Lucky Bags

In Doorly Park, where I grew up in Sligo, we had two shops where the local residents bought their daily groceries. One, was Paddy Gilmartin's and the other was Tony Molloy's. We tended to go to Molloy's and I was often sent by my mother for a batch loaf for the evening tea. It was wrapped in a large sheet of golden brown tissue paper. On many occasions it would arrive at the house with a hole in the side of the loaf, where I had picked away at the freshly baked bread. My father only ever sent me for two specific items: twenty Sweet Afton and a Silver Gillette (blue) blade. Waiting to be served you would hear all the news of the day from the many assembled customers, ninty five per cent housewives, who were gathered to get something for the dinner.
On Saturday I would get my pocket money: 6d, which was six pence in old money. The coin had a greyhound in profile on one side and a harp on the other. I was amused in later years when someone told me that "The harp was the symbol of Ireland because the country was run by pulling strings". For some reason I nearly always spent my sixpence in Gilmartin's. Molloy's, in my mind was for business but Gilmartin's was for pleasure ! What to buy was always a time consuming decision but in the end I usually emerged through the shop door with the same two items: a trigger bar and a thrupenny lucky bag and a penny change to buy a penny toffee at some later stage. The trigger bar had a blue foil wrapper with a small silhouette of Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger to the side of the Wild West style lettering. The bar was creamy toffee covered in ridged milk chocolate. The chewy bar was lovely but there was always an air of expectation in opening a lucky bag and that was it's magical allure. Its contents were always the same: a small toy and a few sweets. I would return home happily chewing my trigger bar and examining the contents of my lucky bag.

This small plastic toy reminds me of those sunny Saturday mornings in Doorly Park.


This colourful little trinket rolls along freely and because it is weighted at the bottom the horses head bobs forward and back but eventually returns to the position in the photograph. I would love to build a huge, two metres high, version of it that could be wheeled about on a village green or town park....health and safety issues permitting of course !

Life

In May 1917 a group of wounded British soldiers were photographed on the Western Front. They had been taken prisoner after an unsuccessful attack on Oppy Wood in Flanders. They were later moved to a dressing station behind German lines.

On October 20 2003 my wife Mary recieved a letter and a picture of a magazine cover from her Uncle Joe Mc Cabe R.I.P. who then lived in Brookfield , Connecticut, U.S.A. It read:

Dear Mary Teresa
Enclosed is a picture of your Great Grandfather, John Maines. He is the second from the left. Last year we visited Aunt Emily Maines Romano a few months before she died and she told us the story of the origin of the enclosed picture. She and her son Eddie were in a doctor's office. Looking through the old magazines she saw a copy of "Life "magazine....March 13, 1964. She recognised her father as one of the British soldiers............etc.
Love
Uncle Joe & Aunt Jean Mc Cabe

My curiousity enticed me to check if a copy was still available.....somewhere. I eventually tracked down a pristine edition in Canada for $11.

It is one of my bigger trinkets.

Exposed

I studied art in Sligo Regional Technical College between 1976-1980. I specialised in sculpture but loved photography too. We had a photography lecturer from Belgium called Jacques Piraprez who was a bit eccentric and on occasions wore orange dungerees, and a red crocheted tea cosy-type cap over his long curly black hair. Before long I had an expanding portfolio of black and white photographs that I had assembled from many hours working in the darkroom. I think we used a Pentax K 1000 most of the time, and a larger format camera, a Mamiya, Mamiyaflex C2 120 (I think) , occasionally. The picture below is of a roll of 120mm film I shot in my final year. I never got round to developing it. I have no idea what pictures are on it but it reminds me of very happy days spent learning to be an artist.

Broken Glass

When my elderly neighbours, Peg and Tom Murray passed away a number of years ago I came to be a Rainfall Observer for Met Eireann. I used take the rainfall measurements for them when they were away for a few days and Peg would thank me with a loaf of brown bread, which she would bake herself and deliver personally to our front door. I now measure the rain that has fallen in my own garden, each morning at 0900 hrs G.M.T. It is necessary to adhere to this standard hour of observation in order that readings made at hundreds of places throughout the country may be compared with each other and, indeed, with stations all over the world.
I started taking the daily readings here in Emyvale, Co. Monaghan 0n 8th. August 1996. The highest rainfall I have measured for one day was 47.4 mm. That was on 19th. August 2009.
One morning I dropped the Rain Measuring Glass and it broke into several pieces. The trinket below is a small section of the glass tube.

The Rusty Nut

In the Summer of 1981,Bill Kelly(my father in law), his sons Billy and Danny and myself began a climb from the Gleniff Horseshoe, Co. Sligo to an area near the top of Truskmore Mountain where we had heard an American airplane crashed during the Second World War. It was a beautiful Summer's day. We had been told the plane crashed above an area that was described as the "black face of the mountain". It was a longer, steeper climb than we expected and we stopped at intervals to rest and take in the spectacular views of the surrounding countryside. When we reached the summit I remember being surprised at the vast flat area of very thick heather and thinking we will never find the crash site. We set off looking and to my amazement we came across some of the remains of the ill fated Boeing plane. This rusty nut is a small remnant of the plane and a reminder of one of the many happy days I spent with Bill Kelly.

The following is a short extract taken from a report of the crash compiled by Dennis P. Burke in 2009:

On the afternoon of 9th December, 1943, the slopes above Ballintrillick in County Sligo were shattered by the crash of an American bomber.
The aircraft, a Boeing B-17G-15-BO Flying Fortress was being flown on a ferry flight, from Goose Bay to Prestwick in Scotland. On board the aircraft that afternoon were ten young airmen of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF).

2/Lt Richard C WALCH O-745025 - Pilot
2/Lt William M GRIM O-751123 - Co-Pilot
2/Lt Richard E FOX O-685794 - Bombardier
2/Lt William F WALLACE O-1573651 - Navigator
S/Sgt Moss L MENDOZA 11114403 - Engineer
S/Sgt Robert A SMITH 18192259 - Radio Operator
Sgt Adam J LATECKI 16144885 - Gunner
Sgt Wilfred N G VINCENT 34150978 - Gunner
Sgt Emil C DRAKE 15325547 - Gunner
Sgt Carl W WILLIAMSON 18162726 - Gunner

Following the crash, the pilots 2/Lt.’s Walch and Grim walked down the mountain to seek help. 2/Lt’s Fox and Wallace were to die in the crash of the aircraft while Sgt. Latecki would succumb to his injuries four days later in hospital. The surviving crew men suffered serious injuries. Local people from the homes below the mountain hurried to the crash to provide assistance to the

aircraft crew, being joined later by members of the local military. After many hours of struggling the six injured men were removed down the mountain and brought to Sligo County Hospital. All survivors were later taken across to Northern Ireland.