{"id":7867,"date":"2020-05-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svp.matrix-test.com\/article\/down-memory-lane\/"},"modified":"2024-05-23T11:16:27","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T10:16:27","slug":"down-memory-lane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.svp.ie\/news\/down-memory-lane\/","title":{"rendered":"Down Memory Lane"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I remember the first time I ever left home to go away on holiday by myself. I didn\u2019t know it was a holiday of course because nobody ever told me. I clearly remember one night in particular when the Da\u2019 arrived home from work on his bike. He always seemed to get home at around six o\u2019clock every evening and as soon as the Ma\u2019 would hear the Angelus Bells ringing out from our local church she\u2019d say\u00a0\u201cYour Daddy will be in any minute now, pour the tea\u201d,\u00a0and as sure as not he\u2019d walk in the door pushing his bike through the kitchen and out to his shed. He cycled through hail, rain and snow to and from work every day. He worked in the Bank as a Porter and every year he would get a new suit made, paid for by the Bank of course, and a new woollen overcoat every three years.<\/p>\n

The Ma\u2019 and Da\u2019 always sat at the head of our table and each of us, in accordance with our age, had their place, eldest near the top and youngest at the end. But of course, with me being in the middle I was always scrunched in between one brother and one sister. Now us middle ones never had a chair to sit on at the table, so we always had to stand. Some of the older ones would have a chair or a tea chest to sit on and the little ones would sit on a long wooden stool that the Da\u2019 made from bits of wood he\u2019d have found up in the local dump. Our tea came out of a big kettle because an ordinary tea pot would be too small for all of us and we got two slices of bread and margarine to eat for our tea. The Da\u2019 would have his dinner placed in front of him and if it was a plate of stew, he\u2019d always pour a drop of milk into it.<\/p>\n

Well this particular evening as he was lapping up his stew, he told me to go upstairs and wash my face and hands because he was going to bring me out on his bike when he\u2019d finished his dinner. So, off I went and did as I was told, as we did then, without question. Well in next to no time at all I was sitting on the crossbar of his bike and heading off in towards town. I was enjoying the trip as the Da\u2019 would always be singing and whistling as he pedalled along. We eventually came to a very big house, well it looked like one of them tenement houses that my Da\u2019s cousin lived in, and it was across the road from a park, I later found out it was Mountjoy Square. It was a big house and when we climbed what seemed like a hundred stairs, we went in to a room where a Doctor was waiting to examine me. Now, at this point I had no idea what this was all about but I just did what the Da\u2019 told me to do. The Doctor did his thing by listening to my chest but never said a word and meself and the Da\u2019 were heading home in next to no time at all.<\/p>\n

Now, a couple of weeks later, on a Saturday morning, the Da\u2019 tells me to get dressed because he was bringing me into town, and so I did. This time we came to Amiens Street train station. There was a great big group of young boys, all around my own age, standing up near the platform. The Da\u2019 told me to go and stand with the boys and so I did. He pedalled away off home and left me standing there, I had no idea what was going on or why he left me there. A rough looking boy asked me my name and told me we were going down to the country on a train. Then, all of a sudden, the penny dropped, I was being sent away to a boy\u2019s orphanage down the country, but why, what did I do wrong on the Ma\u2019, I was nearly always good in school. So, eventually the bunch of us lads were marched further up the platform where we boarded a train for the country. Most of the other young boys were delighted and excitedly talking about Balbriggan, wherever that was I didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

And so, it was that I ended up in the Sunshine House in Balbriggan for a week\u2019s holiday. I became pals with a young boy named Billy Pidgeon, he was great because he seemed to know the ropes and told me not to worry and not to be crying.\u00a0 I was delighted when my new pal told me that we\u2019d be going back home at the end of the week, I wasn\u2019t being left in an orphanage after all. At home, I shared a bed with two of my brothers and I never had a bed to myself until I went to the Sunshine House. I had a great time in Balbriggan playing games and going down to the beach where we were given little black swimming shorts to wear. Most nights we had a film show and on the last night of our holiday there was a concert. I got up on the small stage and sang \u201cOld McDonald had a farm\u201d and I won a prize for it. I couldn\u2019t wait to get home to show the Ma\u2019 what I had won.<\/p>\n

I remember one night when it was dark, the Leaders took us for a walk and told us about a man by the name of McKenzie and that every night he haunted the Sunshine House and especially the toilets. I later reckoned that was a way to stop us running in and out to the toilet all night. We were all told to sit down on the ground while we were told a Ghost Story. I was sitting next to Billy Pigeon and we were nearly crying and shaking with the fright, we had to hold each other\u2019s hand to make sure that the ghost didn\u2019t take one of us away. Billy told me to say a Hail Mary before I got into bed and that way the ghost wouldn\u2019t go near me. I knew he must be right because he had been here before and that\u2019s what he must have done as well.<\/p>\n

And so, the following Saturday came along all too quickly, it was time to go home. It was very sad really because some of the young boys were actually crying and wanted to stay another week, they had such a great time of it. I remember meself and Billy sitting together in the train watching all the green fields and the cows going by faster and faster as the train picked up speed. And we could even see the beach where we made sandcastles together. So, that was my first ever holiday away from home, a week in the Sunshine House in Balbriggan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember the first time I ever left home to go away on holiday by myself. I didn’t know it was a holiday of course because nobody ever told me. I clearly remember one night in particular when the Da’ arrived home from work on his bike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"Tribe__Tickets_Plus__Commerce__WooCommerce__Main","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","cat-region-national","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDown Memory Lane - Society of St. Vincent de Paul<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.svp.ie\/news\/down-memory-lane\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Down Memory Lane - Society of St. Vincent de Paul\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I remember the first time I ever left home to go away on holiday by myself. 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