Paul Malpas

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.

Today I want to tell you a story about a remarkable Roscommon woman from the town of Lanesborough.  Now I know Lanesborough is in Longford, so she must have been from the west bank of the Shannon, she was very proud of her Roscommon roots.  She was born Kathleen Gill in 1928, I think, which would have made her 82 if she had lived today.  Kathleen came to Manchester in the early 1950s along with thousands of her countrymen and women and met and married a man from Bellavary in Mayo, James Nolan or The Bundle of Rags as he was nicknamed.  The cabs of construction plant were notoriously cold and Jimmy used several layers of old clothing to keep himself warm.  By 1970 the pair had been married about 17 years and between them had five children.  A boy first, two girls and then a set of twins of either sex, who were three years old when she was found to have breast cancer at the age of 42.

My story really starts in the Christmas of 1969 when a friend of mine, Jim McHale from outside of Castlebar, invited me to spend Christmas at his mother in law’s house in Rooskey, about six miles north of Charlestown, on the Sligo/Mayo border.  Once at Mrs Henry’s house, where we feasted on the finest potatoe cakes I had ever eaten, we called to a neighbours house, who Jim said had relatives in Manchester.  The lady of the house welcomed us as she has done many times since and started telling me of her husband’s three brothers, Jim, Matt and Malachy, in Manchester.  Within seconds I had them pinned and that was the start of a 41 year friendship with that woman, Aggie Towey.  In fact Jim Towey had a son who was at school with my brother in Grange over Sands and what was more important, he had two long haired blonde daughters, Ann and Helen, who I had met up with at a garden party some years before and had slotted into my memory for future research.

On my return I determined to  look them up and did  but it was not for a few months afterwards that I ran into Helen again who had originally took my fancy.  She was a lovely blond haired, round faced girl who at 5 foot nothing and seven stone weight, was perfectly formed, going in and out in all the right places.  She had a mind as sharp as a razor and a tongue of equal quality.  Her temper had been moulded by her father; the type who hit first and ask questions later.  I thought the plusses far outweighed the minuses and I would soon have her under my spell.  In retrospect, with our two years courtship and 37 years of marriage I have not managed to tame that wildness yet but I am hoping.

At that time Helen spent most of her time at Nolan’s house looking after Jimmy Nolan’s five kids. Kathleen, who I had not yet met had been taken into hospital for a mastectomy and Helen’s every waking hour was spent in this house doing the cooking and cleaning.  I thought what a hero and made my clumsy play that was instantly rebuffed.  I could see Helen’s attachment to the family and a short while later after Kathleen returned from hospital and we had been introduced, I started turning up at the house more and more frequently trying to impress Kathleen as much as Helen, that my suit was in earnest and that I was worth considering.  Kathleen, a lovely woman, could see my providence before Helen.  Realising this I pressed on knowing that Kathleen would also impress on my intended all the wonderful characteristics I then posessed.  I had plenty of money; I could drink like a fish; I could handle myself in a scrap; I was of Irish Catholic stock and many and much more

In some things I had a certain clumsiness like not being able to say the things that girls liked to hear.  I had lived and worked all my mature life with a bunch of savages, so I knew it would take time for the edges to be smoothed out.  The problem was did I have that time?  I asked Helen out again and with Kathleen’s urgings from her sick-bed, she agreed to go for a drink.  Down to the Old House at Home on Burton Road we went and I was just into my first game of Don, a local card game, and my first pint, when these two lads, who were full of booze, started making a nuisance of themselves.  I said something to them and immediately we were rolling round the floor in a kind of horizontal quickstep.  We were eventually pulled apart and I was able to continue my game of cards.  Helen was goggle-eyed and we soon left and I took her home to Kathleen who revelled in the story.  Not only did I tick all the right boxes, I was a hero as well.  This was the Roscommon spirit coming out in her.

