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 she usually walked, pushing my brother in the pram with me trailing along behind... This was partly because it was a pain getting the old Silver Cross-style pram, or even the later Tansad onto the bus... if a bus actually arrived, given the unreliability of buses in the early years of the Troubles... She even walked us into the City Centre, with the promise of a ham sandwich, with mustard, in Robinson and Cleaver’s Cafe as a reward. But I’ve often said that the whole experience put me off walking for life.
Shortly after my brother Sam was born I started in to Primary School, initially Sydenham Junior Infants. Belmont Primary or Strandtown would probably have been slightly closer, and a number of kids nearby went there, but there was (supposedly) a direct bus service from the bottom of our street that passed Sydenham and the senior school Strand... and my older cousins from around the corner were already pupils at Strand, so most mornings they had the joyous task of trying to get me to school on time, which given my antipathy to walking, was no mean feat when the bus wasn’t running. My Mum only took me, and later Sam to school, or picked us up for a short period, but for most of our time at school we got ourselves there and back ourselves. Once Sam was established at school, my Mum went back to work, taking on two part time jobs, and it wasn’t unusual for us to come home to an empty house.
Actually at neither my primary or secondary school did either of my parents have much involvement. They came to the parent-teacher consultations when required, but rarely came to school plays, and never to any sports events or prize days. I suppose because both my parents were slightly older and from a generation where school was only a cursory preparation for work, much of what we were engaged in was alien to them. However, it was always my Mum who put me over my lines for plays and helped me rehearse any public readings, making me stand at one end of the lounge/dining room while she stood at the other, encouraging me to speak louder, clearer and with more expression. Even today as I prepare to speak in a venue I am not familiar with or for more auspicious occasions it is her voice I hear in my head.
It also came as a shock to me a few years back when I had made myself ill through over work that my counsellor asked whose voice I heard when I was telling myself to “Get up and get on with it!” For years I had thought it was my Dad’s work ethic that drove me to destruction... but when asked that question I was in no doubt that it was my Mum’s voice I heard. She had always been the source of discipline in our house... my Dad wasn’t there enough to exert any direct influence... telling him was held up as the nuclear option, but we were more frightened of her disapproval, and on occasion “the strap” which she hung on the back of the kitchen door... she had no moral qualms about corporal punishment, indeed even as an adult you would dread her jabbing you with a knuckle that was applied with the precision of a kung-fu master.
Whatever way the house at Carolhill was originally built in the wake of the second world war, it seemed to have reinforced concrete walls. Over the year number of contractors doing different jobs around the house bemoaned the drill-bits broken and the inability to easily fix anything to the wall. We often joked that if there was a nuclear attack (and when I was growing up that didn’t seem entirely unlikely) we would be safer in our house than in any nuclear bunker. It was also, however, absolutely freezing. My older brothers used to say that it was the only house where you opened the front door and the light went on... like a refrigerator. In the early 70s as Belfast City Council implemented the new “smokeless zone”, my parents were talked in to installing economy 7 convector heaters, that were worse than useless... The bedrooms were freezing, indeed I did most of my homework sat at the dining table with a large pair of headphones on listening to vaious albums, including Jeff Wayne's "War of the Worlds", Queen's "Night at the Opera" and multiple offerings by Eric Clapton or Harry Chapin, while my Mum sat at the other end of the room watching Coronation Street, smoking and knitting one of the multiple heavy woolen jumpers that made winter in that house possible. I still have at least one of her jumpers at home. It no longer fits and neither of my sons are into chunky Arans or Norwegian jumpers, but I would be loathe to part with it.
Until my parents had double glazing installed after I left for university, during winter we frequently awoke to ice on the inside of our bedroom windows (it was good practice for my later student flats in Edinburgh), and we would dash downstairs to have breakfast and get dressed in front of the supplementary “SuperSer” portable gas heaters in the living room, before heading out to school.
As we headed to school my Mum went out to the first of her two jobs, working for two hours as a cleaner in a local office, originally TNT, then later when they relocated, Mobil Oil. Then from mid-morning until early afternoon she worked 3-4 days a week in the local grocers, a VG at the corner of the Holywood Road and Circular Road.
At first it was run by a Mr. McClure or McCleary (I can’t remember which... corrections welcome) but later it was run by Neil Tulloch and his wife. With her long experience in the greengrocery trade, my Mum became a valued member of the small staff team. At one point I nearly became part of the staff myself when at the age of 13 I was offered the post of bicycle delivery boy, riding one of those old cast iron bikes with a large frame at the front to hold boxes. I turned it down saying that I wanted to concentrate on my schoolwork, which fitted my studious reputation, but the truth was that I had never learned how to ride a bike by that stage. However, it prompted me to teach myself... I borrowed an old girls bike from a friend... falling off it didn’t hurt so much, because of the lack of a crossbar... and I taught myself by going up and down a local cul-de-sac where there were fewer cars. Actually there were few enough cars on any of the local streets that we regularly used them for games of football or kerby (and it was KERBY!!!) Having learned how to ride a bike I managed to persuade my dad to help me refurbish my older brothers’ bikes that they were riding in the late 1950s and early 60s. They weren’t cool or contemporary like Choppers or racing bikes... indeed they didn’t even have gears, but at least they had two wheels!
Shalom
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