Jack Hawkins
"Sitting next to her sent a charge of electricity through me...I had a terrific crush on her"
The story...
Jack recalls a train journey from Dublin to Belfast in the summer of 1941. Mesmerised by a beautiful older girl, Jack was abruptly jolted back to reality by some men who boarded the train…
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Jack wrote...
It was July 1941…Mum worked in the Globe Laundry on the Falls Road in Belfast, and although money was scarce, she scrimped and saved to take us away from wartime Belfast for a week each year.Ìý We carried our cases and boarded a train which took us down the Grosvenor Road to the Great Northern Railway Station in Great Victoria Street.Ìý We boarded the steam train, usually the Slieve Gullion and journeyed to Amiens Street Station.Ìý From there we changed trains and travelled on to Killiney.Ìý Killiney was a little place situated on the Dublin Bay Coast which people believed resembled the Amalfi Coast on the Neopolitian Riviera.Ìý
We stayed in a small beach chalet owned by a German family who had moved to Ireland some years previously.Ìý Each day the owner, Mr Hornan, would row out to attend his lobster pots and bring in the catch.Ìý The highlight of my holiday was to accompany him daily. But, I was always careful to place my bare feet on the seats to avoid the lobsters that were crawling around the bottom of the boat.Ìý
Sadly the week always passed quickly and then it soon became time to return home……
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