No sooner was I home from my sojourn in Bordeaux, then I was off again to Manchester to attend the funeral ceremonies of one of Longsight’s and St. Robert’s parish’s greatest women.  A woman born and reared in Denaby in South Yorkshire but who made Longsight and its environs her home.

Ellen Connor (nee Wilkinson) was born into a different world than the one we know today, a world that only knew hard work, plenty of it, done well and for no reward.  She was born on 12th August 1914, eight days after Britain had declared war on Germany, when the British Army were mobilising to face the threat of the Kaiser.  350 of Ellen’s neighbours, who had enlisted for the York and Lancaster Regiment and who had lived in that triangle of Pontefract, Rotherham and Doncaster  were transferred to the green fields of Ireland and the Connaught Rangers 5th Battalion, who were undergoing basic training at Kilworth Camp in Fermoy in Cork because I suppose the York and Lancaster 2nd Battalion was stationed in Limerick only a few miles away and were oversubscribed and the newly founded 5th Battalion Connaught Rangers were in need of drafts.  Many of this gallant 350 were killed at Gallipoli in their first taste of action in July 1915.  I have the great honour of being the General Secretary of the Connaught Rangers Association which serves to remember the sacrifice of the dead comrades of that pernicious conflict, the Great War.  Ellen might well have known the families of some of those men.

So Ellen grew up and went into service in Nottingham and then came to Manchester as housekeeper for the priests of St Edward’s parish in Rusholme and met and married the caretaker’s son, Jim Connor, in 1939.  Jim was an electrical engineer at Metropolitan Vickers in Trafford Park, where my father and mother worked.  They lived in Urmston close to Metro’s which was the biggest industrial complex certainly in England, employing at that time about 30,000 people.  In 1948 Ellen and Jim moved to Kelstern Square on the Anson Estate for their first taste of life under the avuncular yet despotic rule of Fr Vincent O’Shaughnessy.  Already they were nurturing four daughters, Sheila (1940), Joan (1943), Pauline (1945) and Angela (1947).

As was the way with life in those hard post-war years, small groups of women got together and supported each other through pregnancy, infancy and early school days of their families and that was how I came into contact with Ellen.  Ellen Connor, Margaret Mackie, Teresa Robinson and my mother Margaret Malpas formed a quartet that could not be broken, all parishioners of St Robert’s, all members of the Union of Catholic Mothers, all having gone through the war in their early years of marriage and all facing the stresses of spartan existences in those rationed years of the late 1940s and early 50s.

Ellen went on to have three more daughters Eileen (1949), Mary (1952) and Rita (1954).  Pardon me if I have got those dates slightly wrong but they were wrought from a memory that is old and obviously frail.  By now nine of family and with seven daughters, they gradually realised that their little council house in Kelstern Square could take no more, so they moved into a large three storey Victorian semi round the corner, No 17 Birchfields Road in about 1960, which easily coped with the nine of them, which soon became 11 when Jim’s sister died leaving two children, Teresa and Robert.  These two cousins were seamlessly added.  The house also coped with Jim’s burgeoning property repairing business, which he had inherited from his father and Sheila’s hairdressing salon that coiffeured the matronly heads of the Union of Catholic Mothers amongst many others.

My first memories of the Connor family was when Rita was born in about 1954, I went with my mother to Kelstern Square to visit the new born child and that was the start of my constant link with the family, I was however, from the age of four, in the same class as Pauline.  When I was about 15 or 16 Jim gave me part time work at weekends and school holidays, working with his brother Frank, painting most of the ecclesiastical institutions in Victoria Park.  It was like the Forth Bridge, it never stopped and for years after I continued this nice little earner at 2s 6p per hour which financed my early drinking career.

In fact during my late teenage years I was hardly ever out of Jim and Ellen’s house, reporting for duty, watching TV and generally learning how to deal with a family of good looking women.  To the worldly wise it would and must have been like heaven, surrounded by this plethora of beautiful girls but oafish and ungainly me could never measure up and the girls all went eventually their separate romantic ways.  The one constant was Ellen, always putting a plate of food in front of me, she was like a second mother to me for years until I also eventually moved on to seek my fortune.  Since then in the middle 60s until now I used to meet up with each and everyone of them from time to time, there was never any awkward silences, we just took up where we had left off, it was as though we remained in those early 1960 years, so tightly bound together.

So it was with great joy and anticipation that I made my way to Manchester to take part in the celebration of Ellen’s life.  There is little sadness when a person of nearly 98 dies, just happiness at the long, fruitful and deeply fulfilled existence.

At the church of St Winifred’s, where Monsignor Michael Quinlan is OIC and who would not be too happy knowing I was sat in his benches, there appeared many still recognisable faces. Those that had hardly changed in the 50 years of my wanderings were Ellen’s seven daughters, easily recognisable because they all carry some aspects of Ellen’s countenance.  They all retain the fine chiselled features of their mother, none look older than 40 yet I suspect if my maths are correct some of them must be older than that.  Two of the Power girls from Montgomery Road were there, Geraldine and Aileen. Jean Gay and her 94 year old mother, her father is still going strong at 97.  There must have been something in the water in Longsight all those years ago because my father at 94 was also striding up the aisle alongside my two brothers Kevin and Michael, Kevin in need of a haircut and Michael clean shaven and trimmed to match his elevation in life.  Another blast from the past, Miss Wallace was also there still recognisable although well into her 80s.  I did not introduce myself because the palms of my hands were still smarting from the edge of the ruler she wealded with such gay abandon on our ten year old palms and my mind still stunned by the negativity she tried to instill without success into our baby booming confidence.

Above everything else was the mass of the Connors.  Ellen had seven daughters who spawned 20 grandchildren with space and time for many more who again bred 26 great grandchildren with hundreds more to come and also two great great granchildren were present with three more tucked into their mothers’ bellies for deliverance later this year.  Fecundity is without doubt the family’s middle name.

At the funeral breakfast, tears of joy, happiness and a few of sadness mingled with the lump in my throat and I found it hard to talk.  I was just so glad to be there and experience the waft of memory as it rolled over me and the delight of a life that had been well lived.  Ellen and her husband Jim, who died in 2005, were as generous as any two people could be.  In the words of her first grandchild Anthony, Shiela’s son, who offered up the Eulogy at the end of Requiem Mass, Ellen’s “legacy is one of wealth, not of money, but of showing how to live your life through selfless love for other people”.

