Letting The Words Go ( Week Eight)
To Land or Float as the Will - Photographic Memory For My Friends and Neighbours on The Cork Road
Photographic Memory - ( Right Back) - June 2020) A gift arrived in my inbox A copy of a photograph, the colouring of which stamped it to a time frame of long ago. The passing time from then to now, like a high ISO, a fast shutter speed bridging nearly five decades. That photo brings me right back, in a heart beat -a neon flash to the young girl sitting on her Mam’s lap. Right back to the days of playing bad eggs, hopscotch and knucks. Tig, Red Rover and skipping ropes. Right back to Chinese skipping , go carts and a spit in the bucket, Right back to Gallybanders, and cycling with no hands, and playing two balls for hours against a wall or an old door. Right back to May I’s, trips around the world and spins over the moon. Right back to homemade stilts and roller skates. Right back to jumping over hedges between gardens with each of us wanting to be that year’s Grand National winner. Right back to catching bee’s in jam jars in the hope they would make us honey. Right back to burying the bees that did not make it, to the appointed release time, our lolly pop crosses adorning a dusty patch of earth. Right back to when Death was something that only happened to bees. Right back to the days when time seemed slower and the summer days smelled longer. Right back to a heap of children being piled into an old Morris Minor To be taken to Tramore. Right back to when the kept tin from last year's Christmas biscuits, was lined with brown paper and filled with sandwiches- Corn beef and cold sausages with the strong tea housed in a blue patterned flask, a style made fashionable again by Orla Kiely; Right back to when hunger and sea air were such sweet sauce. Right back to a good day’s fishing at The Guillamenes. Followed with our mackerel deliveries to our neighbours. Right back to a road full of good neighbours, doors on latches. Right Back to answering the calls “ Can you come out to play” Right back to the chagrin at being the first one summoned back in of an evening, with the sun still high in the sky. Right back to when the front road field was but two-rows away yet still another world, but home to our annual Wimbledon. Right back to our holidays near my Mam’s homeplace Our, trip to Tipp roaring out “Everywhere we go, the people always ask us…" From the top of a well stacked hay trailer. Right Back to racing to find Aunty May’s hen's, freshly laid eggs and eating them for breakfast. Right Back to the summer trips home, made yearly by aunts, uncles and cousins, London being unimaginably far away. Right back to trips up the Comeraghs, My dad’s homeplace, And leaving a half pound of butter for the witch in the shepherds hut. Right Back to dancing in the Gullet Hanging over a swinging half door. Right back to fishing on The Suir Rambling the towpath as Dad Surveyed all from the waters edge. Right back to Revels shop Fruit salads and fizzles sticks Right back to the days of the street arches and, rushes in the bog on the main road. Right back to playing on shed roofs and old motorbikes in the back garden. Right back to a monkey puzzle tree, (planted by my Granny), that held court in a tiny squared front garden, until a storm took it down -the evergreen in the back (a pre-emptive strike against the wintering months to come)- that broke my tender heart to lose, my own growing skyscraper. Right back to a house with no central heating, so you worn a handknit cardie over your nightie that nightie was flannel, and supper was bread -one plain pan from Mrs. Barnes thick slices toasted over the fire. Right back to when beds and rooms were shared, And it was blankets not duvets that covered you the weight of them would settle you. Settle you in, for the nightly battle of cold feet privileges. Right back to sideboards and wallpaper, Cups and saucers not mugs. Right back to Santa’s stockings being made of wool them being borrowed from your father. Right back to the pulsing thrill as you wriggled feet down, under the covers, to see if he had come. Right back to days with a different rhythm Dinner at one and tea at six. Right back to the six of us and the way we were. Yes, in an instant Right back to my family home.
Thank You for reading my words and letting them land with you a while.
If you would like receive them directly into your inbox, please subscribe below.
If you would like to share them, restack them or send them to land with someone else please feel free to do so.
If you would like to read ‘Letting The Words Go’ - Week Seven
