Memories

Kevin Woods

Uploaded: 29/01/2017

Milk didn’t always come in bottles and cartons
In 1957 I attended school in the Christian Brothers Dundalk. It was tough. The leather strap was used at will and I was a regular recipient. Brother Obrien was best at letting you have it.
Primary school in Carlingford and Master McGraths cane had prepared us well for entry to secondary school. Our palms were well hardened.
At school end I went to my father’s office in Francis Street to “study” and await a lift home at 6pm.
The pattern was always the same. We called on the way home, in our Volkswagen beetle.to Castletown House in Castletown Cooley.
I would open the gates to the driveway; my father drove in and moved to the passenger seat. I got in to the driver’s seat and driving lessons began at 12 up and down the avenue. The house belonged to my bed ridden grand Aunt Ann wife to the deceased Tommy Woods.
My Uncle Thomas Woods, brother of my father ran the farm for her and minded a cow owned by the father. Thomas had an understanding that my father would receive the cow’s milk and he would be the owner of any calves it produced.
The milk was ready each evening for collection in a 2 gallon steel can, the cream thick on the top of it. When we finally got home the milk was poured into large jugs, no pasteurising here and placed in our newly acquired first fridge.
I spent 3 years with the brothers in Dundalk and learned little other than how to drive a Volkswagon beetle.