In the few years I have still to live she will never be forgotten, nor will she be in the minds of two of my daughters, Katy and Louise, who accompanied me and knew the family.  Katy weighed down with her two year old twins who were as good as gold until the eulogy and then started shouting like a Manchester City crowd in full voice drowning out Anthony’s well chosen words.  Louise weighed down by a child yet to be born but at 38 weeks cannot have long to go.  They were massively impressed with the whole celebration.

May Ellen rest in peace.

Helen and myself after much Bordelaise bidding decided to take a springtime trip to Bordeaux to see an old friend and the hutch he lives in.  Our flight was booked on Sunday out of Dublin and has Ianrod Eireann only do reduced journeys of a Sabbath we travelled up to Dublin on the Saturday.  A pleasant journey with my free travel pass granted to all who have lived for sufficient years.  It did entail a 35 minute delay at Mostrim or Edgeworthstown, as it is known today, because of a train failure in the Mullingar region.  It was no discomfort for the new trains are so comfortable and I had my Kindle at hand.

Disembarked at Connolly Station we took a short walk down to the Abbey Theatre to meet our daughter, Paddy, at her place of work.  Although we had been before, I am always struck by the friendliness of the staff and how helpful they always are.  You do not meet this sincerity often in corporative life but these young people from the lad selling programmes at the door, to the young girl in the cloak room and the staff at the bar, welcomed us and directed us in such a pleasant fashion that it took my breath away.  So well done management for picking and training a decent bunch of youngsters in the fine art of front of house.  I will be back again for Tom Murphy’s play The House in June and O’Casey’s masterpiece The Plough and the Stars at its revised location at the Belvedere in the Summer.

The three of us decided to eat at a Moroccan restaurant, Dada’s, on South William Street.  I would recommend it to everyone, especially the Merguez sausages, the salads, the Tagines and the Argentinian Malbec which we consumed in more than sufficient quantity.  Then off to Paddy’s abode by the Grand Canal, to chew the cud and where we tucked into more vino, Sangria de Toro from the house of Torres in Spain, a most economic and lovely wine at 7 euro per bottle.  Who said it was expensive in Dublin.

Next morning, Sunday, we were up at sparrow fart and away to the airport giving ourselves plenty of time in case of delay.  However the journey went like clockwork through deserted Dublin.  No sooner had we reached the Luas stop at the top of Harcourt Street then a tram came along to whisk us into Stephen’s Green.  A short walk across to Dawson Street to pick up the airport bus escorted by a friendly man who was in charge of the tourist horses and carriages.  30 seconds later a bright and breezy young taxi driver seizing his opportunity stopped and said he would carry us to the airport for the same price as the bus, 7 euro each.  Helen and I jumped in followed by two Californian girls who had just finished doing Europe in three days and could not believe their luck.  They remained dumbstruck for the entire journey.

Thus we were at the airport 30 minutes after leaving Paddy and leaving us well over two hours to wait for our plane.  However a full Irish breakfast and people watching soon passed the time.  On journeys I  love waiting and watching and I hate being just on time and rushing.  We had booked to travel by Aer Lingus and I do not know what it is about this airline, they are as cheap as Ryanair but they seem to retain the old world gentility and friendliness that is sadly lacking in its rival airline.  One hour and thirty minutes later we were 10 degrees warmer in Bordeaux, an airport similar to Knock but with two terminals and more runway and apron.  We were in Terminal A which is very quiet traffic wise and we were soon outside in the sun looking out for my friend Monsieur R and then I saw a flash of blue in the distance.  It was half time in the Manchester City game against Newcastle which more or less determined the Premier League for them, R had dashed out on the referee’s whistle and hurtled down the road from his pad in St Jean d’Illac, a mile or so from the airport.

We darted back so that no football would be lost by mine host who was in such a state of nervousness he could not watch but remained in earshot.  He had deposited us outside this sprawling mansion, I was looking round for the gardeners cottage but this was the only residence.  He said it was his, so I had to believe him.  The house was modern, with an extensive open plan layout.  You could have a decent 5-a-side foot ball match in the kitchen with room to park a few spectators cars.  The living room could seat 30 people and still leave room for dancing.  A short walk along a glazed corridor to bedrooms and the obligatory indoor swimming pool, sauna and spa, all superfluously  heated to withstand the permanent tropical temperature of Bordeaux.  Up the open plan staircase which was a feature of the living space past the dazzling chandelier to a full sized snooker table, bar and relaxing sofas.  This arena led off to further bedrooms and bathroom.  Only one word sums it all up, palatial.  Two years R and Madame P spent designing it themselves, they then found a portugoose builder who spent 15 months building it.

The kitchen was a gem and the food better.  He had a couple of hens that looked more like feather dusters patrolling the back of the house and they supplemented the plentiful supply of eggs.  Our first feed was ouefs mimosa ( boiled eggs sliced in half with a topping of crab meat, mayonnaise, paprika and pepper), simple but lovely.  The main course was magret with cooked apples and figs washed down with local illicit plonk from the over-producing excellent local vineyards.  A local bonus for local people which I think is well deserved.  An early night followed after the journey and the excesses of the previous night in Dublin but not before we had welcomed in France’s new president, Monsieur Hollande, who had just beaten the previous pantomime dwarf Monsieur Sarkozy by 4% of the vote.  I suppose a close run thing and not really welcomed around St Jean d’Illac.

I was up early at 5.00am and sat in front of the ever present computer screen and answered my overnight e-mails and made notes for this scruffy little piece.  Shortly Madame P arises and within no time sticks a welcoming cafe creme in front of me.  The day has started.  Madame P runs a music school in St Jean which she started 20 years previously and works a tremendous amount of hours.  It shows you what the community think, with a population of 6500 people the school have 700 pupils of all ages.  We breakfasted on eggs, ham, left over magret, home made bread and fig compote before she left for work.  Monsieur R and Helen slept fashionably late but they eventually arose to a grim permanently sunny morning with a temperature at 9.ooam, a balmy 20C. and it eventually peaking in mid-afternoon at 26C.

A quiet day is planned while Dublin wears off, not the wonders of historic Bordeaux and the recent extensive works along the River Garonne, we have seen it all before and we are not an inquisitive couple.  We spent the morning pottering about, I made a visit to the boulanger and returned with pain et canneles.  Cannele is a Bordeaux speciality, little almost cone shaped cakes made with flour and butter and honey.  Here they make them by the thousand every day and they are delicious.  Within a short time we prepared lunch.  Smoked salmon, ham, tomatoes of strange shape and variety and the rest of the magret, nothing is wasted here.  In the afternoon we took a short trip out to Andernos on the northern shore of the Bassin D’Arcachon.  It is a little resort town at one time famous for its oysters and now just at the start of its busy season.

