Virtual Methodist

After a break, here's the next part of my reflections on  the life of my Mum, picking up where I was born in 1965, with the photo here being me on the day of my baptism, with my Mum and Dad and oldest brother Robert outside our house in Carolhill Gardens. My Mum worked in Robb’s fruit and veg shop on the Newtownards Road until just before I was born in 1965, and didn’t return to work until my brother Sam, who was born in 1969, started into Primary school. By the time I was born the family had moved from 18 Solway Street, off the Newtownards Road, the small terraced house that my Grandfather had bought my parents when they got married, to “Ivydene”, the semi-detached house at 32 Carolhill Gardens, further out the Holywood Road, which was to be my home for the first 18 years of my life. However, at least two or three days a week my Mum took us down to the Newtownards Road to do shopping or visit my Dad’s Mum or later my Grandfather. When my brother came along this meant that s

I will return to my Mum's story in due course, but in the meantime here's a short poem that came out of watching a pied wagtail while of a leadership retreat at Dromantine and reflecting on some seemingly binary decisions I have to make. Wagtail walking the ridge tile Stark against the skyline  Only one direction possible Until  They take flight Selah  

My Mum (on right) with colleagues from Ingli The marriage of Thomas James Campton and Margaret Kathleen Porter in St. Patrick's Parish Church, Newtownards Road. After leaving Mersey Street School at 14 my Mum got a job in Inglis’s Bakery at East Bread Street, in the midst of the war, working on the biscuit factory floor. During this time he met and subsequently married my Dad on 4th June 1947 at the age of 19. We're not sure whether she stayed on in Inglis's after her marriage, but she certainly left before her first son, Robert was born in 1948. Those were the days when frequently marriage, and usually pregnancy  meant that a woman lost her job. There were no maternity or equality rights of any sort. But my Mum had a strong work ethic, and money was in short supply, so even though she was no longer working in Inglis's, shortly after Robert was born she was working just across the road in Robb’s Fruit shop – the “second shop” just below the Albertbridge R

The second of a short series of blogs on my Mum and her side of the, family.  My Grandmother Ellen died while my Mum was in hospital giving birth to me so I never got to know her. By that stage her relationship with my Grandfather had broken down and she was living with my Aunt Lily in another house in Parkgate near the Oval. And because  of this family breakdown, for the earlier part of my life I didn’t know my Grandfather either, indeed I was walking with my Mum pushing my brother in his Tansad (there’s a word you don’t type every day) up the Newtownards Road she stopped to talk to an older man. After a few minutes we moved on and I asked who he was. “That’s your Grandad,” she said, but for some time that was as far as it went. It was a year or so later when she started to take us to visit him in Island Street... which I mainly enjoyed because there was an adventure playground across the road at the time, and another playground round the corner. I only recently discovered

I started writing the recent series of blogs on my Dad  in the wake of the anniversary of his death, so I thought it would only be appropriate for me to do the same for my Mum given that this is the anniversary of her death on 19th October, 1991. I had planned to start them in a slightly less ghoulish fashion on the anniversary of her birth, last Thursday, the 17th October, but my Dad’s blog’s over-ran, because they weren’t entirely planned out, and I had to go back to make corrections and add further information. These pieces on my Mum aren’t particularly planned either. They are simply a gathering together of a bit of what I know about my Mum and her family. The sad thing is that little of this I got from my Mum herself, despite the fact that I probably spent more time with her than my Dad. Partly that is because she didn’t tend to talk about herself or her family much, but also because she died before I had wit enough to ask. I did however eke some stuff out of her as I colla

“If we shadows have offended...” The introduction to Puck's closing speech in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and I am sure they did. Any Shakespeare purists, extreme prudes or those wedded to a patriarchal view of society, must have been hugely offended by Nicholas Hytner’s production at the Bridge Theatre in London, which I saw at the QFT last night as part of the National Theatre Live Screening programme (although this one was recorded)... He messed with the text, with the romantic relationships and with people’s heads... And I loved it. It was one of the best Shakespeare productions I have ever seen... It was a head on collision of punk burlesque and contemporary patriarchal puritanism... unapologetically blending Peter Brook’s iconic 1970’s Dream, with Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale” and a little bit of Dizzy Rascal... This Dream came to be in a series of beds flying in and out of a wonderfully designed, in the round/promenade/immersive performance.

My final blog (for now) on my Dad and his influence on my life, here looking at fleeting holidays and his all too brief retirement.  Because of my Father’s work ethic and commitments outside the home, we didn't see a lot of him apart from on holidays. These were always within the confines of the British Isles, and overwhelmingly in Northern Ireland. We did visit Butlins in Mosney when I was a baby (winning the “Bonnie Baby Competition” I’ll have you know) but the onset of the Troubles put paid to any further jaunts into the “Free State”. We did take one holiday with him to the Isle of Man and another to my mum’s sister May in London, but most holidays with my Dad involved driving somewhere. Because he didn’t have a car when we were younger (the first car he had after I was born was one he “won” in a works raffle at Christmas, drove home, parked in in the back driveway and it never moved again under its own motive power), my Dad usually hired a car for his holidays, wheth

  The penultimate piece on my Dad, largely looking at his working life. I actually only have this one blurry photo of him at his work in Pilot Engineering, behind his foreman's table. I've included the other photo of him at the front door of Ivydene with my niece Heather, just to illustrate the colour he painted the house... recognise it? Whilst my dad was probably happiest working with soil and plants, for his entire working life in Belfast he worked with metal. As I said in an earlier blog, when my dad came up to Belfast from the country during WW2 he started to work for R.J. McKinney, and he continued to work for them until 1975 when they were taken over by Smith Mills Ireland Limited, rising to the role of foreman plater.  During the war most of their work was on air-raid shelters and other steel-framed structures that were hastily erected in various contexts. When things settled down after the war their work diversified. All across Belfast and beyond you can find

Further reflections on my Dad's leisure time activities. The first two photos are of my Dad in and beside his greenhouse with his oldest two grandchildren Heather (holding her nose because she hated the smell of the fertiliser in the greenhouse) and Paul (mocking my Dad's often serious face, though in this photo he is smiling as he often did in the garden. The third photo is from on of our visits to Claggan with the infamous Andy Davy in the centre of the picture, my Dad on the left with my brother Sam in his arms, my Mum beside him holding my arm, and my aunt Sylvia and cousin Philip Stevenson on the right. As I said yesterday, during the winter, if not on overtime, my Dad spent work day evenings at meetings in the church or various Orange Halls. But he spent most Saturday afternoons or and spring/summer evenings and in his garden and garage. That was one of the big selling points for him of buying “Ivydene” because it was a semi-detached house on a corner site that all

  A slightly amended and somewhat longer reflection on my Dad's involvement with the Presbyterian Church and the Loyal Orders. Others who were involved in both with them might have other stories to tell. My Dad didn’t spend a lot of time in the house. Most of his time there was spent sleeping. Indeed when my then girlfriend Sally first visited Northern Ireland in 1987, she was there 5 days before she met my Dad, early in the morning before he went off to work and she was heading for the early boat back to Scotland.  When not working long hours he was usually outside in the garden or garage, or, during the winter, after work, he would have a brief refuelling stop and doze in front of the BBC Northern Ireland news, before going upstairs to wash and shave, get into his shirt, tie and suit and head out in a cloud of Old Spice aftershave to a meeting either in one Orange Hall or other, or at Megain Memorial Church where he was on their Committee.  He had been baptised