大象传媒

Christmas 1940s
November was the time of the year when we were encouraged to start saving our pennies and halfpennies for Christmas. My mother washed out empty syrup or treacle tins for Susie, Freddie and me to use as moneyboxes, and my father soldered a few spots around the edges of the lids to make them burglar-proof. Then a slot was made in the lids just wide enough to insert any coins given to us by my father or older members of the family.

Whenever any of our aunts or uncles visited the house, the moneyboxes were taken from their hiding places to be given a wee rattle in the hope that a few more precious pennies might be deposited. My Uncle Willie Cooley who lived in the men鈥檚 hostel in Charlotte Street always ignored us and told my mother to put a bit of manners into us.

we attended the 鈥楤row of the Hill鈥� Christian Brothers鈥� School, where a couple of days before the Christmas holidays schoolwork continued as usual until the last few hours when the lay teachers 鈥� Paddy Carlin, Tommy 鈥楴obby鈥� Carr, Gerry Stone and Barney Doherty 鈥� began to tidy up their presses and let us read our favourite books. However, some of the Christian Brothers teachers kept up their strict routines until the bell rang and the classes erupted in a stampede of happy excited pupils.

About a week before Christmas we used to get very exited and write on a piece of paper the things that we wished Santa Claus to put into our stockings that were hung at the foot of our beds on Christmas Eve. We would then put the notes to Santa above the lighted fire in the living room and the draught pulled them up the chimney. We thought Santa would find and read them whenever he came down our chimney early on Christmas morning.

Christmas trees or decorations were not put up then in the houses or shops and because there was no way to keep food fresh, the shopping wasn鈥檛 done until Christmas Eve. The town centre bustled with people carrying shopping bags with little presents for their children鈥檚 Christmas stockings. Plucked chickens and geese hung upside down, inside and outside the shop doorways; turkeys weren鈥檛 a part of the Christmas fare then. The strong aromas of coffees and teas wafted out from the Maypole Tea and Coffee Blenders in Ferryquay Street. Returning Donegal expatriates, just off the Scotch and Liverpool boats, jostled through the shoppers in
Foyle Street with packed suitcases to catch the busses and trains home to their families for Christmas.

Santa Claus was the big attraction in Woolworth鈥檚 stores in Ferryquay Street the week before Christmas and the children queued to see him as he jutted out of the makeshift chimney pot erected at the top of four wooden steps inside the store. To get a present when it was your turn, you had to hand him a shilling. He would then say: 鈥淗o! Ho! Ho!鈥� as he gave you the gift that was wrapped in coloured paper. I remember one Christmas time when a boy in front of me didn鈥檛 have a shilling for a present but, believing in the seasonal myths of joy and goodwill to all, handed Santa Claus a sixpenny piece instead. There was a moment鈥檚 silence before Santa leaned over from his chimney pot and told the little boy, in a very unseasonable voice, to 鈥淓ff off.鈥�

My father, at that time of the year, would invite some of his friends into the house for a drink of stout and a drop of whiskey. The same treat was given to the postman, the coalman, the milkman and the bread-man all of whom delivered their goods promptly the whole year round.

As a result of this seasonal generosity, it wasn鈥檛 unusual to see a horse plodding along pulling the cart containing its over-inebriated sleeping driver home at a late hour before Christmas.
The bottles of stout were bought in Willie Devine鈥檚 public house in Walker鈥檚 Square, and when the corks were pulled, the drink was poured into white delft bowls. After a while, when the top
went off the stout, my father heated the poker in the fire and plunged it into the bowl to make the head creamy again. A couple of stouts later, the men would eventually begin to sing, and my
father gave them a rendering of his favourite songs: Just a Song at Twilight, When the Lights are Low and I Love Old Ireland Still. His most favourite was Oft in the Stilly Night, and everyone sat quietly as he gently sang.
On Christmas Eve night, we were bathed in the big tin bath in front of the fire. The clean clothes I was to wear at the Christmas morning Mass hung over the brass rail below the high mantelpiece: new short trousers, snake-buckle belt and gansey, (jumper), my grey long-tailed shirt and grey woollen knee-length socks. Lined along the top of the fire fender were our polished black leather boots and my sister鈥檚 patent leather shoes.

We got our bowls of porridge before scampering up to bed by candlelight and slipping under our blankets, fearful of being caught awake by Santa who might refuse to fill our empty stockings that hung at the foot of our beds. As I lay in the darkness I thought about Ned McDevitt鈥檚 two donkeys that grazed behind our houses, with the dark crosses on their backs and knew that at midnight, when we would be fast asleep, they would go down on their front knees to adore the Baby Jesus. In the darkness of the early Christmas morning we awoke to search through our bulging stockings to find a variety of gifts: a colouring book, an apple and an orange, a three-penny bit and a toy gun or an aeroplane made from balsa wood. Small and insignificant presents compared to today鈥檚 standards, but we still derived great pleasure from them.

