Broadbent Street
By Albert Haslett
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I was reared around the hammer
A district that was tough,
I married and moved to the Old Lodge Road
It was just as rough.
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I went to live in Broadbent Street
There were characters galore
Kids always playing in the street
Women standing at every door.
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I鈥檒l try to tell you some of them
As I juggle them in my head
The habits, and names of neighbours
Some living, some are dead.
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Of families living in that street
Names now spring to mind
Millar, Brown, McNeilly,
Hannah Arnott who was blind.
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Kavanagh, Kilpatrick, Bennett,
Thompson, Irvine, Bell,
鈥淭he gasman鈥檚 coming up the street鈥
I can still hear someone yell.
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Officer, Green, Scarborough,
Wright, Wilson, Mitchell, Toan
Chapman, West, Drummond,
Danny Cinnamond lived alone.
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Hill, Walker, Graham, Gettis
Mearns, Verner, Hall, McComb,
McDowell, Donnelly, Julia Porter,
Wee Bessie Ruddy on her own.
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McFarlane, Hunter, Loney, White,
Haslett, Dunn, Cahoon, McCrea,
Dunseith, Spiers, Dan McNeill,
I could sit and write all day.
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Wee Annie Stewart could read your cup,
Dick price would mend your shoes,
Then a figure staggers up the street,
Billy Elwood on the booze.
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The greatest character of them all
Brought us smiles and tears
The horizontal champion
The immortal 鈥渂ig鈥 Ned Spiers.
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The boys stood at the corner,
You鈥檇 see them every day,
Albert Hunter, Sam McFarlane, Geordie Kavanagh,
Jim and Rab Dunseith, Bobby and Joe McCrea.
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Stanley Mahon, Sam McQuiston,
Sam Kavanagh, Eddie Bell,
Ernie Willis, Alex Mitchell,
They were there as well.
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I鈥檒l always remember the 11th night,
With our little make up band,
Joe Chapman played the accordion,
Children followed him hand in hand.
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We led them up the hammer
My mother watched us come,
With Joe鈥檚 empty accordion box,
I used it as a drum.
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Then the street was vested,
The developers knocked it down,
The neighbours they were scattered,
All around the town.
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Many a night I sit and think,
Of the happy years I spent,
Living on the Old Lodge Road,
In a street they called Broadbent.
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芦
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