We returned to the mansion at 4.00pm for a well earned siesta before settling in to a couple of aperos around 7.00am whilst waiting for Madame P to return from her work.  As we wait for her return I look around the house and notice  the flaw.  There is no central heating, no radiators.  “How can you make such a basic error”, I said.  “Because we don’t need it” was the reply.  However after further investigation I did discover that there was an under floor heating system, that they do switch on for a month round Christmas.

That evening off we went to Madame’s sister’s house in Cestas to the south of Bordeaux, for more aperos and the biggest homemade pizzas I have ever seen, washed down by a very palatable local wine.  The sister’s boyfriend was Monsieur Chef and while I was on pastis, the chef and R were guzzling whiskey as though it was going out of fashion.  It is amazing how popular whiskey is over here, most men I met on this trip drank it before and after meals.  Monsieur Chef made the pastry bases in between slurps, which he covered with a tomato and basilique sauce, then lashings of mozzarella and parmigiano cheese and ham and then dropped two eggs into the middle of each one and then into the oven.  Impossible to finish so into a doggy bag for tomorrow’s breakfast.  We returned home at 12.45am to an alcoholic night cap and then to bed.

Day 2 in Bordeaux was a Bank Holiday, we all slept in.  Madame P was out for 10.00am because they have had so many Bank Holidays recently The Music School had to open in order to catch up.  We are off to a local 7-aside football competition where we will have lunch and a few aperos before watching Jeremy and his mates take on other local teams.  Jeremy is Madame P’s son from a previous arrangement, a very nice well mannered young man with mates the same and they all think Ireland is the best country in the world.  I have got to say that the ordinary French person has no liking at all for England and its people but they think the sun shines out of the Irish man and woman’s arse

As soon as we arrived at the Stade and on a wink from Monsieur R, a plastic cup brimming with whiskey was put into my hand and a big lump of bellypork squashed between two halves of a baguette pushed into my face.  Basic but very, very tasty.  We then sat down because it was half time in the competition and our team lunched on pastis and pork filled baguettes, just the foundation to a hard afternoon’s football.  You could see who the winners were, a team of African lads were warming up, no lunch or aperos for them.  They were passing the ball about and showing off their individual skills while the French lads were enjoying their Bank Holiday.  The African lads who no doubt will appear in the Premier League one day wiped the floor with their white opposition, but it was all in good fun.

The whole football experience was quite exhausting, whiskey diluted with ice cubes attentively replenished by Gerard, Madame P’s brother in law, who was one of the competition organizers, the barbecue firing out al sorts of tasty bits washed dow by pastis and local beer.  Jeremy’s team were great guys and stood the pressure well ably aided by their girlfriends who ate and drank what the boys could not finish and we the toast of the team because we were Irish.  I did not like to disavow them.  We returned once more for a well earned siesta and then a game of snooker that made me think I had forgotten more about the game than I had ever learnt but I still beat mine host.  The evening meal was a simple affair of meat loaf prepared by ourselves, mashed potato configured by R and washed down by bottles of Bordeaux rose and rouge.

Day 3 was Wednesday and a day off school for the kids but not the musicians.  Late morning we tootle off to the Medoc and spend time in Margaux, too pricey for our pockets so we retire to the little town of Macau on the Garonne where we lunch in a splendid restaurant renminiscent of France long ago.  We had a three course meal with half a litre of wine each for 12 euro, excellent value.  It was now touching 26C so home James, stopping off at a massive LeClerc supermarket in St Medard.  This was the biggest store I was ever in with an unbelievable display of wines from Bordeaux and half a shelf of Vins Etrangeres.  The poisonnerie was  incroyable, if that is how you spell it, with every known fish and a few more on display.  I could still be at the boucherie if let.  The French cuts look so much nicer than our own.

Home to pintade and peas.  I was given the honour of cutting off its head before it went into the pot.  Monsieur Gerard came round, so six of us sat down for dinner.  After numerous aperos, vino by the litre and digestifs to fill a distillery, the piano cranked up and Helen started the ball rolling followed by Madame on the keys giving it Killarney.  Jeremy who is big into jazz piano and Gerard who is a Charles Aznavour look alike and devotee finished off the evening in style.  Plans were made for a similar meeting in Boyle in September after the vintage.  I was told in no uncertain French to look out for Roscommon ladies with similar dispositions to Gerard And Jeremy before I slipped off my stool about eight hours after I had first sat on it.

I woke at nine with a splitting head but after cafe and petite dejeuner, I was fit enough for a hectic return game of snooker, a very small apero and the thought of lunch which is to be bread, boudin noir et pommes.  It is 11.30am and the temperature 29.5C in the cool interior, God knows what it must be outside.  Our plane is scheduled for4.10pm by which time it had reached 35C and I am not looking forward to the journey.  Off the plane in shirt sleeves in Dublin to a freezing 10C and by the time we made it home to Boyle it was a festering 7C.  How clever we are to pick the Arctic to live in.

On 19th January 2010 I wrote a piece called The Reality of Retirement the intrepid reader should hunt it out and read it, it is awfully good and amazingly short for me at 850 words but each word and idea is a gem.  I was reminded of this posting only the other day, thinking I must have written it a few months back and in fact it was two years since I started to realise the beauties of being unwaged.  If time flies that quickly in this nirvanic state I find myself in, they will soon be carrying me out the door feet first.

Yes I was reminded of this literary gem the other evening, when a chap called by at 7.00pm on his way home, frazzled from a long hard day at work.  He related the events of his stressful day and then asked what I had got up to.  It made me think, “do you know Jack” I said “I don’t think I’ve done anything and I have not been bored but enjoyed every minute of my day”.  On uttering those words I knew I had already reached the liberating state that the world’s population strives for.

In saying I had done nothing, I was obviously telling little porkies, because I had showered and dressed myself, had a leisurely breakfast, sauntered through my e-mails and written 1100 words on the ridiculous Irish Government custom of buying communion dresses for little girls.  I followed this up with an equally leisurely and fashionably late lunch and then spent the rest of the afternoon reading a very interesting novel cum biography of Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway’s first wife.  The book called The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, I can recommend to anybody, it tells of their life in Paris and the gifted people who filled this place  after the Great War and during the liberated 1920s.  People like James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein, all megastars of the 20th century.  I did all all this at my own pace and enjoyed myself so much it felt as though I had done nothing.