On Christmas morning we went to the 10 o鈥檆lock Mass in our St Columba鈥檚 Church where we sang the Nativity hymns Adeste Fideles and Hark the Herald Angels Sing among others of the period. One Christmas morning there was a covering of snow on the rooftops and ground, even the statue of Governor Walker on top its pillar that towered 100 feet above our houses on Derry鈥檚 walls was white on one side. The bells of Church of Ireland鈥檚 St Columb鈥檚 Cathedral were joyously pealing out over the Walls and the Roman Catholic鈥檚 St Eugene鈥檚 Cathedral bells chimed from the opposite height above the Bogside. Even then, on that Christmas morning, it sounded as if they were attempting to exchange greetings across the calm peaceful void above our houses on the back of the Walls.

The Christmas dinner at midday consisted of soup, potatoes, peas, chicken and gravy. Then we got a dish of lovely jelly and custard to finish it all off. There were usually sixteen or seventeen of us for dinner, so the eight younger ones ate first and then the others, a busy morning for my mother, Aunt Julia and the older girls because the men didn鈥檛 do any kind of cooking or housework in those days. After dinner we played the popular board games of Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, and Tiddlywinks, which we all enjoyed. In the late evening our Uncle Joe Cooley and his wife Rosie from Bishop Street visited us with their family and then it was time to eat the iced cake and buns with big glasses of lemonade and play more games with our cousins. I didn鈥檛 know until I got a bit older that Rosie was my father鈥檚 niece and Uncle Joe was my mother鈥檚 brother so I stopped calling her my Aunt Rosie because she was really my cousin Rosie.

Recycling
In those days, we could run about the banking in our bare feet without any fear of injury because no one discarded empty bottles or tins. Bottles were all returned to the shop for a refund of the deposit paid on purchase. Canned food was not sold then, except for tins of treacle and syrup which, when empty, were used to store other items. Nothing was thrown out; wood was used for fuel and kindling, and the Derry Journal and the Belfast Telegraph newspapers were used to light the fire or cut up into squares and hung up with a cord through them in the toilet. Not exactly artwork but practical.

Even empty orange boxes had their uses; when one was stood on its end, a piece of linoleum was nailed onto the top and a little curtain hung over the front to transform it into a handy bedside locker. Tea chests were great for storing bedclothes, delft and crockery, but empty flour sacks were probably the most versatile item and could be recycled lots of ways in the home. They were made from white cotton and when my mother and Aunt Julia washed and bleached the print out of them, they made great sheets, aprons, pillowcases, curtains and nightdresses.

When the sheets began to wear in the middle, they cut out the thin parts and sewed a new flour bag piece into the centre. The thin pieces were then used as dish cloths and babies' nappies.
Some handy women could make boys' shirts from the bleached sacks and sometimes, if the print hadn't been fully removed, it was funny to see some poor children running around with some lettering or the weight of the original bag 鈥� 140lbs 鈥� still visible across their back.
Pawnshops, Rags and Mud Money
There were three pawnshops near us: Crossan鈥檚 on Rossville Street at the bottom of Fox鈥檚 Corner; Arthur鈥檚 near the top of Long Tower Street; and Barr's on Bishop Street between the jail and the Fountain. Above the door of a pawnshop hung their trading sign, three brass balls in the form of a triangle, two at the top and one at the bottom. People said that it meant two-to-one odds against you not getting your goods back again.

The pawnshop was a lifesaver for many families during the nineteen thirties, forties and helped to pay the rent man and keep hunger outside the door. People got loans in lieu of any
household item: shoes, clocks, ornaments, suits of clothes and bedclothes. Articles were usually pawned on a Monday morning, and on a Friday there would be a queue of people collecting their good shoes and clothes for the weekend, especially for going to church and Sunday Mass. If the goods weren鈥檛 collected within three months, they would be put on display in the pawnbroker's window to be sold.

The loans were repaid with a small extra charge added and most were usually from five shillings to about five pounds and the pawnbroker got so familiar seeing the same people week in and week out that he didn鈥檛 even bother opening some of the brown paper parcels they deposited. There were some daring people would take a chance and substitute old rags and the like instead of the pledged articles. You can imagine his language when he opened one of the dodgy parcels that were not collected inside the redeemable time.

