Scene But Not Herd

Irwin Baker

Description

Irwin Baker's Scene But Not Herd, tells the story of a young boy's recollection of growing up in a working-class family in The Falls Road, Belfast, an area renowned throughout the world for being the centre of murder, bombings, bank robberies and armed conflict, lasting from 1970 until 1995. What people aren't aware of is the age of innocence that existed in this area prior to the 1970s. For Irwin, the lifestyle was grim; poverty only allowed people to exist and it was very difficult to realise that life could give a sense of fulfilment or achievement. Nevertheless, Irwin recalls that people were gentle, kind and respectful and he actually remembers very little crime. Scene But Not Herd tells recalls this era as he remembers it. The language is realistic, often crude and vulgar, giving readers a sound grasp of life at the time. Irwin also weaves humour throughout his memories, something refreshing in a brutally honest account of a challenging childhood. Scene But Not Herd will appeal to those who enjoy autobiographies and familiar with The Falls Road in Belfast.

Sujets

• Ireland
• Stephen Ireland
• Sagas

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 février 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785896798
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Scene but not herd


A story of a Falls Road childhood




Irwin Baker

Copyright © 2017 Irwin Baker

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781785896798

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
This book is dedicated to all the people of
‘The Loney’ –past and present.
Contents
PREFACE
BREAKFAST
THE WASH
EARLY MORNING LESSONS
SUMS
BREAK
READING
HISTORY
THE DINNER QUEUE
THE DINNER HALL
THE PLAYGROUND
WAS IT SORE?
PT
ALFIE’S
Ma Ma
ROSEANNE
THE MATCH
LAING’S
GAMES
FRIDAY EVENING
PREFACE
Northern Ireland in the 1960s was a political, social and cultural backwater. Little had changed since the inception of the state in the 1920s when the British had given the southern part of the country a considerable amount of autonomy under the title of ‘The Free State’ and annexed the six northern counties, those mainly Protestant and pro-British, giving them their own parliament at Stormont and the reassurance and peace of mind that they were still part of the United Kingdom.
Protestant rule over the Catholic, Nationalist community in the North was based on a concoction of paranoia, a (mutual) hatred which was and is, born of ignorance and mistrust and the old dictum ‘Never give a sucker an even break’. The Protestant middle class and gentry ensured their dominance by gerrymandering political wards, manipulating the educational system to such an extent that only those with financial clout obtained an education above primary level and ensuring that all those professions that maintain the infrastructure of a state – the Civil Service, the police and the legal system – were all Protestant dominated. The British didn’t care if it was good rule or bad rule as long as it was quiet rule.
Small eddies of discontent surfaced from time to time but these were quickly and viciously quelled; Catholic life was cheap, Catholic Republican life was worthless. These amateurish insurrections were led by an array of romantics, patriots, academics, socialists and those with an inherited trait – the Republican families.
In reality the working class of both communities had a meagre existence; the main advantage the Protestants had was the security of consistent employment in the shipyards, aircraft factories and other industrial works whereas the Catholic working niches were the less stable building trades, road construction and publican trade while both communities’ women could obtain a pittance of a wage in the linen mills.
What probably caused the Nationalist community as much distress as their Protestant neighbours’ jackboot tactics was their church’s insistence on the total absence of contraception. The working class Protestant could eke out a tolerable standard of living by having small families; Catholics lived very close to the breadline by producing children in double figures.
The living conditions for both communities were stark. For a mile radius in all directions from the centre of Belfast a maze of little streets consisting of two-up two-down kitchen houses was to be found, houses built by mill owners in the previous century for their workforce and named after their children or contemporary issues of the time, hence Elizabeth Street and Crimea Street. They were efficient pieces of architectural design, cramming as many houses as possible into as small an area as was feasible. When first built they may have housed two families: one family in the two rooms upstairs and another on the bottom floor. With the twentieth century came the progress to one family one house. One person one vote was still many years down the line.
It was against this backdrop that a Catholic family in the Lower Falls area known as ‘The Loney’ awoke to greet a dull autumn day; the year was 1966. The parents were in their late fifties and their ten children’s ages ranged from fifteen to twenty-eight with one afterthought at the age of ten. They had conceived fourteen children in total but four had succumbed to diseases prevalent in children at the time. The following is a description of this family’s lifestyle as seen through the eyes of its youngest member.