The beauty of this senile exisatence is that since last February, the Queen of England, her glorious majesty, has given me a few hundred drinking vouchers every week, I get free medical care courtesy of my medical card, costs of which in Ireland, which does not have a National Health Service, can be worth an arm and a leg,  perhaps that is why the government here can give out free communion dresses.  On top of all this from next week I am entitled to a free travel card which allows me to travel anywhere in the British Isles for nix on public transport which includes trains, boats and buses.  I am, as they say, on the pigs back.

In my previous posting on this subject I stressed the need for peace of mind being the epitomy of the retired state and how on retirement you should relax in the beginning and slowly find your way to this peacefulness.  Well I reached it by throwing off the man made psychological shackles that the Catholic Church had bound me in all my working and married life and in my freethinking state exposed the bunkum and downright lies that the Church had told in their bid to keep a lid on the clerical abuse scandal that has shattered most of the western world’s religious ideologies and which is only now coming home to roost in England and Wales.  I really enjoyed jousting with the nincompoops of Safeguarding Commissions that the Church in their fat, mindless state had left in charge of this most important of roles.  As these obsequious and obfuscating hurdles, put in place by the Church, were blown away, the younger and more energetic I became.  I was like a youth again, scared of nothing, roaming the internet, like Spartacus in revolt.

When you are mindful of nobody, peace of mind comes easy and your relaxed state takes care of the boundaries you could easily tip yourself over.  So to come down from this buzz, a well written book, a few hours watching test match cricket and a glass of Malbec act as balm on a totally fulfilled life.  I recommend it to everybody who has been round long enough.

In June 1996 the IRA did most people in Manchester a bit of a favour.  They detonated a bomb, the biggest in peace time history, on Corporation Street, near to the junction with Market Street.  The bomb caused that much damage, it advanced the development of Manchester city centre by about 30 years, leaving us with a city centre today that anybody would be proud of.

The damage was so great in relation to the infrastructure that most buildings within a few hundred yards had either to be demolished or had to have fundamental demolition to large parts of its structure.  This led the movers and shakers to think that while we are doing this we might as well do that as well.  Insurance and investment money came pouring in from all angles and kept the construction industry in business for many a year.  No wonder that although the authorities knew who the culprits were they did not have them arrested.  Had they not done Manchester and the North of England a great service?

The only building within the bomb’s vicinity that did not get demolished was the Royal Exchange, a massive Victorian monolith which had experienced Hitler’s bombs in 1940 and stood to tell the tale.  It was formerly the heartbeat of the textile industry which conducted world wide trade within its porticos, but was now offices, shopping centre and avant-garde theatre.  We, as demolition contractors, were lucky enough to win the contract for the complete internal demolition and clean up of this building and so we embarked on two years of hard, busy and lucrative work.

Back at home my fifth child, Paddy Jo or on formal occasions Patricia Josephine, with one eye on her fast approaching second level education, was expressing a wish to learn to play the piano.  She was just over eight years old when the bomb inadvertently did her a favour and well into her tenth year by the time the favour was realised.

The Royal Exchange, as I have explained, was high, deep and massive.  Nine floors above the ground, four floors below and all sat on a footprint of 60,000sq. ft.  As each floor was handed over by loss adjustors and insurance men, we moved in and cleared everything back to structure.  Hard and difficult work in the confined spaces in which we were asked to work.  We literally shifted several thousand tonnes of debris in our time there.

Some time in late 1997 we were given the undercroft to clear.  The undercroft was the lowest floor of four basement floors, accessed by street traffic from a vehicle lift situated on its southern elevation, opposite Half Moon Street.  It was a warren of storerooms and service equipment rooms housing heating and ventilating and electrical equipment.  The tenants of these storerooms and there was several dozen of them had been permitted entry and had taken out what was considered valuable.  Any item they could not remove because of its size had to be bubble-wrapped and it was part of our responsibility to recover the said bubble-wrapped items and place same onto the tenants’ transport.  Everything not bubble-wrapped had to be removed to tip.

One day in the first week of this operation, we were given the keys to a long tunnel-like room, full of point of sale advertising boards for a shop upstairs that had once sold cosmetics and beauty products.  Struggling through this dusty and out of date paraphenalia and right at the end of the tunnel was a piano with no bubble-wrap around it.  I called the Project Manager on the radio, pointed out the instument to him and asked him the obvious question.  He turned to our job description and said “if it is not double-wrapped, tip it”  Although Paddy Jo did not know it then, her constant pleadings had been answered.

Within an hour of our meeting, the not bubble-wrapped piano was on the back of one of our pick-ups and making its way to our house in Heaton Moor.  With a little effort, four of us lifted it off the pick-up and safely installed it in our front room.  Helen set to work with damp cloths and polish and when I returned that evening there was this wonderfully manufactured upright piano dressed in the most beautifully coloured walnut cladding, a most desirable object.

A piano tuner was called and enquiries made for a piano teacher.  Within 24 hours we had both.  The piano tuner said it was a great example of a horizontally strung piano dating to about the 1870-1880 period.  The piano teacher said Paddy was approaching her lessons with great enthusiasm.  All our hopes and dreams were answered.

A couple of weeks later I received a message from the Project Manager asking me to come up to his office.  I entered and there sat a very irate looking matronly figure, who turned out to be the one-time manageress of the previously mentioned beauty parlour.  “Where is my piano, I did not think I had to bubble-wrap it” she squawked.  It seems, to ease the tensions of the day that rapidly build up in beauty emporia, madame used to visit her dungeoned piano and knock hell out of the ivories until her stress levels decreased.  The Project Manager winked at me and enquired as to where we had stored it.  I was nonplussed for a second but thought for the sake of everybody, I had better be straight.  I explained to the rapidly quietening lady that we had to remove it from its position  in order to keep the work moving but we realised that it had value to someone and that we had it in safe storage at our depot.  I received a delivery address but no thanks and the following day Paddy Jo was heart broken, the lady was happy and the piano teacher was out of work.  However the Project Manager was very pleased at the way he had been extricated from a very tricky situation.  But I had a problem how to placate my darling Paddy Jo and how to keep the piano teacher in business.

