Eileen, her sister Rita was a lovely person. After Jimmy died, Auntie Rita married her sweetheart and went to live in Canada. I remember her sending over a cine film of their life out there and someone brought a cine projector round to Craoibhin Park so that we could all watch it.
It was all snow and they went about on what looked like a motorbike without wheels. At that time snow was a rarity in Balbriggan, for if it did snow, then it never lasted long.

Back in Sheffield, we often had heavy snow in the winter that could last for months, but unless you lived on the outskirts, within minutes of the snow stopping, it would turn black with all the pollution that was in the air.
But you don't want to hear about it snowing in Sheffield, now do you? So I'll get back to Sunny Balbriggan, where it never, ever rained!
Or did it?
To be continued...