Memories

Kevin Woods

Uploaded: 29/01/2017

Memory : A Dead Fish

White-washing Ghan House was a huge job back in the 1950s.When you were 11 years old and part of team of juvenile whitewashers it was sometimes difficult to stick with the task.
The whitewash was delivered as dry lime. It was put into a fixed basin which had a fire grate below it, as big as a barrel that had been used in The Miss Rudderfords time in Ghan House for boiling pig swill.
Mickey Murphy the father of Kathleen,wife of Rory Mc Kevitt was the man in charge of the operation. Looking back he had a poor team of helpers most of us dressed in Wellington’s short corduroy trousers and tops, and none of us volunteers.

The lime wash barrel was located in a shed in the back yard next to the bell tower. There was still turf mould on the floor and the odd sod of turf remained, remnants of harsher days when my parents went to the bog at Omeath to cut their own turf to heat the Ghan. My job was to get the hose fixed up and run it from outside the kitchen window, take it around what we called the “wee shed” and finally to the pig swill where water was added to the lime.My brother John did the stirring working it to a paste and finally on to something that was pliable enough to brush on to the wall.

It was a lovely sunny day one of those days that was more made for playing than working. My mother came to inspect the progress, she was kitted out in her wellies and ready with brush and bucket to lead by example. In one of those rare moments of abandonment as she had her back to me, I seized my opportunity and turned the hose on her backside.
She dropped the bucket and ran with me following her with the hose, down the sandstone slab path and into the back kitchen slamming and locking the door behind her, the spray bouncing off the door

I still remember the thrill of it. I hadn’t done anything like it before and definitely not to a parent.You just didn’t do the likes to parents in the 1950s.I knew retribution would come. An hour passed and there was no sign of her. The back door was still locked. I tried the front door. She had locked it too. Another hour and still no sign of her! She was playing a waiting game! I could see that the window catch was off on the “boxroom” window.I moved slowly and quietly towards it. I could see inside the rows of shoes and sandals polished by Ginny Connelly laid out in rows like a legless army shining and ready to march to Sunday Mass. There was no sign of my mother.

Placing my fingers on the bottom of the sash window I eased it up as far as it would go. I listened –no sound. Slowly I began my climb through – head, hands, torso, and then –BANG****.My mother sprang like a panther, she whacked me across the head with a dead Haddock.I didn’t know what hit me.She laughed as she said “ That will teach you”.and it did.

I see that moment now as one the most loving moments of my mothers love for me. She came down that day to my level to that of a child and played the game with me. I love her for it.
She is 95 now and that spirit and sense of fun she had that day still remains with her and the love with me.