A pretty perceptive man once said to me that Success was about "keeping on keeping on". He was Japanese American. I didn't really understand him properly at the time, unacquainted as I was with the different variations of American English Vernacular. I rather suspect now, after some 15 years, that he was simply talking about Perseverance. Or as the lyrics of that song released by the unforgettably named band "Chumbawumba" goes:
"I get knocked down, but I get up again.
I get knocked down, but I get up again.
They ain't never gonna keep me down"
So if I was to be so arrogant as to offer advice to anyone I would simply say:
Never give up.
Never give in.
Keep on keeping on.
................................................I think.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Guilty as charged
I am feeling so guilty about not having posted anything for what? - nearly 3 months now. I just let it slip. Or maybe my circumstances changed and I felt that I didn't need the blog as much anymore, which surprises me because I didn't realise that I "needed" it in the first place. I thought that I would just be putting some old writings on the web and recycling lots of paper that was cluttering up my attic and that maybe some people would chance across it during their meanderings around the Web and be sufficiently stimulated by what they read that they left me some feedback. Well, it's been months, very few visitors and bugger-all feedback, which, amusingly enough is a form of feedback in itself, I suppose.
So my court case is over and I won and now it seems that I'm diving headfirst back into my old life, but with a twist, in that I'm not making millions for other people and big media companies any more - I'm doing it for myself and my partners. Now that's not necessarily a good or a bad thing, I'm just not sure that I'm doing the right thing with my life. Just because running media companies is what I know best, that doesn't justify the course of action I feel that I am drifting into.
OK, I know that I need to earn a living and fund my family and this is probably the quickest and surest way of achieving that but what I've just gone through was such a massive event in my life and so emotionally seismic that I cannot help but feel that I'm missing an opportunity to capitalise on what has happened. Maybe I'm scared of the unknown. I've come through a major life-changing event and I am at an epiphany point.
I suspect that what's bugging me is that in deciding which way to go from here, I am aware of a growing feeling of frustration that maybe I have settled for a safer option, for less; that I have missed out on a chance to live a fuller and richer life. And now, I'm committed to this option, because people have left companies to come and work for me and in some cases taken a salary cut too. They are showing a lot of loyalty and belief in me. .............................
Boy do I ever feel trapped!
So my court case is over and I won and now it seems that I'm diving headfirst back into my old life, but with a twist, in that I'm not making millions for other people and big media companies any more - I'm doing it for myself and my partners. Now that's not necessarily a good or a bad thing, I'm just not sure that I'm doing the right thing with my life. Just because running media companies is what I know best, that doesn't justify the course of action I feel that I am drifting into.
OK, I know that I need to earn a living and fund my family and this is probably the quickest and surest way of achieving that but what I've just gone through was such a massive event in my life and so emotionally seismic that I cannot help but feel that I'm missing an opportunity to capitalise on what has happened. Maybe I'm scared of the unknown. I've come through a major life-changing event and I am at an epiphany point.
I suspect that what's bugging me is that in deciding which way to go from here, I am aware of a growing feeling of frustration that maybe I have settled for a safer option, for less; that I have missed out on a chance to live a fuller and richer life. And now, I'm committed to this option, because people have left companies to come and work for me and in some cases taken a salary cut too. They are showing a lot of loyalty and belief in me. .............................
Boy do I ever feel trapped!
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
LETTERS TO MY CHILDREN - October 1993
Dear Jack & Clare,
I treated myself on Sunday Morning last and stayed in bed late, reading the Weekend Edition of the Irish Times, magnamoniously allowing your Mother to get up in response to someone's wailings to be released from their cot. Once I heard the usual scampering noises accompanied by high pitched yips and yelps, my super detective powers told me that this was not, in fact, a burly puppy rampaging through the house but presaged a blond haired explosion into the bedroom (neither of you ever walked into rooms) so I start leafing through the paper more rapidly.
When you do that, skipping quickly from page to page, scanning the text, it's funny how you quite often end up with a more enjoyable and sometimes more informative read or at least I have. One tends to ignore the major 'serious' articles in favour of other tidbits - anything that catches the eye really.
Not that this process takes long, interrupted as it is by a body plunging through the paper curtain with happy abandon and a gurgled "DA DA DA!" And then the soft aroma of your warm hair as you snuggle in. There was contentment, joy, fulfillment and simple happiness. I can still remember that soft fragrance that symbolises your childhood for me and I have a catch in my throat.
I'll always be grateful for that. For feeling you falling asleep on my chest. Or when you woke at night crying and I would go downstairs with you and turn on some music and dance slowly around with you in my arms until you fell asleep with your head on my shoulder. Or the pure joy in your face when I came through the door at night after work, followed by you rushing down the hall for a hug.
You both made my world complete when you came into it.
Thank you,
Love,
Dad.
I treated myself on Sunday Morning last and stayed in bed late, reading the Weekend Edition of the Irish Times, magnamoniously allowing your Mother to get up in response to someone's wailings to be released from their cot. Once I heard the usual scampering noises accompanied by high pitched yips and yelps, my super detective powers told me that this was not, in fact, a burly puppy rampaging through the house but presaged a blond haired explosion into the bedroom (neither of you ever walked into rooms) so I start leafing through the paper more rapidly.
When you do that, skipping quickly from page to page, scanning the text, it's funny how you quite often end up with a more enjoyable and sometimes more informative read or at least I have. One tends to ignore the major 'serious' articles in favour of other tidbits - anything that catches the eye really.
Not that this process takes long, interrupted as it is by a body plunging through the paper curtain with happy abandon and a gurgled "DA DA DA!" And then the soft aroma of your warm hair as you snuggle in. There was contentment, joy, fulfillment and simple happiness. I can still remember that soft fragrance that symbolises your childhood for me and I have a catch in my throat.
I'll always be grateful for that. For feeling you falling asleep on my chest. Or when you woke at night crying and I would go downstairs with you and turn on some music and dance slowly around with you in my arms until you fell asleep with your head on my shoulder. Or the pure joy in your face when I came through the door at night after work, followed by you rushing down the hall for a hug.
You both made my world complete when you came into it.
Thank you,
Love,
Dad.
LETTERS TO MY CHILDREN - 29th September 1992
Dear Jack & Clare,
I had to go to the National Library in Kildare Street the other day to do a little research. On the surface the system of security and admission looked impressive. There was a security desk at the stairs up to the library proper and you had to fill out a form stating your purpose for using the library and get your photograph taken for an identity card.
Having said that, for all of the notice that the library attendant took, I could have filled out "research into the domestic manufacture of Semtex and to get a look at any nudie pics in the books" and I would still have gotten a reader's card.
When I went in, I stood for a moment by the Card Index area, just looking around. I was impressed by the great domed ceiling and the long wooden desks with their lovely green reader's lamps. It all looked so right. So perfectly in the vein of what a library reading room should look like. Like all of the films I've ever seen. There were the habitues in one area, whispering earnestly to each other. There, one or two terribly focussed legal types. There, two slick boyos in blazers, cravats and well coiffed hair, probably doing the research prior to some elegant stroke they were about to pull. And there was the obligatory nubile young female student trotting up and down to the Librarian's desk in her symbiotically attached leggings, on an interestingly circuitous route that took her past a rather large, handsome, young guy in a rugby shirt who was totally immersed in what looked like a diatribe on the feeding habits of the immature fluke worm. Funny how there's always a gorgeous girl in every Library I've been in, usually minding her own business, getting on with it and oblivious to the havoc she's wreaking on the concentration of most of the males in sight.
Dublin became a happy hunting ground for motorcycle policemen last week. They had great fun. Stopping the traffic whenever they felt like it. Breaking the speed limit. Stopping for a chat in the middle of the busiest intersection they could find. If these talks ever result in a referendum I hope that they put in an option for us to vote upon a preferred location for the next round. I know which way most of the harrassed motorists of Dublin will lean. I have visions of angry members of the Capital's Traffic Army grunting "let's see 'em race around shaggin' Sceilig Mhicil," as they fill in their voting forms.
As the umpteenth wailing convoy raced past I overheard one old lady say to another "it really is like a Banana Republic, Maire. That Bob Golden had it right y'know".
"Who dear?" says Maire.
"Bob Golden, Maire. From the Booterstown Rats, " pleased to be one up and in the know. Then, "I think he's a cousin of Paul Golden."
Now that I come to think of it, Jack, by the time that you and Clare are old enough to have any interest in reading these letters, you'll probably regard the Boomtown Rats (a.k.a. Booterstown Rats) in much the same way as I regard Rudy Valee.
Rudy Who?
I had to go to the National Library in Kildare Street the other day to do a little research. On the surface the system of security and admission looked impressive. There was a security desk at the stairs up to the library proper and you had to fill out a form stating your purpose for using the library and get your photograph taken for an identity card.
Having said that, for all of the notice that the library attendant took, I could have filled out "research into the domestic manufacture of Semtex and to get a look at any nudie pics in the books" and I would still have gotten a reader's card.
When I went in, I stood for a moment by the Card Index area, just looking around. I was impressed by the great domed ceiling and the long wooden desks with their lovely green reader's lamps. It all looked so right. So perfectly in the vein of what a library reading room should look like. Like all of the films I've ever seen. There were the habitues in one area, whispering earnestly to each other. There, one or two terribly focussed legal types. There, two slick boyos in blazers, cravats and well coiffed hair, probably doing the research prior to some elegant stroke they were about to pull. And there was the obligatory nubile young female student trotting up and down to the Librarian's desk in her symbiotically attached leggings, on an interestingly circuitous route that took her past a rather large, handsome, young guy in a rugby shirt who was totally immersed in what looked like a diatribe on the feeding habits of the immature fluke worm. Funny how there's always a gorgeous girl in every Library I've been in, usually minding her own business, getting on with it and oblivious to the havoc she's wreaking on the concentration of most of the males in sight.
Dublin became a happy hunting ground for motorcycle policemen last week. They had great fun. Stopping the traffic whenever they felt like it. Breaking the speed limit. Stopping for a chat in the middle of the busiest intersection they could find. If these talks ever result in a referendum I hope that they put in an option for us to vote upon a preferred location for the next round. I know which way most of the harrassed motorists of Dublin will lean. I have visions of angry members of the Capital's Traffic Army grunting "let's see 'em race around shaggin' Sceilig Mhicil," as they fill in their voting forms.
As the umpteenth wailing convoy raced past I overheard one old lady say to another "it really is like a Banana Republic, Maire. That Bob Golden had it right y'know".
"Who dear?" says Maire.
"Bob Golden, Maire. From the Booterstown Rats, " pleased to be one up and in the know. Then, "I think he's a cousin of Paul Golden."