Longsight, in Manchester, where I spent my formative first 20 years, is a market for anything.  If you want it, Longsight has got it.  Within hours of me sending out distress signals I was informed of this piano showroom situated in an old mill in Hamilton Road, where I used to play as a kid, climbing its sheer vertical sides and generally doing anything that was just one step from death.  This showroom specialised in refurbished pianos and it was from there, having handed over a pocketful of spondulicks, Paddy’s refurbished Walberg piano was delivered next day.  Paddy and the piano teacher happy, me teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

Paddy grateful to her splendid father, attacked the piano with all the vim, vigour and verve she could muster and 18 months later won the Music Scholarship to St. Bede’s College, in Whalley Range, my old alma mater. This Scholarship payed 50% of the fees during her stay at College.  With about £3,000 of a saving a year over her seven years at school that piano owed me nothing.  Paddy continued learning and finished up passing her Grade 8 examination which is as good as the normal piano player wants.  Mrs Rosamund Meehan, Deputy head of the school and Head of Music considered Paddy to be an excellent musician  That piano, the mahogany one, mentioned in my blog posting of 13 January 2012 entitled A Man With A Van, after crossing the Irish Sea the other day is hopefully going to earn some other deserving kid’s parents a few quid as well but it is all down to that beautifully clad walnut piano that we borrowed from that lovely lady.

Hello and it is so good to return to the land of the living to meet you all again after three and a half months of researching the life of a 62 year old dead man who passed from this world 42 years ago and who caused great grief to many young boys in Manchester, that he pastored for 16 long years all that time ago. Readers of this column will know of whom I speak and I just wonder whether it was the manner of his humble birth which made young, intelligent and gifted boys such an anathema to him.

Anyway, I am back amongst you, but not in a joyful or carefree mood, although I should be with that pair of burgeoning boys, born to my daughter in June this summer and winking at me from the wallpaper put on my computer screen and also another birth in August, in Bradford, of my sixth grand child, Hamzah, which means I think, Lion. Slightly built but with long fingers, he has time to grow tall and I expect him to play for Yorkshire one day and hopefully for Bangladesh or England, he has the choice and anybody with choice is half way there. I should be joyful after seeing the twins suck Northern France dry on our holidays there last month and I am not carefree because only just over a week ago, a man I held in the highest regard, a man who, more than anyone I know, kept his hometown of Boyle, in North Roscommon, in the artistic and intellectual spotlights of Ireland, died suddenly. It was his management and organization of the Boyle Arts Festival, an annual event of some magnitude, that kept the modern day artists of Ireland on their toes and it was him, alone, who captured the imagination of the Arts media. Except for him, Boyle would have been some little backwater bypassed on the road to Sligo and dreaming of its military and musical past.

I watched the blaze and pageantry of his funeral service, the blaze and pageantry that only the Catholic Church with the help of the local community can throw on occasions such as these and accepted that that is what they do well to bigfish in small ponds. I started thinking would he have liked all this hype, he went so quickly, he might not have left a protocol to be followed but knowing the man, I would suggest his favourite modus mortatis would have been in a blaze of glory, so he would not have been upset by his requiem.

Continuing along with that train of thought I realised that that kind of celebration would not be for me, not the pageantry or a blaze of anything other than the gas fired jets of a burner in some damp crematorium. I am no big fish in any kind of pond, I am not even plankton, possibly a minor diatom drifting around in a puddle caused by an imprint in the soil of some well worn wellington boot . When I go I want to be treated as such, first of all pinched for reaction, to ensure my mortality and when satisfied that life no longer exists, shovelled into some form of container, a body bag or even a shopping bag and taken to the firing chamber as soon as possible once all legal niceties are resolved, and there turned into clinker or ashes and when cooled, placed in some humble container. A cardboard box will do.

It is at this moment my family, if any still hold me in regard and a friend or friends can gather and drink my supernatural health and think of days when I did my best and there were not many of those. It would be a pleasure at this time if some kind burgher would dribble a few drops of life giving nectar over my cardboard contained dust. Just on the off chance so to speak. My mate, Charly’s, hooch would be just the thing. When satisfied that this elixir is only snake oil then take me off to South Sligo.

I want what is left of me to be bisected, roughly will do, if no scales are to be had, and the first half taken to the top of the Bricklieves, the Speckled Mountains, a place my ancestors of 5500 years ago held in high regard and it is there that my acolytes will await a gentle westerly breeze and allow this moiety of my roasted powder to slip away and be carried by this zephyr, over Dunaveragh, that ancient resting place of pilgrims and on over the latter day N4, to rest on the calm waters of Loch Arbhach with the lightest haze finally stopping on the walls of Ballindoon Abbey, where the Dominicans held sway 500 years ago.

Back in the car again with care being taken of my final remnants, a zephyr up there can soon turn into a tempest and this final grit has another place to go. To the historic Plains of Boyle we will be destined. Here on this vibrant pasture land, Irish cattle have been fattened up for thousands of years. In this much prized upland plateau is the townland of Eastersnow. It is here John Mcgahern, my most favourite wordsmith, in his much praised book “Amongst Women” buries the first fictional mother of the family. I can only say that he did this for the beauty of its name, certainly to me a better sound than, Aghawillin in Leitrim where his own mother lies and it has the added advantage of being within walking distance of Cootehall where he lived as a boy.

The graveyard at Eastersnow is a pleasant site, quadrangular in shape with the four walls of an old chapel standing in its centre. It has been the home of rich man and poor man for a long time and I would like my remaining bits scattered within these four walls. If John McGahern had high regard, so do I and it has the added advantage of being close to Byrne’s Public House. If any mourner ravished with the drouth, after so long a pilgrimage, would just knock on the door, I am sure Mrs. Byrne would offer them a drink.

So my time will be over and I hope there is great merry making in the community as one more thorn is picked out of people’s lives and the lovely Helen can settle down to an old age with little to worry about except for the untidiness of the kitchen. I, unfortunately will not be there to keep everything shipshape and Bristol fashion.

But before I go for today, I want to reiterate the thoughts in my first paragraph and thank you all once again for your support throughout the Summer. There was a steady flow of people logging on every day for, even though I say it myself, a better read than the newspapers.

The various events of June have dried my mind out, it is now a sere mass of grey matter and I have come to a full stop. Every morning for the last two weeks, i have come down the stairs at the crack of sparrow fart, dawn to the unpoetic, sat at the keyboard and nothing, not even a sentence.