Another method of generating some income was to save up all the old worn out clothes to take to the rag store and woollens were kept separate because the store man paid a few pence a stone more for them. The rag store owned by James Morgan and Sons in the Lecky Road also bought scrap iron, copper and brass. The clothes that people took to the rag stores in those days were really rags because everything was used and handed down and reused in every household till finally into the ragbag they went.

There were no fridges so the groceries were bought daily. We got most of our provisions from McHugh鈥檚 shop on Bishop Street and sometimes from Pat Hegarty鈥檚 on Walker鈥檚 Square. In the mornings, we went down to Sonny Fleming鈥檚 bakery on Rossville Street to get a dozen baps. Sonny made the tastiest baps in Derry and people came from all over the town to queue up to buy them; I didn鈥檛 like the ones with the caraway seed in them that were known locally as 鈥榗arvy baps鈥�. Next door to Sonny鈥檚 was John McCandles鈥檚 grocery shop where he recharged the wet batteries for the old wirelesses.

Also on Rossville Street,was the Public Baths. There were about ten large iron baths and each one was partitioned off separately. Whenever my pal Jimmy Lynch was sent there every week or so to get himself bathed and scrubbed, I went along with him. He paid a shilling to the caretaker who filled the bath with warm water then gave Jimmy a big rough towel. I paid nothing and went into the cubicle along with Jimmy. We both took off all our clothes and climbed into the lovely warm water to splash about. There was much more room in it than in the big galvanised tin bath we used at home. It was cleaner too because at home, all the youngsters were bathed in the same bath water.

It was great fun standing on the edge of the bath and jumping into the water, just the way Tarzan dived into the river to fight crocodiles to rescue his mate Jane. When we were in too long and got too noisy, the caretaker would come into the cubicle and tell us to get dried and clear off home and not to come back again. He always threatened to bar us but relented the next time we arrived.

John McHugh鈥檚 grocery shop had a barrel of salted fish outside the front door, and inside had hams and dried ling fish hanging from the ceiling. Everything was sold loose and scooped out of the storage bins to be weighed and poured into brown paper bags; items such as sugar, tea, flour, and barley, peas and lentils for making soup. All of the grocery stores were the same and the mixed smells of everything together in the shop were overpowering at times. None of these shops sold milk that had to be bought from Arthur Breslin鈥檚 dairy shop in Bishop Street, where one could also buy cheeses and other dairy products.

Further down Bishop Street from McHugh鈥檚 was John Gibbon鈥檚 butcher shop where my mother bought the mince for some of our daily dinners and the sausages for my father鈥檚 Sunday breakfast. Beside Gibbon鈥檚 was Mrs Murray鈥檚 small confectionery shop that never seemed to have many sweets displayed in the window or on the shelves. James McGirr sold fruit and vegetables beside Hunter鈥檚 Bakery where we were able to get a limited amount of greens and potatoes daily. Above the shop door and windows was a sun canopy to protect and keep the vegetables that were displayed outside cool and fresh.

In the warm weather when we bought butter and margarine, we stored them in a box with a wire netting door. The wire kept the cats and rats and birds from eating the contents. The box was hung on the wall in the shadiest and coolest place in the back yard and as refrigerators were unknown then and it was the only way the butter could be kept from melting.

The Travelling Salesman
Nice clothes weren鈥檛 often seen in the area in the 1940s, and anyway they weren鈥檛 easy to buy because the money was scarce. One day an Indian man carrying a large suitcase called at our door and asked if he could come in. My mother brought him in and he put the suitcase on the table and when he opened it and showed off his wares all eyes stared in amazement. For in the suitcase were the most colourful and beautiful blouses and scarves and dresses and ties that they had ever seen. He let them have what they wanted, and told them that they could pay only a few shillings a week for them. It was the only way that the people could buy nice new clothes, because they were more expensive to buy in the town shops in one payment, and here was the first opportunity in their lives to easily get new clothes.

His name was Muncha Singh, and he came to our house for many years after, until other Indians came to the town and opened shops which offered the same repayments deals. He was the first real live black man that we had ever seen until the American sailors came to Derry near the end of the war. I had seen black men in the movies before and in the geography books in school.

I had often seen the Dockers, among them, my Uncle Jimmy (Tats) and his two sons Alex and Willie Lynch, with their big coal shovels over their shoulders coming home from the quay after unloading the coal boats and their faces and hands black with the coal dust that stuck to their sweat when they were digging the coal and shovelling it into the huge buckets that were lowered down into the boat by crane. Their white eyes would look out of their black masks at us, and they wore sweat scarves around their necks and had string tightly tied around each leg below their knees. The scarf was to keep the coal dust out and the string to keep the rats from running up the legs of their trousers when they were working in the holds of the boats.

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