Now that I come to think of it, Jack, by the time that you and Clare are old enough to have any interest in reading these letters, you'll probably regard the Boomtown Rats (a.k.a. Booterstown Rats) in much the same way as I regard Rudy Valee.
Rudy Who?
Thursday, September 6, 2007
LETTERS TO MY CHILDREN- 21st September 1992
Dear Jack & Clare,
One of the things that I love the most about being back is the language. The way that it's used and, on occasion, abused. Phrases purloined from here and grafted on to there. It's a tremendously rich and colourful brew that goes to make up the everyday phraseology of the people I meet.
A journalist that I knew in London often used to say how much he loved the Irish peoples' way with words. Although he would come out with this in a manner that made my hackles rise, I find myself agreeing with him more and more since my return. The difference being that he said it with a patronising, "tolerant smile" and I state it simply with great pleasure and admiration, for it makes my day richer and adds colour to it.
What has spurred me to this observation is a wonderful, if somewhat coarse, piece of advice I overheard on Sunday morning last. Encouraged by a clear, breezy sky, I strapped you into your seat on the back of my bicycle and headed off along the the coast paths towards Dun Laoghaire. By the time I had sweated my unfit, wobbly way as far as the Martello tower at Monkstown beach you had fallen asleep. So I stopped, picked you out of the seat, eased off your helmet and lay back on the grass, looking out to sea with you, out for the count, lying on my coat beside me.
After some time I noticed out of the corner of my eye another father and son coming up from the beach towards a very shiny, slick looking Japanese car parked nearby. "Ah Jaysus," said Dad. "We've only a flat!" He proceeded to the boot and started taking out the spare wheel plus some tools. Now, to an adult, such a situation is, at best, an annoyance and, at worst, a calamity depending upon the amount of time required to get to where you're going. To a little boy of what looked like two or two and a half years old, it's wonderful. Unusual. New.
The little lad was intent on helping Daddy. He carried each tool, thrown carelessly and possibly a little angrily on to the grass by Daddy, over to the site of the wheel changing operation. When Daddy became aware of his efforts, to his credit, he paused and thanked him loudly, calling him his "little hod carrier. A proper little hoddie, arntcha!" Thus encouraged. Junior then proceeded to pick up each tool again and to examine each one with impressive concentration. At last he was finished. The Mallet. It had to be. It had a big, dirty white rubber head with a silvery metal handle that glistened in the sun. Not only did it make a satisfying thud when you hit something with it but it also bounced back! Fantastic.
This bouncing business merited further investigation. So the grass was thumped with the mallet, as was the concrete kerb and the tarmac, the spare tyre, a nearby lamp post, a metal fence. And so on, until the bumper of Daddy's car got a clout while Daddy was halfway underneath checking out an apparent oil leak. Out came Daddy, spied the beaming mallet wielder of Monkstown lining up for delivery of another two handed slap to the bumper and let out a roar:"Mikey! Stop! Enough now or I'll take dat offaya!" Undeterred, the aforementioned Mikey continues his swing, misses the fender, hits the concrete kerb and catches the rebounding mallet with his face!
A wail that would do a convoy of ambulances proud rises up and takes possession of the ears of all and sundry on Monkstown beach. Mikey is picked up and checked for damage and then cuddled fiercely with loads of "yer alright! Yer alright!" thrown in. The wail begins to descend a few decibels and gradually becomes a whimper. Daddy decides that Mikey is ready for a little advice on the subject of tools and delivers the following brief homily which I think will stay with me to the end of my days.
He fixes Mikey, now esconced on his lap, with a frank stare and says, "look Son, be careful will ya. A hammer is like your dick. Just cos it's designed for it doesn't mean ya have to go banging everything in sight! Sooner or later it'll rebound on ya." Satisfied that he'd done his parental duty, he packed Mikey into his car seat, finished the wheelchange and drove off. I looked down to find you gazing up at me with those huge blue eyes so I copied Mikey's Dad and we headed off too.
One of the things that I love the most about being back is the language. The way that it's used and, on occasion, abused. Phrases purloined from here and grafted on to there. It's a tremendously rich and colourful brew that goes to make up the everyday phraseology of the people I meet.
A journalist that I knew in London often used to say how much he loved the Irish peoples' way with words. Although he would come out with this in a manner that made my hackles rise, I find myself agreeing with him more and more since my return. The difference being that he said it with a patronising, "tolerant smile" and I state it simply with great pleasure and admiration, for it makes my day richer and adds colour to it.
What has spurred me to this observation is a wonderful, if somewhat coarse, piece of advice I overheard on Sunday morning last. Encouraged by a clear, breezy sky, I strapped you into your seat on the back of my bicycle and headed off along the the coast paths towards Dun Laoghaire. By the time I had sweated my unfit, wobbly way as far as the Martello tower at Monkstown beach you had fallen asleep. So I stopped, picked you out of the seat, eased off your helmet and lay back on the grass, looking out to sea with you, out for the count, lying on my coat beside me.
After some time I noticed out of the corner of my eye another father and son coming up from the beach towards a very shiny, slick looking Japanese car parked nearby. "Ah Jaysus," said Dad. "We've only a flat!" He proceeded to the boot and started taking out the spare wheel plus some tools. Now, to an adult, such a situation is, at best, an annoyance and, at worst, a calamity depending upon the amount of time required to get to where you're going. To a little boy of what looked like two or two and a half years old, it's wonderful. Unusual. New.
The little lad was intent on helping Daddy. He carried each tool, thrown carelessly and possibly a little angrily on to the grass by Daddy, over to the site of the wheel changing operation. When Daddy became aware of his efforts, to his credit, he paused and thanked him loudly, calling him his "little hod carrier. A proper little hoddie, arntcha!" Thus encouraged. Junior then proceeded to pick up each tool again and to examine each one with impressive concentration. At last he was finished. The Mallet. It had to be. It had a big, dirty white rubber head with a silvery metal handle that glistened in the sun. Not only did it make a satisfying thud when you hit something with it but it also bounced back! Fantastic.
This bouncing business merited further investigation. So the grass was thumped with the mallet, as was the concrete kerb and the tarmac, the spare tyre, a nearby lamp post, a metal fence. And so on, until the bumper of Daddy's car got a clout while Daddy was halfway underneath checking out an apparent oil leak. Out came Daddy, spied the beaming mallet wielder of Monkstown lining up for delivery of another two handed slap to the bumper and let out a roar:"Mikey! Stop! Enough now or I'll take dat offaya!" Undeterred, the aforementioned Mikey continues his swing, misses the fender, hits the concrete kerb and catches the rebounding mallet with his face!
A wail that would do a convoy of ambulances proud rises up and takes possession of the ears of all and sundry on Monkstown beach. Mikey is picked up and checked for damage and then cuddled fiercely with loads of "yer alright! Yer alright!" thrown in. The wail begins to descend a few decibels and gradually becomes a whimper. Daddy decides that Mikey is ready for a little advice on the subject of tools and delivers the following brief homily which I think will stay with me to the end of my days.
He fixes Mikey, now esconced on his lap, with a frank stare and says, "look Son, be careful will ya. A hammer is like your dick. Just cos it's designed for it doesn't mean ya have to go banging everything in sight! Sooner or later it'll rebound on ya." Satisfied that he'd done his parental duty, he packed Mikey into his car seat, finished the wheelchange and drove off. I looked down to find you gazing up at me with those huge blue eyes so I copied Mikey's Dad and we headed off too.
Friday, August 31, 2007
LETTERS TO MY CHILDREN- 16th September 1992
Dear Jack & Clare,
I was sitting in my office mentally composing a shatteringly elegant and witty opening to this letter when the heavens erupted with one of the loudest thunderclaps I can recall ever hearing. It was followed toute suite by every car alarm in Northumberland Road shrieking in protest at being roused from their usual passive vigilance.
It was good fun though, watching young exec's scurrying out to their cars, hopping from one foot to the other in the downpour while they tried to locate the appropriate key, insert it and turn off their petulant possessions. Despite the fact that they were drowned by this time, they would sprint back to their offices in the faint hope of preserving some piece of apparel (the underside of their wristwatch perhaps?) from the oppressive sheets of water falling on them.
One poor soul had the galling experience, when he turned for the sprint back to the dry haven of his office, of watching a female colleague languidly extend her arm out a window and shut off her alarm by remote control. From a distance it looked like a sympathetic smile, or was she........................ ? Surely not.
I met an interesting pair during my lunchbreak at Sandymount Strand today. With the characteristic abruptness of the Summer version of the Irish weather front, the thunderous gloom disappeared and I took myself off to Sandymount Strand car park to enjoy a couple of sun soaked sandwiches. An elderly gentleman and a young lad of eighteen or so pulled up beside me and started to eat their lunch, staring fixedly out to sea. Occasionally, well - about every ten minutes or so, I would hear a brief phrase uttered by one, never answered by more than a monosyllable from the other.
"Are they workmates?" I pondered. "Friends, acquaintances, or related to each other, as say brothers, uncle and nephew or father and son?" On a subsequent visit I discovered that the last category applied. They were a father and son who worked together, lived in the one house and lunched together.
"We don't see that much of each other really" claimed the son, whose name was Padraig. "Only one person can work on any one piece at a time, so we don't really have any contact during working hours." They were engravers. "We live on different floors of the house. Me Ma is dead and Ivor, that's me Da, has his pals and I have mine. He eats at a friend's house all the time, neither of us would touch a breakfast, so lunch is the only time we spend together. It's kind of a tradition at this stage.
I asked if they talked much and did they always go to Sandymount for lunch? "On the talking front, I'd have to say not really a lot, no, and if we found ourselves saying a lot to each other about something, then we'd probably be having a row. Mind you, we don't row often," Padraig added.
"We went to Monkstown once, just after I started working with Ivor," he recalled. "It was my idea. I thought it would be nice for a change. But Ivor didn't like it, so we came back here."
I left him then, strolling along in the September sun on his own (apparently Ivor doesn't like going for walks either. "Can't see the point in them"), dreaming of the exotic climes of Monkstown's sea front car park.
All the best,
Dad
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
LETTERS TO MY CHILDREN - 15 September 1992
Dear Jack & Clare,
I'm renting offices in a lovely old redbrick house with beautiful high ceilings, embellished with intricate and flamboyant plasterwork, lots of original paintings and pictures and great, big, solid pine doors. I'll only be here for a short while longer and I think I'll miss it greatly. Sometimes I catch myself gazing around, lost in the elegance and grandeur of the recent past.
Well the present intruded on the past rather abruptly as I was greeted by an unusual sight when I arrived at the office this morning. We had been broken into. the thieves had an interesting modus operandi. They got into each room by using what seemed to be a bazooka (but was more likely a crowbar). The beautiful panelled pine doors and surrounds were shattered. In our office, files were strewn about, drawers opened but absolutely nothing taken. There were thousands of pounds worth of computer equipment in boxes ready for removal, portable printers and PC's, even a mobile phone with batteries and charger. All ignored.