It normally takes me about four hours to write a 1000 words, think, edit, rewrite, edit and type out, but these last two weeks nothing, in fact for the most of June, nothing. I might have been bothered about two major areas of research I have set myself, but nothing there either, only indolence, torpor and langour. I cannot set my mind to churn the way it has for the past seven months. So I have decided to rest up until the 1st October, concentrate on the research subjects and hope that I can get them out of the way for the Autumn.

It was not just that the words would not come although that was my Becher’s Brook, but there are so many other fences to jump. The glorious weather, a fascinating series of one day cricket against the Australians, a lake more or less outside the front door which had a 24 hour shimmer in that glorious June, the planning of a continental trip later in the year, the garden and vegetable plot that seems to want care evey five minutes with its burgeoning crop brought to fruition by the finest June on record, the thoughts of the twins thriving in Manchester and thinking of the life in front of them, I am sure and I hope that it will not be as hard as the past 60 years.

So there it is and apologies to all my readers who have been waiting patiently for most of June to pick up the glowing pearls that emanate from my keyboard every morning. A full stop will clear my mind, let me enjoy my enjoyment and stop making me feel guilty about taking time off. All my working life I have felt guilty at taking time off, even when working seven days a week. A weeks holiday, a round of golf made me a nervous wreck, it really was not worth it, but now I am retired, I am master of all I survey. So full stop until October and thank you for having me.

Please excuse me if I am inaccurate but I am speaking about an unusual subject for me at least, but I do understand logic and after nearly 40 years of marriage I am beginning to understand the courage and emotion that make up the female psyche and I know one thing for certain, women know their own bodies and as vacant as some of them might well be, they understand what is right and wrong for them.  There is another thing that I am certain of, men have not got a clue about the inner workings of a woman’s mind and body.  After years of study and examinations, the murky males who populate the maternity departments of hospitals and call themselves doctors and even worse, gynaecologists and look at women from a different perspective than most of us, have no idea about their patients’ innards and minds than we who admire them on a Saturday night out.

To them a maternity department is a well oiled conveyor belt with all operatives ticking along in unison like those in a car production plant, producing fully formed units every 20 minutes or so.  But this in reality is not the case and drugs and other additives are added to fine tune the system.  But this should not be the case.  Each woman is a unique machine, a Rolls Royce and is hand built to perfection depending on their environmental circumstances.  Each woman is different in a million little nuances; each woman needs empathy, not sympathy and certainly does not need to be patronised.

Most women nowadays understand drugs and their misuse and overuse and consultation and agreement is required, not dismissal and overbearance.  A psychotherapist with no maternity training would make a better maternity doctor than those who have trained for years in obstetrics.  Without a doubt when it comes to producing babies, mind is more important than matter.  Pumping them full of antibiotics and birth inducing drugs, like a cow in the field, is not what the normal woman wants.  Environment and nature is the thing to instil into these maternity mechanics.

On conveyor belts hundreds of things can go wrong.  Take the case of the North Dublin woman, Melissa Redmond, who went for an initial scan on her expectant third child, after a few miscarriages and was told the foetus was dead and the hospital set in motion the machinery to remove the embryo by D&C procedure two days later and gave her an abortion tool and some drugs that would help the operation.  The lady agreed to all this but knew in her own mind that something was wrong.  Her body was telling her different, she knew her own body and everything felt good.  Wisely she went for a second opinion to her G.P. who confirmed to her that her baby was live and well and in fact the bouncing boy was born in March this year.  If she had used the abortion tool or taken the drugs given, prior to presenting herself at hospital that new life would not be..

You might recogniSe the hospital, that conveyor belt to hell, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, famed for Dr Michael Neary’s antics of removing the wombs and ovaries of women as they got out of their cars in the carpark.  To him, no woman was a vital unit until these parasitic organs were cut out.  To read more of this lady’s experiences which was well reported in depth by Fiach Kelly and Breda Heffernan in today’s Independent click here.

I, as a father of six, am well experienced in natural births, long labours (four hours) and short labours (ten minutes), hospital births and home births and I know the most important thing for my wife was environment, nature and absence,  My absence that is, whilst she underwent the joyous and personal effort of birth.  I was obviously welcomed back into the family as soon as the messy bits were cleaned up.

So my daughter, who became pregnant last autumn and was later told she had twins, swore she was going to have her multiple birth at home, like her last child, in peace and harmony and without drugs and insistence and clockwork routine.  She had suffered trauma with her first two births in that den of filth and grime, they called Wythenshawe Hospital, a few years ago.  Let us hope that they have now got their act together.

This time she had independent midwives on call and every thing was progressing well until time stepped in.  Even independent midwives have to send their charges to hospital if they are more than three weeks premature and Katy was 35 weeks gone when she started to have regular contractions yesterday and she reluctantly had to go to Stepping Hill Hospital, where if she had let them, she would have been hooked up to the conveyor belt and pumped with antibiotics.  An institutionalised midwife explained the system and a foreign doctor, who did not have a proper grasp of the language, never mind the mind of the mother, told her she would be endangering the lives of the unborn if she did not enter into the spirit of his system and have steroids administered to the foetuses.

Her husband could see the trauma his wife was in and with the obstinacy only those born in Northampton have, told the doctor to fuck off, which released the tension momentarily.  Katy suffered an adrenalin rush which halted her labour and they came home, exhausted and annoyed.  Her contractions started again this morning and she waited until they were coming thick and fast before submitting herself to an understandable husband’s six mile hair-raising drive to hospital.  An hour later, Tom, her first child was born at 10.05am and as I write between tears, he has already settled on her right breast and we are waiting for the second.  It is important to know that in this case the hospital staff did not have chance to start up the conveyor belt, at least nature if not environment took its course.  My wife telephones me from the ringside and tells me that a doctor in a book she is reading tells that the safest place to have a baby is in the back of a taxi on the way to hospital, to sever the umbilical and tell the driver “home James”.  The phone rings once more with the news that George was born at 10.30am and is settling down well on the left one.   Alleluia! Alleluia!

Mother, father and fourth and fifth born swear to be out of hospital this afternoon.  I wish I was there instead of tapping the keys of this ever devouring machine of mine.  I can hardly see the keys for these last few lines so emotional as this morning become.  Alleluia!

As a post scriptum to this happy occasion the first pictures, as if by miracle have come onto my computer screen.  The two young bucks look like their father and mark my words, they look obstinate buggers.

