Involving St. Anthony

Even though it said “Cancelled” she sent her pass book to the Glasgow office to be updated. It was the only one she had.

Later, back came a booklet displaying a blackberry tart. Inside a request to send on the later replacement of 2002 plus ideas on how to increase her savings.

She thought the picture was a bit cheeky. “I have a good mind to tell them what a good cook I am, and add a few tart remarks”.

Then she relaxed. “But where was the newer pass book?”. For days she searched.

“What about increasing your savings?”, I said.

She said, “Why should I? At my age I do not need more of anything”.

Days went by while she searched for the replacement. At last she remembered.

I said, “But where and why?”.

“I hid it because there was a spate of burglaries nearby” she said.

She went on to tell me of her friend long ago, Dina, the mother of a large family, and how upset she was when the sweeping brush was lost. After a few days, Dina gave her daughter, Pam, a few pence to go into church and light a candle to St. Anthony, who was reputed to find lost things. More days went by.

I said, “Did this work?”.

Dina said, “St. Anthony is putting up his prices”.

The brush was eventually found.

“Where?”, I asked.

“On the window sill behind the curtain”.

“And where was your passbook?”.

In no way would she disclose the hiding place.

Rose Lynch

28-Jun-2006

He Said, “I Saw Stars”

Looking at the picture of the smiling man on the wall memories came flooding back. She and Mollie, Irish nurses, went to the St. Patrick’s night dance in St. Joseph’s church hall, when he was introduced to them by John Doran. He danced with both. Afterwards, he walked back with them along Milton Road, Mollie to the Infectious Diseases Hospital and she across to St. Mary’s Hospital. “May I see you again? When are you free?”. That night she wore a blue silk dance dress.

The second meeting she could distinctly recall, walking over Copnor Bridge.

He said, “I have something wrong with my eye. I must see a specialist”.

“Who?” she asked. . She had seen many specialists.

“Mr. Inman at the Eye and Ear Hospital in Grove Road”.

Much later, he told her “Mr. Inman seemed more interested in my sex life than in my eye.”

Due to another’s negligence, four years earlier he got a blow on the eye from the handle of a pillar drill. His exact words were “I saw stars”. He reported it at the time. When he went back to get details, he was handed an immense book and they said, “Find it yourself!” He roughly remembered the date – it was recorded in one line.

“How did you discover that you had an eye disease?”

“When I was playing billiards badly. Bert Butler said ‘Joe, you are losing your grip’. The next day I got some grit in my good eye, and I found I could not see out of my other eye”.

The Dockyard accepted responsibility. The excision took place in Haslar Naval Hospital where he wore sky-blue naval patients uniform. There he was inspected by Admiral Fisher(afterwards a friend of the author Jan Morris). This man made a great impression on him.

Recently, Mollie said ”I remember you visited him and you spoke of walking over Haslar Bridge”. In those days we walked.

He got no compensation but was kept on at work as an electrical fitter who worked on many of the great British warships, including the Hood in 1935, when she was in dry dock. The kitchens were on the quay-side, and he had to install electricity, so that the crew could eat.

This was the time when many workmen would only discover that they were sacked when their tool boxes were stacked at the dockyard gate. The trade unions and the local M.P. (Frank Judd, now Lord Judd) tried to obtain compensation, and failed.

Rose Lynch 23-Nov-2004

I Count My Vote

A – Local elections today. Are you voting?

B – I cast mine by post. I cannot understand a low vote.

A – Blood has been shed for the right to vote.

B – In my Irish village, Ballinacurra, one day in 1928, a group of young women ran through the Main Street shouting “We’ve got the vote. We’ve got the vote”.

A – Why did they do that?

B – To be allowed to vote, an organisation of women turned to violence. They were called suffragettes.

A – Who was the first woman Member of Parliament?

B – She was Countess Constance Markiewicz, a member of the ruling class from Galway. Exactly 90 years ago, in the 1916 Easter Rising, she was sentenced to death, but later reprieved because of her sex. Eleven men were shot, one in a wheelchair. She was elected to Parliament in 1918 for Sinn Féin in Dublin for women over thirty, but never took her seat in Westminster. In 1928, women got complete electoral equality.

Rose Lynch

5-May-2006

Our Ages Add Up To 124

It is only with difficulty that I write as my hand is in a plaster cast. But it is a privilege to be accepted in your group.

Most of my family are on holiday this week. I have learned much on how to cope well using a Zimmer frame, and having to transfer say a liquid from my stove to my armchair. One of my excellent tools is my teeth.

I have a home help twice daily. She has little to do as mostly I can manage. I do my own cooking, washing and dressing. She can make a nice cup of tea, and I enjoy her company.

I had four people to lunch on Monday. We had soup, made by my daughter the previous day, with beans, onions and leeks; also a loaf of bread with butter; melon, and tea; plus great yarns. My daughter laid the table the previous day, but I washed up.