And it was the same in each of the other offices in the building. Door blasted open, place ransacked, nothing taken. Even a cheque was left behind. One company was the exception in that they had some cash hidden up a chimney and that disappeared.
Well later on that day, much later, the Guardians of the Peace arrived or at least one plainclothes detective showed up who looked like he was heading for the golf course in his Pringle sweater and slacks, casually fiddling with his walkie talkie like it was a portable phone or a driver (he wished). He was taken around by our very efficient Receptionist cum Office Manager. Did he suggest fingerprinting? No. Mind you, he did agree with her, although none too enthusiastically, that it might be worth interviewing the next door neighbours.
His casually delivered parting remarks constituted a careful and considered summation of the situation. "Dem doors are shagged. I know a lad down the Merrion Road who's good at fixing Georgian doors like dem wans". I wondered how much work his friend down the Merrion Road got out of the cases that this "Columbo" investigated.
What interested me most about the whole affair was the almost casual acceptance of the crime by all those affected. Beyond mild annoyance at having to re-file some paperwork, people just continued on. Just one of those things. C'est la vie.
Ten or twenty years ago we would have been shocked at this trespass. All of our friends would have heard about it. Now it's no longer a rarity. It's commonplace. A sad reminder of the excesses that those standing on the wrong side of the widening gulf between rich and poor are driven to.
Democracy and the Market Economy can only work properly if those "have-nots" can feel that this gap, as it were, can be bridged and they can see others from their side of the divide attempting this feat and succeeding. I guess that this process is more likely to occur if they arrive at adulthood well equipped, i.e. with a good/broad education and that prized product of such an education, a lively, enquiring yet disciplined mind. We must ensure that the quality of all resources devoted to the education of the less well off in this Society are maintained to the highest standard and improved upon if at all possible. Otherwise we are putting people in a social cage and taking away any possibility of release or escape.
The frustration that this would cause could pave the way for an upwardly spiralling crime rate and social disenfranchisement. Every penny invested in education now is a pound less that we'll have to spend in policing our streets, in repairing our property and possibly our lives in years to come. Sounds a bit simplistic? Sometimes the most complex problems have the simplest solutions.
All the best,
Dad
I'm renting offices in a lovely old redbrick house with beautiful high ceilings, embellished with intricate and flamboyant plasterwork, lots of original paintings and pictures and great, big, solid pine doors. I'll only be here for a short while longer and I think I'll miss it greatly. Sometimes I catch myself gazing around, lost in the elegance and grandeur of the recent past.
Well the present intruded on the past rather abruptly as I was greeted by an unusual sight when I arrived at the office this morning. We had been broken into. the thieves had an interesting modus operandi. They got into each room by using what seemed to be a bazooka (but was more likely a crowbar). The beautiful panelled pine doors and surrounds were shattered. In our office, files were strewn about, drawers opened but absolutely nothing taken. There were thousands of pounds worth of computer equipment in boxes ready for removal, portable printers and PC's, even a mobile phone with batteries and charger. All ignored.
And it was the same in each of the other offices in the building. Door blasted open, place ransacked, nothing taken. Even a cheque was left behind. One company was the exception in that they had some cash hidden up a chimney and that disappeared.
Well later on that day, much later, the Guardians of the Peace arrived or at least one plainclothes detective showed up who looked like he was heading for the golf course in his Pringle sweater and slacks, casually fiddling with his walkie talkie like it was a portable phone or a driver (he wished). He was taken around by our very efficient Receptionist cum Office Manager. Did he suggest fingerprinting? No. Mind you, he did agree with her, although none too enthusiastically, that it might be worth interviewing the next door neighbours.
His casually delivered parting remarks constituted a careful and considered summation of the situation. "Dem doors are shagged. I know a lad down the Merrion Road who's good at fixing Georgian doors like dem wans". I wondered how much work his friend down the Merrion Road got out of the cases that this "Columbo" investigated.
What interested me most about the whole affair was the almost casual acceptance of the crime by all those affected. Beyond mild annoyance at having to re-file some paperwork, people just continued on. Just one of those things. C'est la vie.
Ten or twenty years ago we would have been shocked at this trespass. All of our friends would have heard about it. Now it's no longer a rarity. It's commonplace. A sad reminder of the excesses that those standing on the wrong side of the widening gulf between rich and poor are driven to.
Democracy and the Market Economy can only work properly if those "have-nots" can feel that this gap, as it were, can be bridged and they can see others from their side of the divide attempting this feat and succeeding. I guess that this process is more likely to occur if they arrive at adulthood well equipped, i.e. with a good/broad education and that prized product of such an education, a lively, enquiring yet disciplined mind. We must ensure that the quality of all resources devoted to the education of the less well off in this Society are maintained to the highest standard and improved upon if at all possible. Otherwise we are putting people in a social cage and taking away any possibility of release or escape.
The frustration that this would cause could pave the way for an upwardly spiralling crime rate and social disenfranchisement. Every penny invested in education now is a pound less that we'll have to spend in policing our streets, in repairing our property and possibly our lives in years to come. Sounds a bit simplistic? Sometimes the most complex problems have the simplest solutions.
All the best,
Dad
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
LETTERS TO MY CHILDREN - 14 September 1992
Dear Jack & Clare,
Sitting in the back of the cab from the airport, listening to the driver's umpteenth "knoworrimeyan", I surprised my self and began to feel good. I began to feel a sense of achievement. I had come home. So often when I returned from lunch to my office in Kilburn I would be saddened by the sight of big, strong men, men that belonged at home in Ireland, sitting, sipping their lives away in dark and dirty pubs.
I consoled myself with thoughts that they were an older, different generation to mine, less educated and less prepared to benefit from the opportunities to be had in the more prosperous countries we had all been forced to emigrate to. However, even my generation of graduates, the "Puppies" or Paddy Yuppies of London would complain about the "quality of life" in London and how much better it would be if one could "get back". I have to laugh, sure we wouldn't know what "quality of life" actually meant if it jumped up and bit us in the face! Mind you, this slip, this chink in the armor we had all adopted on arrival in London, would immediaely be covered over with coments on the "terrible unemployment that forced us to leave", "the fact that the Irish Welfare State is non-existent" and "the cruelly high levels of taxation. Sure yer disposable income would be slashed by two thirds and you left with the small bit!"
I had done it though. I had returned. Now all that remained was to find a home for you and your Mum and to get you both over here as quickly as possible.
I was surprised at the amount of building that was going on. Ambitious projects with elegant facades in long-dormant, run down parts of the city. Even the quality of the houses in the numerous new developments that I viewed was high, much higher than I remembered in the late seventies and early eighties prior to my leaving.
There was a lot of bikes on the roads still, but maybe that was just the fine summer weather. When I drove along the coast roads, out around Malahide or along Sandymount Strand, I noticed lots of people out walking. Some strolling along as though on a casual promenade around a small Mediterranean town and some getting in some seriously brisk exercise.
There seemed to be more restaurants too. More reasonably priced, offering better quality food, better service and a wider variety of cuisines.
I know that this is starting to read like a bit of a Bord Failte Handout, Jack, and maybe your old Dad is looking at his native land through rose coloured glasses but it's how I see it all right now. Maybe it'll change as time goes on. We'll see.
All the best,
Dad
Sitting in the back of the cab from the airport, listening to the driver's umpteenth "knoworrimeyan", I surprised my self and began to feel good. I began to feel a sense of achievement. I had come home. So often when I returned from lunch to my office in Kilburn I would be saddened by the sight of big, strong men, men that belonged at home in Ireland, sitting, sipping their lives away in dark and dirty pubs.
I consoled myself with thoughts that they were an older, different generation to mine, less educated and less prepared to benefit from the opportunities to be had in the more prosperous countries we had all been forced to emigrate to. However, even my generation of graduates, the "Puppies" or Paddy Yuppies of London would complain about the "quality of life" in London and how much better it would be if one could "get back". I have to laugh, sure we wouldn't know what "quality of life" actually meant if it jumped up and bit us in the face! Mind you, this slip, this chink in the armor we had all adopted on arrival in London, would immediaely be covered over with coments on the "terrible unemployment that forced us to leave", "the fact that the Irish Welfare State is non-existent" and "the cruelly high levels of taxation. Sure yer disposable income would be slashed by two thirds and you left with the small bit!"
I had done it though. I had returned. Now all that remained was to find a home for you and your Mum and to get you both over here as quickly as possible.
I was surprised at the amount of building that was going on. Ambitious projects with elegant facades in long-dormant, run down parts of the city. Even the quality of the houses in the numerous new developments that I viewed was high, much higher than I remembered in the late seventies and early eighties prior to my leaving.
There was a lot of bikes on the roads still, but maybe that was just the fine summer weather. When I drove along the coast roads, out around Malahide or along Sandymount Strand, I noticed lots of people out walking. Some strolling along as though on a casual promenade around a small Mediterranean town and some getting in some seriously brisk exercise.
There seemed to be more restaurants too. More reasonably priced, offering better quality food, better service and a wider variety of cuisines.
I know that this is starting to read like a bit of a Bord Failte Handout, Jack, and maybe your old Dad is looking at his native land through rose coloured glasses but it's how I see it all right now. Maybe it'll change as time goes on. We'll see.
All the best,
Dad
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Duck - Final Instalment
He arrived at the nest, a low circular mat with low twig walls, resting on a bed of dead reeds which he had patiently collected from around the river. Never too many from any one place. Always the cautious one, it took longer but he knew it was worthwhile. It was a good solid nest which had endured many a stormy night and would endure many more too.
She was looking at him as he dumped the food on top of the nest wall in front of her. She had, of course, been aware of his approach before she had seen him. Together they gave the food to the four young ducklings gathered around her flanks. This had been his fifth time going out to look for food today and they gobbled it down voraciously. He felt that they were growing fast, much faster than he had grown as a young duckling.
He had retained a small piece of greenery for her and himself which she took from him gratefully for she was hungry. He looked at her for a moment, their heads close and nuzzled the feathers on her neck gently. Then he turned and paddled back down the path to begin again his search for food. He looked back and was pleased again to note how well hidden the nest was.
It had been a good idea to move here after their other nest had been destroyed by that big, fast, false thing. It had been too hard and smooth to be an animal, although he thought that he had seen animals on its back or were they inside its belly? It had churned up the water so much that a great surge of water had picked up the nest and smashed it against a tree root.
It was lucky that she and the ducklings had been swimming further up the river when it happened. He had been the only one to see it. Still this was a good place to live, for a while anyway and...he stopped, “where are all the fr?” CRAAACK!