Helen came out of shock a few days later and on Kathleen’s exhortation, consented to another night of pleasure in the pub.  I am certain that if it was not for Kathleen, we would never have got together and I think that for the last 38 years, (she died in !972 just a few months before our wedding) she has been looking down on us and laughing at the correctness of her hunches.  Certainly if it was not for Kathleen I would not be sitting here now.  Her hand has pushed me along the road.

Doesn’t time fly?  It only seems a couple of weeks ago when I was 40 and running around Manchester, at the height of my powers, worried about nothing and scared of no-one.  Happily married with at that time four children and starting to realize that there was still a long way to go in life.  As I said that seems only a couple of weeks ago when I was 40.  This week I am 64, still happily married thank God, but with an extra two children to manage and three and a half grandchildren to consider but not now at the height of my powers, worried about everything and scared of a few and starting to realize that if those 24 years went so quickly, I should probably be dead by the time March comes along, having lived to a very grand 88 years of age.  Doesn’t time fly?  My first 18 years felt as though it was a tortoise propelling me, the next 46 was by Concorde.

I am telling you this because I just wanted to warn all you thrusting 40 year olds out there that you have only just got two weeks to go before retirement, so if there is anything in your life that needs improvement, get out this afternoon and start the process.  The Queen (or possibly King by then) and her £200 per week is nigh, prepare yourself for a humbling experience.  For you people have possibly noticed how the population prostrates themselves before you, in two weeks time they will be spitting at you and kicking your arse.

Here is me making plans for you vibrant ones and what I should be really doing is making plans for myself because that chronological equation tells me that I have only two weeks myself.  So what do I want to happen to the former me in that first week of March.

Well for a start I do not want some hole in some dauby hillside, I want to be as free as a bird, I want to be able to fly like I did in my twenties, I want to be scared of nothing, I want to feel the sun on my back and the wind in my hair.  I want to be cremated.  A much more civilized and a much older way of saying goodbye, than a hole in the ground.  The folk round here were burning their lifeless ones 5000 years ago so it is not a passing fancy.  Also I am remembering the words of the old Tipperary priest, Fr. Denis Maher I think is name was, parish priest of St. Paul’s in Hyde, Cheshire, who speaking after Dr. Harold Shipman’s life sentence was passed in 2000, said that if grieving relatives could see the condition of their loved ones after a year in the ground, nobody would be buried.  Harold Shipman was the good doctor who murdered his patients.  The authorities proved by exhumation and scientific examination that he had killed 218  of these people, with the big possibility that there was another 200  as well.  By a requirement of law Fr. Maher had to attend about half these exhumations and was horrified by the state of decay he witnessed.  Just as a passing thought my Aunty Betty, a stout hearted farming lady, was thrown off her horse when she was about 70 and damaged her hip and eventually had to have a hip replacement. If it was not for her agricultural heritage of trusting her vet, who looked after her both before and after her operation, she might have been dead now as Shipman was her doctor.

So to get back on course and with this in mind it is the crematoriam for me.  Of course I would love a funeral pyre on the top of some high mountain with the gathered multitude singing Nearer My God To Thee, but practicality was always a subject close to my heart therefore some holocaustic oven in a Dublin back street will have to do.  From whence my gathered dust, having first of all been placed in a suitable container, will be taken up onto the Speckled Mountains or the Bricklieves as they call them round here, handily situated in South Sligo and 50% of my remains will be thrown into the air and let wander down the mountain, wafted by a warm westerly breeze in the direction of Lough Arrow and let mingle and blend with the myths and legends of this astounding place.  Our ancestors certainly knew how to let go.

The other 50% of my clinker I want taken to another calm place, the graveyard of Eastersnow, high up on the plains of Boyle and etched on my memory by John McGahern’s book Amongst Women.  It is to this place he brought his mother in this work of fiction walking her coffin from Cootehall Church to this graveyard.  His real mother was buried in Aughawillan in Leitrim but he must have found something beautiful about the name and place of this quiet graveyard with it’s centuries old ruined chuch.  After this second scattering my life’s purpose will be over and condemned to distant memory.

By the way before you do any of the above give me a kick, if I flinch you will know that I am not quite ready for the oven.