Month: December 2010

My brother-in-law and I decided we would walk from Ballycastle to Coleraine by every inch of the Coast, instead of sticking to the roads. In those days we would hike in the Mournes, and the Antrim Coast at weekends, and with rationing still a serious consideration, our pack weighed about forty pounds because we had to take nearly everything with us.
It was our habit to eat a prodigious breakfast and a colossal evening meal and only an orange or grapefruit and a bar of black chocolate for lunch – after all Liza owned a sweet shop, so sweet rationing was not a worry. We stayed in YHA hostels which varied tremendously in quality and facilities from the luxury of the new one at Dunluce Castle near the Giant’s Causeway to the hovel at White Park Bay.
We were sitting above White Park Bay, that beautiful stretch of sand, which is now so popular, but then was hardly known except to walkers and locals. The hostel was as primitive as they come, especially the men’s dormitory which was little more than a cottage with a packed earth floor. It was towards evening and we were anticipating the great fry we would soon be sitting down to, probably consisting of eggs, ham or bacon, tinned beans, a steak and the usual potato bread and soda bread, an Irish fry would never be without. The problem was the eggs.
It was my turn to scavenge and I set off up the hill to a small farm. I knocked the back door and politely asked the woman who came if I could buy some eggs. She looked at me very suspiciously and then said she had none. As the place was surrounded by hens I was convinced she was being economical with the truth, but that was that.. I duly reported back to HQ and Ted laughed.
“They think you’re the Ministry man checking up,” he said, adding, “It’s your accent.” To prove the point he then went up and came back with a hat full of eggs.

There was one instance of which I was quietly proud, apart from graduating, that is. I say ‘quietly’ because I never told anyone and had forgotten all about it until now. We were in Second Year Structures and the lecturer was warbling along about testing bridges with strain gauges and how it was essential to set up the system , run a train over the bridge, record the whole business and then shift everything and start again so every structural member of the bridge was tested under a rolling load.. Having come from a recent background of electronics I could see that it was simple to set up a triggering circuit coupled to a wire recorder, (tapes were not in general use then,) and with that system you only had to send the train over twice, once to record, once to check. It seemed so simple.
I went along to the lecturer with the idea and he said it was already on the market, it had been invented the previous year. At the time I was rather pleased with myself. Later I came to two conclusions, and they are the reason for including this here, inventors are always finding someone has beaten them to it and secondly, it is the man with a foot in more than one camp who is most likely to produce the ideas.