The smoke from Jimmy’s rifle was blue in the heat haze. “Go boy” he urged his Labrador and the dog obediently slid into the water, swam to the other side and returned with the dead duck in his mouth. Jimmy examined the carcass. “Got him in the neck. Good, nothing worse than duck meat tasting of lead shot.” He threw the duck into the heavy canvas bag at his side and turning, tramped away, calling the dog to heel.
She waited anxiously, wondering where he was. Hoping that that loud sound and the bark noise didn’t spell trouble. The Ducklings were getting hungry again, but still she waited..... She waited.
She was looking at him as he dumped the food on top of the nest wall in front of her. She had, of course, been aware of his approach before she had seen him. Together they gave the food to the four young ducklings gathered around her flanks. This had been his fifth time going out to look for food today and they gobbled it down voraciously. He felt that they were growing fast, much faster than he had grown as a young duckling.
He had retained a small piece of greenery for her and himself which she took from him gratefully for she was hungry. He looked at her for a moment, their heads close and nuzzled the feathers on her neck gently. Then he turned and paddled back down the path to begin again his search for food. He looked back and was pleased again to note how well hidden the nest was.
It had been a good idea to move here after their other nest had been destroyed by that big, fast, false thing. It had been too hard and smooth to be an animal, although he thought that he had seen animals on its back or were they inside its belly? It had churned up the water so much that a great surge of water had picked up the nest and smashed it against a tree root.
It was lucky that she and the ducklings had been swimming further up the river when it happened. He had been the only one to see it. Still this was a good place to live, for a while anyway and...he stopped, “where are all the fr?” CRAAACK!
The smoke from Jimmy’s rifle was blue in the heat haze. “Go boy” he urged his Labrador and the dog obediently slid into the water, swam to the other side and returned with the dead duck in his mouth. Jimmy examined the carcass. “Got him in the neck. Good, nothing worse than duck meat tasting of lead shot.” He threw the duck into the heavy canvas bag at his side and turning, tramped away, calling the dog to heel.
She waited anxiously, wondering where he was. Hoping that that loud sound and the bark noise didn’t spell trouble. The Ducklings were getting hungry again, but still she waited..... She waited.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Duck - First instalment
He moved slowly into the middle of the stream, feeling the slight increase in pull on his webbed feet from the stronger current. Reeds on both sides sheltered his progress from erratic wisps of Autumn winds.
He looked around him, not too casually, as he paddled along, making sure that there were no unfriendly creatures about. He’d had a nasty brush with a big brown and white barker last year because he hadn’t been on his guard when he was swimming along like this. That had been a lucky escape. The next occasion might not be so lucky, so it was best to be cautious.
He moved into midstream now, having left the reedy streamlet where he made his home. All this area is full of reeds now, he thought, great for camouflage, very marshy. I wonder does it have anything to do with that big false thing downriver. It certainly makes a lot of noise.
The water around him was gold speckled and he wondered did he look golden like that, too, when the Sun shone on him. He worried about it because it would make hiding very difficult if he shone like that. Still the Sun didn’t shine every day and when it did he could hide from it too, but it wouldn’t be very pleasant because he liked to be out in the Sun. It was warm and bright and it made everything thing he saw look more colourful and more cheerful than usual.
He felt the Sun’s heat fade from his back as he moved into the shadow of the great-sized trees that overhung the far bank and filtered the rays of the sun turning it into a cooler green dappled light. The water wasn’t golden or clear over here. It was dark and murky but it held the choicest and most tender bits of greenery and he knew it.
He was going to bring her back the nicest food he could find, to show her what a good mate she had got and to celebrate her first day on the river. Well on this stretch of it anyway.
He carefully selected the nicest pieces of vegetation he could find, stuffing his beak so much that he had to bend his head forward to see out over the top of it. He moved to the edge of the shade cast by the trees and carefully scanned the far bank and each end of the river, upstream and downstream and finally skyward.
Everything seemed calm, normal. Plenty of flies around and more importantly frogs to eat them. That was a good sign. Frogs were always the first to get out of the way at the first sign of trouble.
He paddled back out into the stretch of gold carpeted water again, more alert this time, realising that the burden in his beak would slow him down and hinder any sudden movements he might need to make. Finally he reached the reed-fronted entrance of the lazy little tributary where his home and mate were hidden.
About 20 yards up the little tongue of water he turned right abruptly and disappeared into the reeds following a twisty path that was just wide enough to allow him to swim past without touching the tall waving reeds that waved, acting too as his protector from any alert predatory eyes. He always followed this path even though it would be shorter to go directly to the nest, so as to avoid breaking or moving the reeds and create any telltale signposts to where his nest might be hidden.
He looked around him, not too casually, as he paddled along, making sure that there were no unfriendly creatures about. He’d had a nasty brush with a big brown and white barker last year because he hadn’t been on his guard when he was swimming along like this. That had been a lucky escape. The next occasion might not be so lucky, so it was best to be cautious.
He moved into midstream now, having left the reedy streamlet where he made his home. All this area is full of reeds now, he thought, great for camouflage, very marshy. I wonder does it have anything to do with that big false thing downriver. It certainly makes a lot of noise.
The water around him was gold speckled and he wondered did he look golden like that, too, when the Sun shone on him. He worried about it because it would make hiding very difficult if he shone like that. Still the Sun didn’t shine every day and when it did he could hide from it too, but it wouldn’t be very pleasant because he liked to be out in the Sun. It was warm and bright and it made everything thing he saw look more colourful and more cheerful than usual.
He felt the Sun’s heat fade from his back as he moved into the shadow of the great-sized trees that overhung the far bank and filtered the rays of the sun turning it into a cooler green dappled light. The water wasn’t golden or clear over here. It was dark and murky but it held the choicest and most tender bits of greenery and he knew it.
He was going to bring her back the nicest food he could find, to show her what a good mate she had got and to celebrate her first day on the river. Well on this stretch of it anyway.
He carefully selected the nicest pieces of vegetation he could find, stuffing his beak so much that he had to bend his head forward to see out over the top of it. He moved to the edge of the shade cast by the trees and carefully scanned the far bank and each end of the river, upstream and downstream and finally skyward.
Everything seemed calm, normal. Plenty of flies around and more importantly frogs to eat them. That was a good sign. Frogs were always the first to get out of the way at the first sign of trouble.
He paddled back out into the stretch of gold carpeted water again, more alert this time, realising that the burden in his beak would slow him down and hinder any sudden movements he might need to make. Finally he reached the reed-fronted entrance of the lazy little tributary where his home and mate were hidden.
About 20 yards up the little tongue of water he turned right abruptly and disappeared into the reeds following a twisty path that was just wide enough to allow him to swim past without touching the tall waving reeds that waved, acting too as his protector from any alert predatory eyes. He always followed this path even though it would be shorter to go directly to the nest, so as to avoid breaking or moving the reeds and create any telltale signposts to where his nest might be hidden.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
SPRINGER - (the last bit)
After school Johnny made his way to University, studying in Cork. Johnny was half-way through his final year and the Hilary term was just ending. March and April were very warm and balmy that year. The College was looking beautiful. Spring was a time of year when everything seemed young and vibrant, alive and full of promise, Johnny thought and this was a particularly lovely Spring.
He woke up one Tuesday morning, just as Dawn began to nudge the night over the horizon. He had been in the middle of a bizarre, morbid dream which had started with him flying over a darkened,sleeping landscape. The sensation of flying had felt so real, so tangible, that he could remember the physical sensations vividly and with rare precision. He had been flying for some time, when up ahead he saw a silvery-grey line on the horizon, the sea. The lights of a town began to appear, It looked familiar, very familiar. Then he had it. It was Kilkee. He had spent many a summer holiday there as a child.
He began to lose height, and came in low towards a caravan. Everything else faded into a homogenous grey mass. Buildings, lights, trees all greying out and blurring until there was only the caravan. As he approached it, the roof and side of the caravan closest to him dissolved into nothing and he could see inside. There was a coffin in the middle of the caravan. It was lying on a table, with its top open. Sean was lying inside, his arms crossed on his chest, and his face as white as his shirt collar. An odd thought came into his head. "Where does the shirt begin, and the neck end?" Johnny wondered. They seemed as one, so pale was Sean's flesh. Bleached as it were in preparation for Death's coming. He could hear an old man's voice repeating quietly, "Puir Springer, the puir man." Then the corpse opened it's eyes, and raising it's heavy arms, slowly extended them toward Johnny as if expecting an embrace. He became aware of a whispering inside his head. A thought not his own, alien to him, put there, not born, not innate. "Here, come here. Closer Kid. Come and talk." Johnny recoiled. Fear seized him, sudden and vicelike and he fell from the sky.
He bolted up, awake but still in the grip of this falling sensation and grabbed the sides of the bed in terror. His mind full of what he had just experienced. He got up and dressed quickly went downstairs and out. He got into his small, white car and started to drive, heading for the coast. When he reached a large, wide beach he knew well, he pulled up. Johnny rested his chin on the wheel, and looked out at the distant waterline, now at it's farthest out point. "Sean's dead" he thought . Convinced of this, after a moment he got out and strolled along the deserted beach, alone in his sadness. Sorrow walked beside him as he mourned the death of a man who, in a strange and intangible yet very definite way, meant a great deal to him. Some hours later, when the sun had fully risen, he returned to the city and went to his lectures. All through the day, at the back of his mind, was that sense of forboding that is peculiar to those who are cursed with foreknowledge of an imminent, inevitable event, and are powerless to avert it.
At 9pm that evening, in the bar of the University's Men's Club, he glanced up from his drink and through the circle of his friends, saw a face on a newspaper that he knew too well. A terrible dread overwhelmed him as he stood up and walked over to the girl with the paper. He stood behind her and, looking over her shoulder, quickly read the obituary. His face went white and he left the bar immediately, unnoticed by his friends. Once outside Johnny kept walking and didn't stop until he reached the "Lee Fields", a large , open , grassy area upriver from the University. The river was high that night, and he stopped and stood watching the murky water flow swiftly by with scarcely a murmur.
He thought that he understood it a little better now. If Sean had never meant anything to Johnny, he wouldn't have dreamt about him. As it was, when Sean's life was snuffed out like a candle Johnny had felt the absence of it's heat, it's light.
"There was a sort of link between Sean and I," he thought. "So when that was snapped, I felt it, the way twins can sometimes feel each other's pain and joy, each other's emotions." He felt like a man groping his way in the dark towards a distant light, and it was going to take a while to get there, and, finished grieving, he began to miss Sean, his brother.
He woke up one Tuesday morning, just as Dawn began to nudge the night over the horizon. He had been in the middle of a bizarre, morbid dream which had started with him flying over a darkened,sleeping landscape. The sensation of flying had felt so real, so tangible, that he could remember the physical sensations vividly and with rare precision. He had been flying for some time, when up ahead he saw a silvery-grey line on the horizon, the sea. The lights of a town began to appear, It looked familiar, very familiar. Then he had it. It was Kilkee. He had spent many a summer holiday there as a child.
