 |
| 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 Road/Newtownards Road junction.
She stayed working there after the birth of William and even after the family had moved from Solway Street up to Carolhill, indeed she was working there right up until shortly before my own birth in 1965. Because of this, in many ways both my older brothers were “brought up” by my Mum’s Mum, who was living round in Island Street at the time, prior to my Grandfather’s return from Derry.
She stayed working there after the birth of William and even after the family had moved from Solway Street up to Carolhill, indeed she was working there right up until shortly before my own birth in 1965. Because of this, in many ways both my older brothers were “brought up” by my Mum’s Mum, who was living round in Island Street at the time, prior to my Grandfather’s return from Derry.
My Aunt Lily, who also lived there was also a big feature in their lives. She loved the movies and regularly took both boys, especially William, with her to the local cinemas. Indeed cinema had also apparently played a big part in the courtship of my Mum and Dad, as it did in the lives of many in those days, although my Dad, ever the romantic, only commented to us about getting annoyed because of always ending up with chocolate stains on his good suit.
In latter years it was William who in turn introduced me to cinema. Allegedly the first movie he took me to was “The Love Bug" but the first I can remember was “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, both in the Astoria at Ballyhackamore. The only time either of my parents took my younger brother and I to the cinema, apart from the free showings on holiday at Butlins, was a showing of “The Island of Doctor Moreau" with Burt Lancaster at the Strand. It was truly awful. To this day I can’t think why she took us to that one in particular. It seemed quite “scary" to take two young boys to, but is suspect that we pestered her having seen trailers at the aforesaid cinema in Butlins, and given that she liked Burt Lancaster and was partial to horror movies, she relented.
She used to love the late night horror double bill’s on TV on a Friday night, and again, one time she relented to me sitting up to watch a Hammer Horror with Christopher Lee as Dracula, when I was probably around 10 years old. I lasted about half way through the first one... and actually have never really learned to enjoy horror movies. I did, however inherit her love of another movie genre, westerns and especially her favourite actor, John Wayne.
While my dad preferred reading cowboy stories, my Mum preferred watching them. Indeed she didn’t read much at all. The occasional Mills and Boon, even when she was taking my brother and I to the mobile library every week. Her favourite form of relaxation was TV. I think we were probably the last family in the area to get a colour TV, and for many years it was, like most people’s in those days, rented from Radio Rentals on the Newtownards Road. Her preference was to watch a good movie, but in latter years she would watch anything (although she blamed me for getting her hooked on the Australian soap “A Country Practice”)... She was an avid Coronation Street fan (though never Crossroads), she loved quizzes, ranging from Bullseye to Mastermind, and despite not being a follower of any other sport or sportsman (except Harvey Smith in show jumping strangely), she became a devotee of snooker on TV, from the early days of Pot Black (with its descriptions of where the different coloured balls were lying “for those watching in black and white”) through to the later night marathon final between Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor and beyond... She genuinely watched TV until the picture collapsed to the proverbial white dot in the middle of the screen... I'm not entirely sure she would ever have gone to bed after the advent of 24 hour TV.
Shalom
Comments