The Sweet CheatAt Queen’s I came across a very talented conjurer who was a medical student. I believe that he had sat his finals at least four times. In those days there did not seem to be any limit to the number of chances one had to qualify. The reason for the repeated sittings was that he always passed his written examination but when it came to the Orals, where as the other students had a nominal 15 minutes he was in there for ages while the examiners went over the whole syllabus again.. They were not, like the students, aware of the scam, but they obviously had their suspicions.
When he entered the examination room he would arrive early, find his desk and then scatter granulated sugar in a wide circle so that he would hear the crunch of the invigilator’s feet and have time to palm his cogs before the man was close enough to discover the cheating. Years later he and his wife were the Toast of the Town with their joint conjuring and illusion acts and to be seen regularly on TV.
FISH BY THE HUNDREDStrangford Lough, to my eye at any rate, is one of the most beautiful inland seas I have ever seen with its variety of both wild life and topography, and the extraordinary access to the Irish Sea which is so wonderful to behold when the current is at its fastest. Sitting on a seat near the Ferry pier at Portaferry, watching the ferry and the other craft crabbing, up-stream, half across the tidal race, and then being borne at speed back down, gliding rather than sailing for the far shore is not totally singular to this estuary alone, but it is both uncommon and beautiful to witness. It is like a water-borne ballet.
At Portaferry is a Marine Biological Station affiliated to Queens and it was here that we stayed for a week at the end of Third Year to study the mysteries of triangulation surveying and a better place could not have been found, with the drumlins bordering the water and the clear sights from one side of the Lough to the other, from eminence to tower, from hill to shore. It was a week of hard work, it is true, with a little drinking, a great deal of horse-play, no parenthood – and fish, hundreds of fish
We were camping out at the Biological Station, or that was what it seemed like. With the war just behind us austerity was the order of the day and the accommodation was primitive. We ate at the local hotel and much of the diet seemed to be fish.
One evening four of us rented a boat with fishing rods and lines and were surprised, or perhaps I should say that not being a local and acquainted with sea fishing, I personally was surprised to find the bait consisted of coloured chicken feathers instead of worms or spinners. It was quite late when we set off and the Lough was bathed in a glowing sunset, with the trees and castle on the Strangford side silhouetted against the dying sun.
We left from the small slipway just South of where the Ferry-port is now and were careful to inch along close to the shore for fear of becoming embroiled with the whirlpools and currents of the race. Two rowed and two fished. Both were done in a desultory way because we were out for a relaxed row more than anything, fishing was an adjunct to keep the passengers happy, until, that is, the patron saint of fishermen, or maybe St Jude, the patron saint of the afflicted, took a hand just as I lifted the rod. From then on it was carnage. It didn’t start out that way, there were a few fish, often more than one at a time on the line, and then suddenly as far as they were concerned, it was as if I was offering a little something the others didn’t have, my feathers, clearly, were better than sliced bread.
I was catching lythe, a form of pollack; mackerel and a fish known locally as blochan, but I suspect it too, was a sort of pollack. I had reached a catch of about fifty, but the rowers were insistent we should see how many we could catch. I stopped at one hundred, I felt we had been excessive, but in those days fish were there to be caught and the word environment had not the hallowed meaning it has today.
We allowed the tidal race to float us back to the pier with very little effort from the oars and there, we were met by the fisherman from whom we had hired the boat. When he asked us what we wanted to do with the catch, in our magnanimity we told him he could do with it what he wished and then we headed for the hotel bar and the fishing story we had been honing ever since we had stopped rowing.
With my stories there is always a rider, in this case it was the uncouth remarks of the other students, couched in earthy terms, which put the final touch to the evening. When I, and my companions, started telling of our piscatorial exploits we were nearly lynched. We, or maybe I, had been stupid. I had not thought of the possibility that the fisherman would immediately try to sell our catch to the hotelier at a discount, ensuring yet more fish on the menu.

The following year, before I realised what was happening, I became embroiled through offering an opinion, something which always heralds trouble. Some of the men were wondering what sort of show to put on, I had said that every year there was the same procession and we should be putting on a static show of some sort, slap stick, something to gather the crowds and collect more money, provide ourselves with a captive audience. To cut a long argument short I was inveigled to join another ex-serviceman in An Olde Time Boxing Match. We were to wear combinations, I was to black my face and wear a Fez, I was the Great Mustapha. He was the British challenger – five foot nothing of cheeky chappy.
As part of the procession we set off with our seconds and marched from the University to the centre of High Street, there was an open space left by the demolition of buildings which had been bombed during the Belfast Blitz.. In the meantime some of the gang went ahead and set up a ring.
The performance predictably followed the usual circus ring craft, although we were probably not as crafty. A lot of water was thrown about, punches were thrown and of course, Mustapha must-ave-a beating – which he duly received. To finish it all off, absolutely cold sober, but with adrenaline running high, I obtained a crate and, standing on it in the middle of the main thoroughfare, brought Belfast to a halt with community singing.
When I arrived home, soberly dressed, sat down for the evening meal and when everyone else was gathered, Liza, my Mother-in-law, started to tell how she had been in Town, how the students were gathered in High Street and there was this idiot, standing on a box in his underwear and black face, holding up the traffic and conducting the crowd in a singsong. It was some time before I enlightened her who the idiot was. In the cold light of day and without the stimulus of adrenaline, I agreed with her, he was an idiot.