He began to lose height, and came in low towards a caravan. Everything else faded into a homogenous grey mass. Buildings, lights, trees all greying out and blurring until there was only the caravan. As he approached it, the roof and side of the caravan closest to him dissolved into nothing and he could see inside. There was a coffin in the middle of the caravan. It was lying on a table, with its top open. Sean was lying inside, his arms crossed on his chest, and his face as white as his shirt collar. An odd thought came into his head. "Where does the shirt begin, and the neck end?" Johnny wondered. They seemed as one, so pale was Sean's flesh. Bleached as it were in preparation for Death's coming. He could hear an old man's voice repeating quietly, "Puir Springer, the puir man." Then the corpse opened it's eyes, and raising it's heavy arms, slowly extended them toward Johnny as if expecting an embrace. He became aware of a whispering inside his head. A thought not his own, alien to him, put there, not born, not innate. "Here, come here. Closer Kid. Come and talk." Johnny recoiled. Fear seized him, sudden and vicelike and he fell from the sky.
He bolted up, awake but still in the grip of this falling sensation and grabbed the sides of the bed in terror. His mind full of what he had just experienced. He got up and dressed quickly went downstairs and out. He got into his small, white car and started to drive, heading for the coast. When he reached a large, wide beach he knew well, he pulled up. Johnny rested his chin on the wheel, and looked out at the distant waterline, now at it's farthest out point. "Sean's dead" he thought . Convinced of this, after a moment he got out and strolled along the deserted beach, alone in his sadness. Sorrow walked beside him as he mourned the death of a man who, in a strange and intangible yet very definite way, meant a great deal to him. Some hours later, when the sun had fully risen, he returned to the city and went to his lectures. All through the day, at the back of his mind, was that sense of forboding that is peculiar to those who are cursed with foreknowledge of an imminent, inevitable event, and are powerless to avert it.
At 9pm that evening, in the bar of the University's Men's Club, he glanced up from his drink and through the circle of his friends, saw a face on a newspaper that he knew too well. A terrible dread overwhelmed him as he stood up and walked over to the girl with the paper. He stood behind her and, looking over her shoulder, quickly read the obituary. His face went white and he left the bar immediately, unnoticed by his friends. Once outside Johnny kept walking and didn't stop until he reached the "Lee Fields", a large , open , grassy area upriver from the University. The river was high that night, and he stopped and stood watching the murky water flow swiftly by with scarcely a murmur.
He thought that he understood it a little better now. If Sean had never meant anything to Johnny, he wouldn't have dreamt about him. As it was, when Sean's life was snuffed out like a candle Johnny had felt the absence of it's heat, it's light.
"There was a sort of link between Sean and I," he thought. "So when that was snapped, I felt it, the way twins can sometimes feel each other's pain and joy, each other's emotions." He felt like a man groping his way in the dark towards a distant light, and it was going to take a while to get there, and, finished grieving, he began to miss Sean, his brother.
SPRINGER - (the third bit)
After the escape Sean and George Blake hid out quite close to Wormwood Scrubs, until it was possible to smuggle Blake out of Britain and into East Germany, with Sean following soon afterwards via the notorious Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. Sean was quickly flown from East Berlin to Moscow by his K.G.B. hosts and Moscow was to remain his base for the remainder of his stay in Russia. However Sean did tour Russia on a few occasions, with Blake, on his own and with Larisa, a beautiful young student with whom he apparently had an affair. He was accompanied by K.G.B. minders on every occasion except the last two, both of which he spent with Larisa; which raises the possibility of her being a K.G.B. agent (otherwise why would they have been allowed to go off on their own unescorted by any security personnel?). Sean became disillusioned with George Blake after he moved into Blake's Moscow flat. The London Blake and the Moscow Blake appeared to be two different people.
It is clear that Blake despised Sean Bourke and merely used him as a pawn in the furtherance of his own plans, to be discarded once his objectives had been achieved, but what he hadn't planned on was Sean's popularity with their Russian hosts. Blake saw Sean as "an Irish Peasant", merely a convenient lever with which to pry open the prison bars of Wormwood Scrubs. He tried to convey the impression of Sean as a stupid bumbler to the K.G.B.. He appears not to have convinced them, but the portrait of Sean that he painted did influence them somewhat in their dealings with the Irishman, an attitude which Sean subsequently used to his advantage.
After a while Sean's relations with Blake deteriorated drastically, and to such an extent that once he realized that Blake was spying on him and reporting everything he said or did back to the K.G.B., he decided to reciprocate in kind. It was as a result of this reciprocal surveillance that Sean overheard Blake suggest to a high-ranking K.G.B. officer that Sean should be disposed of. Blake had mooted the idea as one of two alternatives, but left the K.G.B. officer in no doubt as to which of the alternatives he personally preferred. Horrified by this episode Sean went to a British Embassy and tried to give himself up. He was turned away. Convinced that he was scheduled for death, Sean hid out for in a forest on the outskirts of Moscow for two days before returning to the flat he shared with Blake. Yet he managed to turn a potentially disastrous episode to his advantage by saying that he had acted thus as a result of his desperation to return to Ireland and "take his chances". It worked and the K.G.B. agreed to make arrangements for him to leave Russia.
Some time later in his Moscow hotel room, bored, drunk and lonely, Sean rang his brother Kevin in Scotland. He told Kevin of his intention to return to Ireland and invited him to Moscow to discuss matters. Once again he had upset the K.G.B. and once again their subsequent behaviour was at odds with the evil-bogeyman image which the Western media espoused during the Cold War and continues to this day. That is not to say that Sean was pro-K.G.B., he could see the organization for what it was. He disliked it's raison -d'etre, policies and their effects, yet he liked and seemed to be liked in return by the individual members of it, with whom he came into contact. It must be said, however, that the Soviet way of life and Sean's attitude to life were like oil and water. Society in Soviet Russia society was tightly ordered and closely monitored and Sean was a life-long 'professional rule-breaker'. By all accounts however, he appeared to have endeared himself to his Russian hosts. They certainly put up with a lot from him. In a country where the ability to hold one's liquor is admired, Sean's phenomenal capacity was possibly of help to him. On a personal level then, he certainly got on very well with those Russians that he met.
It is an indication of their regard for Sean that, when he had his brother try to smuggle his manuscript out of Russia when Kevin was leaving, the K.G.B., informed in advance of this attempt, merely confiscated the manuscript (which held some highly critical views of the Soviet Union), searched Kevin, let him go, admonished Sean mildly, and then 'volunteered to ring Kevin in Scotland and let Sean talk to him to to re-assure him as to Sean's well-being subsequent to the event. The two Bourkes used this telephone conversation as an opportunity to put further pressure on the K.G.B., who they were sure would be listening in to the conversation, to expedite Sean's exit from Russia .
It is probable and indeed more realistic that this lack of reaction to Sean's less than exemplary conduct was merely good Public Relations policy on the K.G.B.'s behalf. Yet, they could have easily made life much more difficult for Sean without unduly affecting any good or bad press they might have got. It might be argued that concern over what Sean might say once he reached the West was what motivated them, but they could have solved that problem by keeping him in Russia, or alternatively, discrediting , or arranging a fatal accident for him prior to or upon his arrival in the West. No, in retrospect, the most likely reason was that Sean did not, in the eyes of the K.G.B., constitute any threat to Russian interests.
So, on the 21st of October, 1968, Sean left Russian soil forever. He arrived in Shannon Airport the following day, exactly two years after he 'sprang' George Blake from Wormwood Scrubs. Nine days later he was arrested by the Irish police and held in custody pending extradition to Britain. However Kevin and Seans' solicitors were well prepared. A writ was immediately issued to prevent Sean's extradition until the extradition order could be appealed. It was appealed and in January of the following year the Irish High Court held that the Extradition Act did not apply in Sean's case due to the political nature of the crime, and he was accordingly released. In July, the State appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of Ireland. The State's appeal was denied. Sean had won.
Johnny closed the book, put it into a plastic bag and returned it to the library. The following day he went on holidays with his friends -camping outside the village of Ardmore in County Waterford. Johnny's friends were surprised at how quiet and withdrawn he was for the first couple of weeks, but as the holiday wore on he returned to his normal self. As time passed he continued to hear snippets of news regarding Sean, but did not meet him again, himself. The news was never encouraging. Sean was still drinking heavily and by all accounts increasingly less well off financially.
It is clear that Blake despised Sean Bourke and merely used him as a pawn in the furtherance of his own plans, to be discarded once his objectives had been achieved, but what he hadn't planned on was Sean's popularity with their Russian hosts. Blake saw Sean as "an Irish Peasant", merely a convenient lever with which to pry open the prison bars of Wormwood Scrubs. He tried to convey the impression of Sean as a stupid bumbler to the K.G.B.. He appears not to have convinced them, but the portrait of Sean that he painted did influence them somewhat in their dealings with the Irishman, an attitude which Sean subsequently used to his advantage.
After a while Sean's relations with Blake deteriorated drastically, and to such an extent that once he realized that Blake was spying on him and reporting everything he said or did back to the K.G.B., he decided to reciprocate in kind. It was as a result of this reciprocal surveillance that Sean overheard Blake suggest to a high-ranking K.G.B. officer that Sean should be disposed of. Blake had mooted the idea as one of two alternatives, but left the K.G.B. officer in no doubt as to which of the alternatives he personally preferred. Horrified by this episode Sean went to a British Embassy and tried to give himself up. He was turned away. Convinced that he was scheduled for death, Sean hid out for in a forest on the outskirts of Moscow for two days before returning to the flat he shared with Blake. Yet he managed to turn a potentially disastrous episode to his advantage by saying that he had acted thus as a result of his desperation to return to Ireland and "take his chances". It worked and the K.G.B. agreed to make arrangements for him to leave Russia.
Some time later in his Moscow hotel room, bored, drunk and lonely, Sean rang his brother Kevin in Scotland. He told Kevin of his intention to return to Ireland and invited him to Moscow to discuss matters. Once again he had upset the K.G.B. and once again their subsequent behaviour was at odds with the evil-bogeyman image which the Western media espoused during the Cold War and continues to this day. That is not to say that Sean was pro-K.G.B., he could see the organization for what it was. He disliked it's raison -d'etre, policies and their effects, yet he liked and seemed to be liked in return by the individual members of it, with whom he came into contact. It must be said, however, that the Soviet way of life and Sean's attitude to life were like oil and water. Society in Soviet Russia society was tightly ordered and closely monitored and Sean was a life-long 'professional rule-breaker'. By all accounts however, he appeared to have endeared himself to his Russian hosts. They certainly put up with a lot from him. In a country where the ability to hold one's liquor is admired, Sean's phenomenal capacity was possibly of help to him. On a personal level then, he certainly got on very well with those Russians that he met.