First of all I would like to apologize to anybody who reads this blog on a regular basis.  I have been very busy and have only managed to squeeze in one blog in the last week.  A cousin of mine died  a week ago, trgically young at 54 years of age and I went over to England last Thursday to a very emotional but lovely funeral.  A funeral is a very necessary and cathartic experience for all that have been  touched by the deceased’s life.  The tentacles of humanity, stretching out and gathering in all those people, who have at some stage  had their spirit lifted by the finished life-force, for one final celebration.  It is happy and sad and necessary and this particular celebration was made all the greater by the beautiful panegyric of the priest, Father Bernard Sparks, a great and longtime friend of the family.

I left the gathering after a couple of hours and went back to my daughter’s house in a very contemplative mood.  For reasons I will not bother you with, I had not seen the lady, my first cousin, for a number of years.  As you all grow up and move around and settle into a path of life, touch can easily be lost and this is what made this death all the harder for me.  At one time I was so close to her and her family and now I would not have recognized her in the street.  She died before I knew her and yet at one time I knew her well.  Somehow I had missed out on a good life and that is a big miss.

Away I came and the following morning was more than pleasantly surprised from a comment I received on a blog I wrote  on 12 January 2010 called The Importance of Blogs. I had just heard that Catherine, who has just died, was terminally ill and I dedicated this blog to her and her family.  It traced her mother’s  family tree back to the Famine in Ireland, it was a piece of their history they were unsure of because of their mother’s premature death, nearly 50 years ago.

This comment was from a lady who had just read this blog and realized that she was a second cousin of mine and Catherine’s, her grandfather and my grandmother were siblings.  She was from a branch of the family that had gone their separate ways in the 1930s and for whatever reason  touch had been lost.

That is why the blog is such an amazing and powerful tool if used properly.  You often think that once a piece has been posted, that is it, gone and forgotten, but the internet and blog field leaves it there like a bright shiny cherry on a tree waiting to be picked and eaten by passing strangers.  It is there for evermore, hopefully to be appreciated by everyone and that is what happened.  So now as one cousin goes another comes to light and hopefully will not disappear as quickly.

As I was writing these words this morning, there came news that  will only double my efforts in this field.  My daughter, Katy, has entered the final stages of pregnancy with the anticipation of twins.  She is slightly premature but the experts say that this is normal with multiple births and that mother and foeutuses are fine, with estimated weights of 5lb with still four weeks of cooking  to go.  However she will now have to go into hospital for their delivery,  a thing she dreads.  She was looking forward to a home birth and had an army of midwives lined up to take care of any eventuality.  She will have to be forthright and clear minded and not let these tinkerers of mortality, the doctors, try to bully her into treatment she does not want, just to suit the timetable of the maternity suite.

My wife has flown the coop and is now in Dublin boarding the Holyhead boat with a rolling pin in hand.  God help the doctors at Stepping Hill Hospital.   I am left with the young fellah, a mop and bucket and various dusters and told to make sure the house is perfect on her return.  That might not be until these twins are weaned so I have plenty of time.  The male’s station in life as with all things historic is a lonely one, but I suppose I have the pub and my blog and all the interesting things that both these channels deliver, but I must get on, the mop is doing a lonely dance in the bucket of hot water I prepared earlier.

St Patrick’s Day 1973 dawned clear and bright: it really was a lovely day for March.  The sun shone and it was very warm, in my recollection probably the best St Patrick’s Day for weather.  After a couple of liveners at the Conservative Club, it was down to St. Robert’s church, where we had chosen to marry because of its light and colour as opposed to Helen’s parish church, St. Cuthbert’s, which was brown in its different shades.  Kevin, my brother, was best man and Ann, Helen’s sister, was chief bridesmaid.  The two of them still courting and for a good while longer until their final sad breakup.  The other two bridemaids were Helen’s school friend, Angela Pelham from Langley and Carmel Caffrey from Leicester who was at university in Manchester and was courting Matt Towey, Helen’s brother.  Helen looked a treat in her wedding dress; even now looking back on wedding photographs of the beautiful bride, I bless myself on my luck.

The wedding breakfast took place at the Vth Inn in Manchester, on Crown Square, a part of the Stanneyland’s empire and soon to be an upmarket Italian restaurant, Isola Bella.  We had the feed and I, nervous as a kitten, spluttered out a few words of thanks.  We all agreed that speeches were all a serious waste of drinking time.  We left the Vth Inn in our gleaming green 1600GT Capri and headed for the club where a full afternoon and evening’s entertainment was on the cards.

Cleverly I had instructed my mother to have a wrap up of bacon, egg and sausage waiting at the Club for the first breakfast at our new house the following morning.  We had bought a house in Chorlton on Mauldeth Road West for £7,000 from an old lady.

Everyone gathered at the Club whilst some serious drinking took place and in the evening a band called the Kentucky Ramblers took the stage, I have never heard of them since but what a great show they put on.  We were drinking till 2.00am when I left with my bride.  Jim & Peg Towey had done us proud paying for the meal and a few rounds of drinks, my mother paying for the flowers and I paid for the buffet in the evening.  When you think that after 12 hours drinking, I drove home with Helen, we certainly took some chances those days.

With my last dregs of energy I carried Helen over the threshold and I was soon snoring my head off in the new bed upstairs.  Worst of all I had left my breakfast parcel at the Club and so on wakening at 7.00am the following morning, starved with the hunger, we decided to head for Towey’s, where Jim was just up and we soon had breakfast on the go.

After that the whole of the following week was taken up with a male celebration of the union.  Jim Towey and his brothers, Pake, Mick, Tom, Matt,  Malachy and myself and Jim Duffy, their brother in law, and a fellow from Clare called John Lehane, used to sit down at the lunchtime opening and drink our fill.  These men were all in their middle 50s and having gone through that period myself, I can only admire their concentration, powers of endurance and attention to duty that week.

I remember one dinnertime session, the pubs shut at 3.00pm those days, Bert Flint, the landlord of the Old House at Home on Burton Road, gave us some leeway and did not start shouting time until five minutes past the hour.  There was the Towey’s, Jim, Pake, Mick, Matt &  Malachy, Jim Duffy, myself and of course the ever present John Lehane, eight men and twenty four pints on the table.  We drank them and were on our way home for 3.15pm.  Back to a wonderful dinner at Peg’s and then a quick snooze before setting off once more for the Old House at 7.00pm. the women with us this time, those that wanted to come that is, most of the older women had seen this craic so often they stayed at home and waited for the men to run out of steam.