THE TRIALS OF PARENTHOOD,
They tell me the purpose of university life over other modes of education is that it broadens the mind as well as the backside, the latter from hours of sitting in the Stack, mugging. In the first year Linda was too young to know she even had a father so I was able to take part in a lot of what went on in the college, but with time, her needs and those of Sophie were greater and as they came first, something had to give and rowing was the first to go.
Loving boats I naturally joined the Rowing Club and became a Fresher Oarsman, the lowest in the pecking order. We had racing shells and practice shells, these were the boats with the sliding seats and out-rigged rollocks similar to those used on the Thames on Boat Race Day. Then we had rowing boats variously termed the tubs or the punts in which we, the raw recruits, were trained, but the problem was that the people who were to teach us lowly creatures were also part of the first and second eights, so we had to wait until it suited them to teach us, after they had had their own spell of practice, and that could be anything up to four hours later, during which time one did nothing but chat in a desultory fashion.
There were other sides to rowing like going to the pub and watching a certain member chew wine glasses for a bet, but by and large apprenticeship in rowing like apprenticeship in anything else was merely a matter of learning to like being a dog’s-body and, at the age of twenty four years I found it hard. I graduated to rowing Bow, that is the oarsman farthest from the Cox, (perhaps it was something I said, or maybe some other reason), and I loved it, but it still entailed waiting nearly all day for the chance to get out in the boat. Why, you might reasonably ask, did you not clear off about your business and return four hours later? A sound question but unfortunately it does not take into account the vagaries of human nature. With only a few eights and as many tubs and a hoard of would-be Rowing Blues, there was strong competition for places and it could well be that the whole organisation of the afternoon took place just when you weren’t there.
I enjoyed those days on the river, I was tall which was good, I could handle an oar, which was essential and I was keen. When the tide was in we would row right down to Belfast Harbour, other times we went up as far as the weir and down to another, but the real pleasure was all in the rhythm. When everything was going well there was a poetry about the way the boat responded and we responded to it, which has to be experienced to be appreciated.
Alas, while the youngsters could relax in the boathouse, I had plumbing and paving and presents for the parties on my mind and worse, on my conscience. With the deepest regret I gave up after a year.
In second year we began to find our feet and in due time Rag Day came round when students commit mayhem and for some reason they get away with it. I was still cautious and not a little conscious of my advanced age, so I opted for the coward’s way out, collecting door to door in the morning and just making up the numbers in the afternoon. I was allocated a rather wealthy part of town and found that the greatest part of the job was walking up miles of driveways for a token pittance.
I knocked on one door and a strange young, married lady opened it, when I shook the tin she explained she hadn’t her bag and I should go round to the side entrance which I did, mystified nonetheless. In due course the side door opened and to offer the tin I would have had to enter the hall. When I left for the Navy my mother warned me never to enter a compartment where there was a woman on her own, and then she went on to lay out all the options open to the girl, none of which was in my interest. With this warning I stood at the door, arm and tin outstretched. With a strangely arch smile she offered me coffee inside. I refused.
When I returned to my mates I was chided for being chicken.

HOW SCHOOLS CAN MOULD CHARACTER When I was on board a corvette in Belfast Harbour, talking to the wireless operator while repairing a set, an officer stuck his head into the office and said “Williams…” and then he stopped.
“I thought you were Williams, ” he said, “You sound just like him.” I smiled, he left and I got on with the job. Then Williams turned up. I discovered I knew him, he had been in my class at school. It was strange meeting him under those circumstances, and later, thinking about what had happened it led me to believe that schools have a stronger moulding influence on their pupils than they are credited with.
In our school, situated as it was in the heartland of the cockney accent, every Friday during a pupil’s first term, all the new entrants were gathered together and taught phonetics and what amounted to elocution. We mimicked the vowels, the consonants, silly phrases about cows, peas and pace which stressed the difference between what was said inside and outside the school. We mimicked the master, Oxbridge to the teeth, so we too were now receiving an Oxbridge slant.
To extend the theme of mass moulding even further, both geographically and educationally, when I started at Queens there were only a few English students, most were Northern Irish with just a smattering of foreigners and members of the Commonwealth. Out of forty of us I believe there were something like fifteen of us who were ex-service, many married, some with children, all on grants, all with only one chance, no second bites of the cherry, all ambitious with ground to make up, all studying like mad. For the rest, they were straight from school and within a few weeks they found we were a force to be reckoned with.
>From my perspective as an outsider, both from origin and age, I discovered unconsciously that the men and women who had come straight from school seemed to fall into categories conditioned by their schooling. Their attributes and outlooks seemed the same within each group and yet so disparate group by group. Without being specific, there were schools which produced people who were relatively innocent to a point of being almost naive. One group could have been classed as puppyish; another had the insouciance of the English Public School. There were some who had suffered such a strict and rigid regime that now they were out from under the repressive supervision, they did not seem to know quite what to do with their freedom. There was a tough crowd, polite but hardy, nothing would get past them and there were others who seemed so reserved as to be non-existent.
To generalise is unfair to the individual, and probably many would not agree with my assessment. However, the fact that I have convinced myself that I discovered this apparent segregation in attitude and approach, and that I believed it to be true at the time, must say something for the mass moulding of character and the responsibility the teacher has for the end product of his school.