It is an indication of their regard for Sean that, when he had his brother try to smuggle his manuscript out of Russia when Kevin was leaving, the K.G.B., informed in advance of this attempt, merely confiscated the manuscript (which held some highly critical views of the Soviet Union), searched Kevin, let him go, admonished Sean mildly, and then 'volunteered to ring Kevin in Scotland and let Sean talk to him to to re-assure him as to Sean's well-being subsequent to the event. The two Bourkes used this telephone conversation as an opportunity to put further pressure on the K.G.B., who they were sure would be listening in to the conversation, to expedite Sean's exit from Russia .
It is probable and indeed more realistic that this lack of reaction to Sean's less than exemplary conduct was merely good Public Relations policy on the K.G.B.'s behalf. Yet, they could have easily made life much more difficult for Sean without unduly affecting any good or bad press they might have got. It might be argued that concern over what Sean might say once he reached the West was what motivated them, but they could have solved that problem by keeping him in Russia, or alternatively, discrediting , or arranging a fatal accident for him prior to or upon his arrival in the West. No, in retrospect, the most likely reason was that Sean did not, in the eyes of the K.G.B., constitute any threat to Russian interests.
So, on the 21st of October, 1968, Sean left Russian soil forever. He arrived in Shannon Airport the following day, exactly two years after he 'sprang' George Blake from Wormwood Scrubs. Nine days later he was arrested by the Irish police and held in custody pending extradition to Britain. However Kevin and Seans' solicitors were well prepared. A writ was immediately issued to prevent Sean's extradition until the extradition order could be appealed. It was appealed and in January of the following year the Irish High Court held that the Extradition Act did not apply in Sean's case due to the political nature of the crime, and he was accordingly released. In July, the State appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of Ireland. The State's appeal was denied. Sean had won.
Johnny closed the book, put it into a plastic bag and returned it to the library. The following day he went on holidays with his friends -camping outside the village of Ardmore in County Waterford. Johnny's friends were surprised at how quiet and withdrawn he was for the first couple of weeks, but as the holiday wore on he returned to his normal self. As time passed he continued to hear snippets of news regarding Sean, but did not meet him again, himself. The news was never encouraging. Sean was still drinking heavily and by all accounts increasingly less well off financially.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
SPRINGER - (the second bit)
It was four years before Johnny saw Sean Bourke again. He was in 5th Year in school and he and a few friends were ensconced in a public house in the city one warm night towards the end of June. They were young to be drinking alcohol, but as far as they were concerned that fact just added a bit of excitement to the proceedings. By closing time they had decided to grab a burger, and head for a disco in one of the local Rugby clubs, there to continue their heated discussion on the various occurrences of note during the School Year just gone, in between chasing after any young ladies present at the proceedings. They made a somewhat rowdy exit from the pub, turned right and headed en-masse up the street, some singing, some shouting, some arguing loudly in a bunch, and one or two stragglers quietly chatting and bringing up the rear.
Johnny and his friend Willy, comprised this rearguard. They hadn't taken five steps when their way was blocked by a boisterous group of adults issuing forth from the door of the neighbouring pub, Ma Hogan's, as it was known. The two lads walked quickly around them to catch up with their friends. As he walked past Johnny looked curiously at these extremely drunk people. He was not being rude or even nosey. To think so would be a mistake, rather he was possessed of a keen interest in people, and such keenness and enthusiasm allied to his youth's lack of subtlety must stand as reason enough for any false impressions gained thus. It was people, people of all shapes and sizes, from all walks of Life, that earned his eye's attention. He would watch them, trying to find reasons for their behaviours, to see inside their minds, to feel or at least try to identify the emotions they were experiencing. In short, people fascinated him, but in a warm, human way, not coldly or clinically as an objective scientist might perhaps approach his prey.
A pair of bloodshot eyes caught and held his, then looked away quickly, almost guiltily, as if ashamed of the state they were in. Recognition hit him like a bolt. It was Sean. Sean Bourke, surrounded by his drunken courtiers. Johnny was astounded. Noticing his friend's step slowing, Willy grabbed him firmly by the arm, saying "come on you drunken bum or we'll never catch up" and bustled him up the street. Johnny, too preoccupied to resist, moved with his friend. Yet as he did so, turned his head to look back. Sean was looking at him, with that mocking half-smile of his and grinning still he shrugged his shoulders as though saying in a mysterious, silent language, known only to the two of them, that things were out of his control, and he was caught up by forces greater than himself which would decide his fate,regardless of his desires . It was the last time Johnny would ever see him alive.
Some time afterwards Johnny mentioned the incident to his father. "He made a lot of money out of the book he wrote on the escape from Wormwood Scrubs and his time in Russia," his father said with a shake of his head, "and he has acquired a load of fair-weather friends' who are helping him to drink it all as fast as they can. It's all in the way of good fellowship, of course," he concluded with an angry sarcasm. Johnny wondered how you identified such people amongst your friends, and queried the point with his father, who was one of his most important sources of information and advice. "You only know them when the chips are down," came the cryptic reply from behind the morning paper.
Johnny finished his breakfast, threw on a duffel coat and left the house. He walked down the street, turned right and then left, to emerge into a large, open, square known as Pery's Square. It was more like a long rectangle than a square really, with the People's Park on one side and a row of graceful,old,red-bricked houses on the other. "The People's Park," Johnny thought with a wry smile. "Long live the Revolution, Comrades!" He entered a grey, stone building on the park side of the square, the City Library. After a short while, he found what he was looking for and approached the librarian's desk. He handed the girl the book and his library ticket. "You're very lucky, y'know," she smiled at him. "It's a very popular book, and rarely on the shelves as we don't have too many copies left. Usually there's a waiting list as long as your arm for it, but demand has slackened off in the last few days." "Why so few copies left?" he asked curiously. "Stolen," she replied in an offhand way, preoccupied with checking out his book to him. "Oh, well I've got a day or two to kill before I go on my holidays, so it'll fill the gap just nicely," said Johnny, smiling as he tucked the book under his arm.
He left the library, collected a few messages for his mother in town, and returned home. Thinking on his way home how "collecting the messages" in Limerick was "running errands" somewhere else in the world and considered how such a simple task was differently described in most vernaculars. Now that the sun was higher in the sky, the early coolness had gone out of the morning, so Johnny put on a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt, went out into their spacious back-garden with a deck-chair, sat down and started to read Sean's book.
Sean had been sent to Wormwood Scrubs Prison in London for allegedly sending a letter-bomb to a British policeman. While in prison he took an active part in the organized activities for the prisoners. He seems to have been a good prisoner and was editor of the prison magazine. One day towards the end of his sentence he was approached by George Blake, a pleasant enough fellow Sean had gotten to know reasonably well. Despite being convicted of betraying his country, Blake was not disliked by the other inmates, his charm and apparent friendliness helping in no small way. When he had satisfied himself that they couldn't be overheard Blake made his request: "I am asking you, Sean, to help me escape. Think it over for a few days." Sean stopped abruptly and turned to face him. "George," he said, "I don't have to think it over. I'm your man."
Why did Sean agree so readily? After all his own sentence was almost over. Why mess things up now when freedom was so near? Various factors appeared to have influenced Sean's decision. He liked Blake and they got on well. The lengthiness of Blake's sentence was also in his favour as the length of one's sentence is an important criterion for determining one's standing and the measure of respect one receives in the prisoners' social hierarchy (i.e. the longer the sentence, the greater the standing, respect, and indeed sympathy one receives from other prisoners). Another important point in Blake's favour was that in Sean's eyes he was not an ordinary criminal, but a prisoner of conscience, a man imprisoned for acting on his political beliefs. Sean's main reason however, was that he saw the dangerous attempt as an opportunity to strike a blow against Authority, against that centralized control of Society, whose attempts to shape the behaviour of the individual took the form of codified norms, rules and laws; things with which Sean would always come into conflict, as by their very nature they would try to fetter the wild and free spirit that defined him. Blake's plight also appealed to that innate love of causes, lost or otherwise, that runs deep in some of the more adventurous and passionate members of the Irish race, to which Sean was certainly no exception.
Sean could drink 12 small ones in the space of half an hour, and his first day on parole, he did exactly that. He had 6 double whiskeys and a meal chaser. The second day out he drank a full bottle. The day after he called to his girlfriend, (who apparently hadn't once written to him in prison ), to discover that she was married with a son. He told her that she would probably never know how lucky she was. From then on there were no obstacles to deter him. He began to plan the escape. It was a simple and effective plan and though parts of it went horribly wrong, luck and Sean's devil-may-care audacity were on their side .
Sean's writing seemed stiff and carefully structured at first, as though some publisher's editor had stood over him with a grammar book and whip making him re-write. Yet one could almost feel Sean's pen relax as he recalled the week he spent in Limerick immediately prior to the escape attempt. Bawdy humour and mirth filled the pages of the hitherto neat but cold narrative. It was a bittersweet mood, though , tinged with that sadness, that fond objectivity that haunts our emigre brothers and sisters on their return. It is the price exacted from them, in return for permission to leave and seek a better life, that when they return, those of them cursed with the intelligence to see are forced to compare the reality in front of their eyes with their memories; their perception of one mercilessly destroying their vision of the other, the reality of the present Ireland obliterating their tender, nostalgic remembrance of the Ireland of the past, their past.
Johnny and his friend Willy, comprised this rearguard. They hadn't taken five steps when their way was blocked by a boisterous group of adults issuing forth from the door of the neighbouring pub, Ma Hogan's, as it was known. The two lads walked quickly around them to catch up with their friends. As he walked past Johnny looked curiously at these extremely drunk people. He was not being rude or even nosey. To think so would be a mistake, rather he was possessed of a keen interest in people, and such keenness and enthusiasm allied to his youth's lack of subtlety must stand as reason enough for any false impressions gained thus. It was people, people of all shapes and sizes, from all walks of Life, that earned his eye's attention. He would watch them, trying to find reasons for their behaviours, to see inside their minds, to feel or at least try to identify the emotions they were experiencing. In short, people fascinated him, but in a warm, human way, not coldly or clinically as an objective scientist might perhaps approach his prey.