After a week of this enjoyment or carnage, everybody went home and we were left to our twosome and hard facts had to be realised.  I was one week into married life, totally skint, with a mortgage and HP payment due.  Over the previous two years I had been playing golf and with my previous good fortune I had bought a highly prized kangaroo skin golf bag of professional size and quality off the Australian professional at Shifnal Golf Club in Shropshire.  I sold it for £60 and threw in the clubs for nothing, thinking I was that poor I would never play again.  This gave us some respite and I settled down at last learning how to make a family with my beautiful and patient bride.

It was the summer of 1972, my courtship of Helen was stuttering along and we were invited to the wedding of an old mate of mine, Kath Knight from Notre Dame days and after, who had decided to marry this man from Oldham, who called buses, ” buzzes”.  They were going to Paris for their honeymoon.  Helen, her sister Ann and a lovely girl from Marple called Josie, who unfortunately died recently, had also decided to have a week there and the dates collided.  So I decided to go for the craic.

Not a good idea in retrospect but I was never any good at testing the temperature.  The women thought I was muscling in on their precious week away and Kath Knight’s husband could have done with less interference.

However after a tetchy few days,  I lost the uncomfortable feeling in the presence of my friends, at the counter of a local bar which stood on the corner of the street our hotel, Hotel Blackstock, was situated, in the Pigalle district.  The bar was owned or managed by a chap from Alsace, who had a particular liking for his native wines and tried to pass on that passion to any old sod who would listen and embibe.  He met the right person, I had both time and inclination and while the girls went sight-seeing and Kath did what pretty young brides are supposed to do on honeymoon, I sat and drank with my nouveau ami, while we toasted the wines of Alsace, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris, Riesling and Muscat and that lovely pint of mixed,  Edelzwicker.  We also toasted the towns and villages of Alsace, Riquewihr, Ammerschwihr, Colmar, Mittlewihr, Ribeauville, Barr and Turkheim.  A two day experience that has stood me in great stead and has remained with me all my life.

Anyway towards the middle of the week I managed to corner Helen on the deuxieme etage of the Eiffel Tower and while she patrolled the kaleidoscopic view of Paris with a telescope, I dropped on one knee to the flesh grinding open grid floor of that etage and proposed my intention.  Helen, intent on the view and caring little for her suitor, mumbled a disinterested “O K then”.  I rose in pain, lifted her off her feet, kissed her and took her away to the nearest bar to celebrate, before her dormant prurience awoke.  After a good feed and a load of cognac and champagne, the nearest I could get to Brandy and Babycham, her favourite tipple, she collapsed to the floor with the emotion of the occasion and I had to carry her lifeless 45kgs over my shoulder, back to the Hotel Blackstock.

The date was fixed for St. Patrick’s Day 1973, about eight months away.  I took her into town one Saturday, to Terry’s the Jewellers, on Cross Street.  It was where my mother had gone in 1941 with my father.  She came out with diamonds, Helen , appropriately enough came out with emeralds and I came out £1oo lighter.

Realising one holiday was not enough, I took her off to Ireland to introduce her to relatives she had not seen for years.  Martin Doherty, a lad from Foxford, came over with us to ensure the two of us did not get too excited with our situation and we arrived in Rooskey, just north of Charlestown in Mayo, in record time.  Previously when I had gone over to Ireland, it was always in male company and it normally took us three days to hit the west.  Kilcock, about 20 miles from Dublin, was the farthest we ever got the first day, drinking bad poteen in a house we knew there.   The next day Mullingar, or on a good day Mostrim (Edgeworthstown today) was as far as we could venture, finally hitting Charlestown and the beginning of the west late on the third day and that was after shutting our eyes driving through Balaghaderreen as we might have stayed a week in that town with all its pubs  But there we were in Charlestown four hours after leaving Dublin.  Unbelievable and praise be to women.

Martin wanted to hire a car to get down to Foxford and we heard of a place in Aclare.  We went down with Helen’s two cousins, Tom and John.  The man immediately took us into a ball alley where we played handball for an hour.  Finesse on the handball court was more of a credit reference than a letter from a bank manager to this man.  Martin drove off in a green Cortina and we went back to Rooskey.

The following day I went with Helen’s uncle Pake to buy some poteen from a man who made quality stuff outside of Tubbercurry.  We sat inside drinking tea and eating biscuits, surrounded by lots of little kids, whilst Pake was outside earnestly talking to the man.  You would think they were buying or selling cattle and not the nefarious game they were at.  The Garda Sergeant lived across the road and although he might have been this man’s best customer, certain protocols and subterfuge had to be abided by.  Funnily enough, one of those little kids who surrounded us grew into a strapping young pipelayer and worked for us years later when we were constructing a new drainage system in Macclesfield,

The following day, cousin John, a lad called McDonough from Derrikinloch and I went out shooting.  We had Pake Towey’s gun, McDonough’s father’s gun and a gun belonging to the Clossick family, who lived in Rooskey opposite Henry’s house.  All the guns were licensed but unfortunately not to the happy gang of gunmen that went out that morning.  We shot a couple of duck on the bog, near the lake and bored, we went off to the outskirts of Bunnanadden where John knew there was some hares.

I shot a hare and was a little surprised to see a Garda coming across the field to us.  I knew him well, his name was McRudden and only days before I had been shaking his hand and he had wished me a nice holiday as Pake and I delivered turf to his house.  Sentiment did not deter him and he confiscated the guns and cautioned us for breaking some law or other.  I did not realise that I had sinned most greviously but the other two lads did.  I understand the guns were reinstated a week later on payment of a small fine and I have wondered whether my name was still in the Hall of Shame at Garda HQ.  The crowning glory of this chain of events was that McRudden left us with our booty, which we took home to Aggie, Helen’s aunt, who made the finest duck and hare pie I have ever eaten and possibly the only one as well.  It was delicious and well worth the pain of arrest.

We went back to Manchester and started scrimping and saving for our wedding, a deposit on a house and a new car.  We bought the car first, a Capri 1600GT.  Emerald green with a gold stripe up either side and white-walled tyres; a 120mph Irish flag.  We were tremendously proud of this wonderful car but it was an ill-timed purchase.  I now had an HP bill each month as well as trying to get together the £700 deposit for a house, but we enjoyed ourselves for a while living off this last luxury of our single lives.