In contrast, one of my family is visiting Clyde Smith during half term holiday; he is on death row in a jail in Texas. He is allowed 2 visits per year. He is due to be put to death on 15 Feb 2006. This man is no liar, and is most likely not guilty. He is 31 years old, and has been in jail since the age of 17.

Rose Lynch 6-Nov-2005

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Holiday in Slovakia 21-Feb-2005

My son, Michael, came to see me after his holiday at half term. He, and his wife Lucy, had been on a skiing holiday in Slovakia.

They were two engineers, Pavel and Jan, in Czechoslovakia; now divided into two countries, the Czech and Slovak Republics. Michael had worked with them many years ago in a car tyre factory when working for a former employer from Manchester. In those days it was still a communist country. And how things have changed!

Over the years they kept in touch, by telephone, and exchange visits, and now by Internet and email. At mid-term, Michael and Lucy flew first to Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, and then to Bratislava; and then, from there, by car to the city of Puchov, where they spent the night with Pavel. Next day they were taken the long car journey to where Jan and his wife lived.

“What is his house like?” I enquired

“They have a wonderful 4 bedroom flat. They have two sons, Vlado, a doctor aged 30, and Marek, both married”, said Michael. “Marek has bought a very big old house, about four times the size of mine. This he has gutted and rebuilt into a sumptuous abode, replete even with a swimming pool”.

“How can he afford this? ”.

“He has his own factory, and trades all over the world”.

“They sound very clever people”.

“They are indeed. But he still had time to spend two days with me; they took time off to go up the mountain”.

“Which mountains? ”, I enquired.

“The Mala Fatras. One side is in the Slovak Republic, and the other side is in southern Poland. And after skiing, they drove us back to Puchov where we spent the rest of the holiday with Pavel and Irena. Pavel has travelled, as an engineer, all over the world, especially in the Middle East and America. Now he is retired, and is the Town Mayor in Puchov. His son, Martin, teaches English in there, and we went to his school to speak English with his students”.

“How many students does he have”.

“Thirty six, aged about 18.”

Rose Lynch 22-Feb-2005

History of the Village Well

My card is called “Children at the Well in the High Street Edinburgh 1872” by Gorge Manson 1850-76.

With my nursing training in my younger days, I wonder why the artist died at the young age of 26. Likely causes in that time were tuberculosis and water-borne diseases. The latter were very prevalent in cities, because of the poor sewerage treatment. There were several major outbreaks of cholera in London around this time. Water was supplied from the Thames, and drawn at the local street pump. At the time, London was supplied by two water companies. By plotting the incidence of the disease, Dr. John Snow showed that the water drawn from wells supplied by the upstream water company was free from disease, but that from downstream was contaminated.

As for the scene from the card, I compare it with Ireland when I was young. The well or pump in our village was the main source of water, and was found at the cross (the centre of the village where the main roads intersected.). It was always a busy social place; people would come to fetch water; the poor would meet and have a gossip. Any men who were out of work would gather at the cross by the pump. In the evenings, it was even the place to have step-dance competitions.

Children played with the water there, and in the summer we went bare foot, and had water fights. In the winter, there was ice on the ground, and if you slipped on it you could get a soaking from your own bucket of water as you fell over. This happened to my sister when she was in her teens, and she was mortified because all the men laughed at her.

My grandfather was a blacksmith with the forge at the cross. But when his children were growing up, he moved his forge away because of the bad language, and he dug his own well in his own garden. There were very few families with their own well.

Rose Lynch 15-Nov-2005

Here They Come

Aah and Bee meet at the top of the hill

Aah: Down the hill they’re panting

Bee: What’s happening?

Aah: Young and old – they’re drunk

Bee: You mean inebriated?

Aah: Yes – All of them.

Bee: The soldiers of the Hagham regiment!

Aah: I tell you they’re drunk. The people were fleeing. I left too. I saw them torch the whole street.

Bee: Heavens! What can we do?

Aah: Look out. Here they come. I can hear their lorries.

Along comes Cee:

Cee: They set alight to Smith’s farmhouse.

Bee: How do you know?

Cee: I saw them fill the doorway with straw and pour petrol on it. I rode away on my bicycle as the flames rose high.

Bee: Was the house empty of people?

Cee: Yes. They told the widow to take out three items.

Bee: Did she?

Cee: No. She is too frail. The soldiers took out a bed, a table, and a chair.

Aah: Why did they burn down the house? It is so isolated.

Cee: Her son.

Bee: Her son – was he there?

Cee: No, stupid. Her son is a rebel.

Aah: But he is only a boy. I do not believe it.

Cee: All males are suspects. This is war. The High Street is on fire. All those beautiful shops are gone! Thank Heavens the sounds of the soldiers is receding. Have they passed us by?

(This happened in Ireland when I was eight years old.)

Rose Lynch (1-Feb-2005)