A pair of bloodshot eyes caught and held his, then looked away quickly, almost guiltily, as if ashamed of the state they were in. Recognition hit him like a bolt. It was Sean. Sean Bourke, surrounded by his drunken courtiers. Johnny was astounded. Noticing his friend's step slowing, Willy grabbed him firmly by the arm, saying "come on you drunken bum or we'll never catch up" and bustled him up the street. Johnny, too preoccupied to resist, moved with his friend. Yet as he did so, turned his head to look back. Sean was looking at him, with that mocking half-smile of his and grinning still he shrugged his shoulders as though saying in a mysterious, silent language, known only to the two of them, that things were out of his control, and he was caught up by forces greater than himself which would decide his fate,regardless of his desires . It was the last time Johnny would ever see him alive.
Some time afterwards Johnny mentioned the incident to his father. "He made a lot of money out of the book he wrote on the escape from Wormwood Scrubs and his time in Russia," his father said with a shake of his head, "and he has acquired a load of fair-weather friends' who are helping him to drink it all as fast as they can. It's all in the way of good fellowship, of course," he concluded with an angry sarcasm. Johnny wondered how you identified such people amongst your friends, and queried the point with his father, who was one of his most important sources of information and advice. "You only know them when the chips are down," came the cryptic reply from behind the morning paper.
Johnny finished his breakfast, threw on a duffel coat and left the house. He walked down the street, turned right and then left, to emerge into a large, open, square known as Pery's Square. It was more like a long rectangle than a square really, with the People's Park on one side and a row of graceful,old,red-bricked houses on the other. "The People's Park," Johnny thought with a wry smile. "Long live the Revolution, Comrades!" He entered a grey, stone building on the park side of the square, the City Library. After a short while, he found what he was looking for and approached the librarian's desk. He handed the girl the book and his library ticket. "You're very lucky, y'know," she smiled at him. "It's a very popular book, and rarely on the shelves as we don't have too many copies left. Usually there's a waiting list as long as your arm for it, but demand has slackened off in the last few days." "Why so few copies left?" he asked curiously. "Stolen," she replied in an offhand way, preoccupied with checking out his book to him. "Oh, well I've got a day or two to kill before I go on my holidays, so it'll fill the gap just nicely," said Johnny, smiling as he tucked the book under his arm.
He left the library, collected a few messages for his mother in town, and returned home. Thinking on his way home how "collecting the messages" in Limerick was "running errands" somewhere else in the world and considered how such a simple task was differently described in most vernaculars. Now that the sun was higher in the sky, the early coolness had gone out of the morning, so Johnny put on a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt, went out into their spacious back-garden with a deck-chair, sat down and started to read Sean's book.
Sean had been sent to Wormwood Scrubs Prison in London for allegedly sending a letter-bomb to a British policeman. While in prison he took an active part in the organized activities for the prisoners. He seems to have been a good prisoner and was editor of the prison magazine. One day towards the end of his sentence he was approached by George Blake, a pleasant enough fellow Sean had gotten to know reasonably well. Despite being convicted of betraying his country, Blake was not disliked by the other inmates, his charm and apparent friendliness helping in no small way. When he had satisfied himself that they couldn't be overheard Blake made his request: "I am asking you, Sean, to help me escape. Think it over for a few days." Sean stopped abruptly and turned to face him. "George," he said, "I don't have to think it over. I'm your man."
Why did Sean agree so readily? After all his own sentence was almost over. Why mess things up now when freedom was so near? Various factors appeared to have influenced Sean's decision. He liked Blake and they got on well. The lengthiness of Blake's sentence was also in his favour as the length of one's sentence is an important criterion for determining one's standing and the measure of respect one receives in the prisoners' social hierarchy (i.e. the longer the sentence, the greater the standing, respect, and indeed sympathy one receives from other prisoners). Another important point in Blake's favour was that in Sean's eyes he was not an ordinary criminal, but a prisoner of conscience, a man imprisoned for acting on his political beliefs. Sean's main reason however, was that he saw the dangerous attempt as an opportunity to strike a blow against Authority, against that centralized control of Society, whose attempts to shape the behaviour of the individual took the form of codified norms, rules and laws; things with which Sean would always come into conflict, as by their very nature they would try to fetter the wild and free spirit that defined him. Blake's plight also appealed to that innate love of causes, lost or otherwise, that runs deep in some of the more adventurous and passionate members of the Irish race, to which Sean was certainly no exception.
Sean could drink 12 small ones in the space of half an hour, and his first day on parole, he did exactly that. He had 6 double whiskeys and a meal chaser. The second day out he drank a full bottle. The day after he called to his girlfriend, (who apparently hadn't once written to him in prison ), to discover that she was married with a son. He told her that she would probably never know how lucky she was. From then on there were no obstacles to deter him. He began to plan the escape. It was a simple and effective plan and though parts of it went horribly wrong, luck and Sean's devil-may-care audacity were on their side .
Sean's writing seemed stiff and carefully structured at first, as though some publisher's editor had stood over him with a grammar book and whip making him re-write. Yet one could almost feel Sean's pen relax as he recalled the week he spent in Limerick immediately prior to the escape attempt. Bawdy humour and mirth filled the pages of the hitherto neat but cold narrative. It was a bittersweet mood, though , tinged with that sadness, that fond objectivity that haunts our emigre brothers and sisters on their return. It is the price exacted from them, in return for permission to leave and seek a better life, that when they return, those of them cursed with the intelligence to see are forced to compare the reality in front of their eyes with their memories; their perception of one mercilessly destroying their vision of the other, the reality of the present Ireland obliterating their tender, nostalgic remembrance of the Ireland of the past, their past.
SPRINGER - (the first bit)
‘He’s a cousin of yours, y'know" said his father that morning. “Who's that Dad?” The boy asked. His voice was muffled, it being stuffed with cornflakes .“Sean Bourke of course!” Answered his father. "And don't speak with your mouth full." The boy looked down at his bowl. "If I hadn't said a word he would've gotten narky over that. I can't win," he sighed. He lifted his head in time to hear his father say, “he's after helping a Russian spy to escape from Wormwood Scrubs prison in England. He seems to have gotten away with it too! " Is he from Limerick, Dad?" Johnny asked. “Yes", his father grunted from behind the paper. Then, after a long pause, "he's from Bengal Terrace, opposite the Graveyard”.
“Didja hear about the fella that got the Russian spy out of prison in England lads?" Willy asked in the yard at Eleven o'clock break. Before anyone could agree or disagree, Johnny piped up, “he’s my cousin”. "Sure” said John Fitz, sneering down at him through his glasses. “He is!” Johnny answered angrily. "My Dad said so this morning at breakfast . He's a distant cousin on Dad's side of the family”. The other tallish member of their gang (on whom so much depended when they were engaged in deadly battle against the boys in the class ahead, every Wednesday) said smiling "I'd say he's fairly distant all the same, eh?" “Well, kind of," Johnny agreed without much enthusiasm . Father Farquharson blew his whistle and the boys, chivvied by prefects, grudgingly formed lines to go into class. As he stood in his line, Johnny was lost in a world of his own, a habit that had made it's way onto several of his report cards. He was oblivious of his schoolmates roughly jostling each other. "I don't care," he said to himself. "I don't give a damn what anyone says. He's still my cousin."
Some years passed and Johnny, still in primary school, was busily developing a keen interest in sport. Rugby was his particular favorite, it being the school sport, and his older brother's forte (an important recommendation for anything as far as Johnny was concerned). The school’s rugby grounds were situated a mile or two outside the city and the boys would cycle out to them along a narrow country road chock-full of bends. This road was feared by local motorists because of the boys' erratic, high-spirited progress towards their beloved pitches (this crazy, fast and reckless cycle race was known to all and sundry as 'The Crescent Charge’).
Johnny was late leaving the school, which was to be found on the main street in the middle of town. He had been kept back for half an hour and made to write out lines for having talked in class. As he cycled slowly away from the school Johnny was not in a good mood. His leg still hurt from a knock he got in the match a few days beforehand and he was anticipating a chilly reception from the coach Father Hugo. "On the hand" he thought, "it could be a warm one. Too warm! I'll bet he makes me run around all the pitches an extra time for being late."
However, Johnny wasn't the type of lad to stay in a bad mood for very long. Boys of his age seldom are, and today's enemies become tomorrow's friends with amazing ease. Neasa Slattery waved hello to him as he went up O'Connell Avenue. He waved at her and roared "HOWIYA!" loudly, 'cos' he knew she would blush. He swerved wildly across the road in an effort to avoid Pompey, a huge white Pyrenean Mountain Sheepdog that belonged to one of the neighbours and was getting old. "Why don't people keep their dogs off the footpath" he thought as he navigated his way back from the centre of the road, trying all the while to ignore the irate drivers' shouts and hornblasts. He continued on his way, his spirits lifting with the exhiliration of a lively freewheel down Rosbrien Hill, and flashing past the last rows of houses before the country.
On turning the corner after the railway crossing Johnny looked up to see a fine, hefty sort of man with a stick and a dog walking towards him on the same side of the road. The boy smiled hello as he passed them, and then his gearbag fell off the back carrier. Johnny swore, managed to halt some yards up the road, and turned the bike around, hopping on one leg as he did so to keep his balance. The man had picked up his bag and walked towards him with an amused grin. "The spring on your carrier must be weak," he said pleasantly.
"Yerra 'tis a shitty carrier anyway." Johnny tried to hide his embarrasment by sounding tough as he jumped off the bike. The man's smile grew broader and his dog jumped up on it's hind legs, playfully pawing the boy's thigh. Johnny bent down and began to pat the dog's head and tickle it behind the ear. "He's nice and friendly," he said, looking up at the man towering over him. "He's never friendly to strangers," the man's voice sounded surprised. "I like animals. I get on well with them, unless they're in a bad mood. Then they bite you. I suppose it's their way of showing that they're pissed off," said Johnny matter-of-factly. "Do you live around here?" he asked the man. "Yes, in the cottage back there on the right," he pointed in the direction from which Johnny had just come. "What brings you out this road?" the man asked. "I play rugby in the grounds up the road," Johnny answered. " I'm on the school Under-10 Team," he added proudly, and then: "God, I'm late for practice . I'll be shot!" He jumped on the bike and tore off, steering with one hand and holding his kitbag with the other. "I'll be seeing you again so," the man called after him as he wobbled down the road. "Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, we train," Johnny yelled back over his shoulder .
From then on Johnny would stop and chat for a little while with the man, if he saw him on his way to the Rugby grounds. He took to leaving school as early as possible in order to chat longer. They talked only of important things, such as the local soccer team's progress, the Spurs V Arsenal match next Saturday, how Johnny's Rugby team was doing, and the ways of dogs, cats and other animals; things that a small boy and a tired man felt they had in common. Never swapping names, they just chatted.
This acquaintanceship continued, barring holidays and the like for a year or so, until Johnny was old enough to go to Secondary school, which turned out to be the recently built comprehensive. It was an ultra-modern place with it's own Rugby pitches encircling the school.