BREAKFAST
“GERAL’, GERAL’.”
Gerald’s eyes popped open; even his subconscious feared his father’s voice. He raised his head out of the warm pillow, grabbed a lungful of air and yelled, “RIGH’.” He knew that would give him five minutes’ grace, his father would go back into the scullery and he could gather his thoughts before rising.
Once his eyes stopped stinging, Gerald allowed them to focus on the roughly plastered wall in front of him; his mind drew the shape of a bull from the bulges in the plaster just as it did every morning. The wall was a permanent reminder of his brother Brendan’s apprenticeship as a plasterer. He then watched the breath from his nose and mouth rise like the steam from the dinner spuds. “Jesis, it’s cold,” he declared to himself. His legs wriggled to allow the warm air from deep under the blankets to rise up over the top half of his body. He decided to roll onto his other side and, once turned, he had to strain his eyes to bring into focus the object that was almost touching his nose, it was his brother Kevin’s foot. He could recognise all his brothers by their feet; Kevin’s second and third toes were webbed and the corners of the nails were dyed black – with dirt; “Dirty pig,” was Gerald’s silent comment. His brother Brendan was short and fat and so were his feet, while Jim had long, gangly structures with bones bumping up all over them. He didn’t have to see Paddy’s feet; his sense of smell informed him of their presence. Sean’s feet were clean and in pristine condition just like Sean himself: Mr Perfect, mammy’s little angel. If Gerald had an itchy ass he had to scratch three others before he found his own. Space was at a premium in that small bedroom.
Flatulence had the same effect on the boys’ bed as soapy water has on a patch of soil. Worm heads would wiggle their way to the surface via the four sides of the blanket, gulp in the fresh air and then start the accusations:
“That’s one of our Kevin’s.”
“Snat mine.”
“Who was eatin’ eggs?
“It was that turnip ma ma gave us.”
“There’s no turnips here.” Gerald always knew how to trace the culprit; he would raise himself a little higher than the others and look for the head that didn’t surface.
“GERAL’, GERAL’; ARE YE UP, YA SKITTER, YEE?” Gerald’s body ran through a reflex of actions: his legs coiled, his torso twisted so that he was face down on the bed and he sprang into a standing position taking blankets with him. The four bodies beside him writhed as he ran across shins, knees, ankles and groins. A punch was thrown but that could easily be avoided. At the same time he yelled, “RIGH’, BE DOWN NIGH.”
Gerald could hear his father take the first three steps of the stairs.
“OH SHIT,” yelped Gerald. He yelled again.
“BE DOWN IN A MINIT, I’M GETTIN’ DRESSED.” He heard three more steps but these were fainter; his father had gone back to the scullery.
The small bedroom held two double beds with barely enough room between them for an old wooden chair; this was their wardrobe. Gerald hoked through the clothes on it until he found the ones with the familiar colours, the ones that were his. The shirt was still inside the jumper with the top three buttons undone, he pulled them over his head as though they were one unit and then stepped into his trousers. His waist was something any woman would be proud of; when he tugged his scout belt tight and clipped the buckle, there was enough spare to almost go round again.
His scout belt was his pride and joy. He had only graduated to it in recent months, before this he wore an elastic snake belt. He knew he was getting older, but he still had one more step to go before he was a big lad like his brothers: he had to get rid of his short trousers. It would be several years before he got out of these but he knew his mother would never leave him in the humiliating state some of the boys in his brother Jim’s class were in; Jim was in the leavers class and some were still in shorts. Hair as thick as Axminster carpet was exposed from the bottom of the trousers to the top of the socks and the recently dropped structures almost dangled out of the trouser legs.
He slipped on his socks – when it was really cold he wouldn’t have to do this – and finally tucked his toes into his shoes and began to twist his ankles so that he squeezed into the shoes with the laces already tied. A shiver ran the length of his spine as the clothes released their cold.
Above the chair was the back window. Gerald peered out to look at the scene he saw yesterday, last week and last year; it never changed. He considered Belfast a most depressing city, a city of greys. This morning as every morning a roller blind of depressive clo