Johnny was driving through town with his father on a rainy February day during his first year at the comprehensive. He hadn't seen the man since June of the previous year, when he and some friends had gone out to the Rugby grounds to play some soccer after their last end-of-term exam. The two of them had sat on a grassy ditch by the side of the road, drinking in the sunshine and gazing at the occasional passing car without too much curiosity as they chatted. After a while one of Johnny's friends, a lad with an English accent by the name of Niall, came back for him to tell him to hurry up as the game had started. As he said good luck to the man and was cycling off in pursuit, Johnny noticed that the man was staring thoughtfully at Niall's fast receding back.
A long line of cars was stopped at the traffic lights, like a shiny wet worm glistening darkly in the grey February light. In the front car Johnny's father turned to him smiling and said "aren't I a fierce,terrible driver?" Grinning at this old family joke, Johnny was about to contest the point but stopped as his eye was caught by a large figure in a raincoat standing at the traffic lights, apparently waiting for the lights to turn so that he could cross. "Dad," he cried excitedly, when he realized who it was. "That's the man I was telling you about. The fella I meet on the way to Rugby practice." The lights changed in his father's favour just then and the car surged forward. His father glanced to he left at the man as they passed by, thought for a moment, then stated: "That's Sean Bourke!" Johnny looked back through the wet windscreen, thinking that the water running down the glass made the diminishing figure look as though
it was melting. "So that's him. Sean Bourke. I knew that there was something about him, something different, special," he thought to himself.
“Didja hear about the fella that got the Russian spy out of prison in England lads?" Willy asked in the yard at Eleven o'clock break. Before anyone could agree or disagree, Johnny piped up, “he’s my cousin”. "Sure” said John Fitz, sneering down at him through his glasses. “He is!” Johnny answered angrily. "My Dad said so this morning at breakfast . He's a distant cousin on Dad's side of the family”. The other tallish member of their gang (on whom so much depended when they were engaged in deadly battle against the boys in the class ahead, every Wednesday) said smiling "I'd say he's fairly distant all the same, eh?" “Well, kind of," Johnny agreed without much enthusiasm . Father Farquharson blew his whistle and the boys, chivvied by prefects, grudgingly formed lines to go into class. As he stood in his line, Johnny was lost in a world of his own, a habit that had made it's way onto several of his report cards. He was oblivious of his schoolmates roughly jostling each other. "I don't care," he said to himself. "I don't give a damn what anyone says. He's still my cousin."
Some years passed and Johnny, still in primary school, was busily developing a keen interest in sport. Rugby was his particular favorite, it being the school sport, and his older brother's forte (an important recommendation for anything as far as Johnny was concerned). The school’s rugby grounds were situated a mile or two outside the city and the boys would cycle out to them along a narrow country road chock-full of bends. This road was feared by local motorists because of the boys' erratic, high-spirited progress towards their beloved pitches (this crazy, fast and reckless cycle race was known to all and sundry as 'The Crescent Charge’).
Johnny was late leaving the school, which was to be found on the main street in the middle of town. He had been kept back for half an hour and made to write out lines for having talked in class. As he cycled slowly away from the school Johnny was not in a good mood. His leg still hurt from a knock he got in the match a few days beforehand and he was anticipating a chilly reception from the coach Father Hugo. "On the hand" he thought, "it could be a warm one. Too warm! I'll bet he makes me run around all the pitches an extra time for being late."
However, Johnny wasn't the type of lad to stay in a bad mood for very long. Boys of his age seldom are, and today's enemies become tomorrow's friends with amazing ease. Neasa Slattery waved hello to him as he went up O'Connell Avenue. He waved at her and roared "HOWIYA!" loudly, 'cos' he knew she would blush. He swerved wildly across the road in an effort to avoid Pompey, a huge white Pyrenean Mountain Sheepdog that belonged to one of the neighbours and was getting old. "Why don't people keep their dogs off the footpath" he thought as he navigated his way back from the centre of the road, trying all the while to ignore the irate drivers' shouts and hornblasts. He continued on his way, his spirits lifting with the exhiliration of a lively freewheel down Rosbrien Hill, and flashing past the last rows of houses before the country.
On turning the corner after the railway crossing Johnny looked up to see a fine, hefty sort of man with a stick and a dog walking towards him on the same side of the road. The boy smiled hello as he passed them, and then his gearbag fell off the back carrier. Johnny swore, managed to halt some yards up the road, and turned the bike around, hopping on one leg as he did so to keep his balance. The man had picked up his bag and walked towards him with an amused grin. "The spring on your carrier must be weak," he said pleasantly.
"Yerra 'tis a shitty carrier anyway." Johnny tried to hide his embarrasment by sounding tough as he jumped off the bike. The man's smile grew broader and his dog jumped up on it's hind legs, playfully pawing the boy's thigh. Johnny bent down and began to pat the dog's head and tickle it behind the ear. "He's nice and friendly," he said, looking up at the man towering over him. "He's never friendly to strangers," the man's voice sounded surprised. "I like animals. I get on well with them, unless they're in a bad mood. Then they bite you. I suppose it's their way of showing that they're pissed off," said Johnny matter-of-factly. "Do you live around here?" he asked the man. "Yes, in the cottage back there on the right," he pointed in the direction from which Johnny had just come. "What brings you out this road?" the man asked. "I play rugby in the grounds up the road," Johnny answered. " I'm on the school Under-10 Team," he added proudly, and then: "God, I'm late for practice . I'll be shot!" He jumped on the bike and tore off, steering with one hand and holding his kitbag with the other. "I'll be seeing you again so," the man called after him as he wobbled down the road. "Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, we train," Johnny yelled back over his shoulder .
From then on Johnny would stop and chat for a little while with the man, if he saw him on his way to the Rugby grounds. He took to leaving school as early as possible in order to chat longer. They talked only of important things, such as the local soccer team's progress, the Spurs V Arsenal match next Saturday, how Johnny's Rugby team was doing, and the ways of dogs, cats and other animals; things that a small boy and a tired man felt they had in common. Never swapping names, they just chatted.
This acquaintanceship continued, barring holidays and the like for a year or so, until Johnny was old enough to go to Secondary school, which turned out to be the recently built comprehensive. It was an ultra-modern place with it's own Rugby pitches encircling the school.
Johnny was driving through town with his father on a rainy February day during his first year at the comprehensive. He hadn't seen the man since June of the previous year, when he and some friends had gone out to the Rugby grounds to play some soccer after their last end-of-term exam. The two of them had sat on a grassy ditch by the side of the road, drinking in the sunshine and gazing at the occasional passing car without too much curiosity as they chatted. After a while one of Johnny's friends, a lad with an English accent by the name of Niall, came back for him to tell him to hurry up as the game had started. As he said good luck to the man and was cycling off in pursuit, Johnny noticed that the man was staring thoughtfully at Niall's fast receding back.
A long line of cars was stopped at the traffic lights, like a shiny wet worm glistening darkly in the grey February light. In the front car Johnny's father turned to him smiling and said "aren't I a fierce,terrible driver?" Grinning at this old family joke, Johnny was about to contest the point but stopped as his eye was caught by a large figure in a raincoat standing at the traffic lights, apparently waiting for the lights to turn so that he could cross. "Dad," he cried excitedly, when he realized who it was. "That's the man I was telling you about. The fella I meet on the way to Rugby practice." The lights changed in his father's favour just then and the car surged forward. His father glanced to he left at the man as they passed by, thought for a moment, then stated: "That's Sean Bourke!" Johnny looked back through the wet windscreen, thinking that the water running down the glass made the diminishing figure look as though
it was melting. "So that's him. Sean Bourke. I knew that there was something about him, something different, special," he thought to himself.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Not a poem for reading, but for declaiming loudly in the middle of Mother Redcaps pub in The Liberties, Dublin.
The Commuter
Ballymun,
Looks fabulous,
at night from the plane.
Like Torremolinos, or Ibiza,
On the Costa del Spain.
“Turn off yer mobiles”,
the Pilot lets a roar.
The gobshite in front
Makes it seem like a chore.
My stomach is somewhere
At the back of my spine,
as we climb steeply
with a tinny whine.
“What are you doing darlin’,
in London, tonight?”
says the gobshite to the stewardess.
How sad. How trite.
She smiles and walks on,
glad to pass by;
Makes him pay later with
hot coffee down his fly.
Up another hundred metres,
Me ears start to pop.
This commutin’s no joke –
Will it ever stop.
Ballymun,
Looks fabulous,
at night from the plane.
Like Torremolinos, or Ibiza,
On the Costa del Spain.
“Turn off yer mobiles”,
the Pilot lets a roar.
The gobshite in front
Makes it seem like a chore.
My stomach is somewhere
At the back of my spine,
as we climb steeply
with a tinny whine.
“What are you doing darlin’,
in London, tonight?”
says the gobshite to the stewardess.
How sad. How trite.
She smiles and walks on,
glad to pass by;
Makes him pay later with
hot coffee down his fly.
Up another hundred metres,
Me ears start to pop.
This commutin’s no joke –
Will it ever stop.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
September 1984
He felt that he had tried them all. Maybe he was wrong but every now and again he would drop into a dead mood, listless, lifeless, bored and disinterested, like a small boy at a loose end. He would wander from room to room in his parent's large town house picking things up, generally books; there was a vast and transient population of books and other printed matter in their home. He would listlessly flick through the pages, unable even to summon enough energy or interest to read word by word. Descriptions and scene-setting bored him unless they were sufficiently adept as to evoke a tangible mood or an atmosphere of some strength. He would particularly be halted in his leisurely jaded progess through a book by any state of affairs through which languor and slow sensuousness like a dying river merging with the sea in a hot muddy delta. He was trapped on a sandbar. So what was this slow dying he seemed to endure every now and again. An uneasy answer hinted at the edges of his mind. Mid-twenties - he had achieved nothing. He was not distinctive, he needed to feel this; he felt tired, which he shouldn’t feel at this stage in his life. He was timid ,when he shouldn’t be and loud at the wrong times, silent, when he should speak, weak when strength and that alone was needed. He could see the huge ruts of his future life gaping out in front of him and sometimes his mind would scream in helpless terror at the sight like a soul fallen from Charon's boat. A phrase swam slowly to his mind's surface: “Screams of pain echoing through the haunted night". He remembered. It was from a poem that he wrote at the back of a lecture hall in University while a lecturer droned on at the front. He found the poem and reread it. What pompous, pretentious trash, he thought. Still the effect he had wanted to create was there - the mood of dulled pessimism, silent desperation, mournful sadness and slow decay. Oh to be gripped by something, some pursuit that would occupy remorselessly one's waking hours in a passionate welter of activity, mindless, absorbed and complete. Something that would absorb and fulfill for the rest of forever, drowning one's ambitions, hopes, childish dreams, fatuous and materialistic obsessions, unconsciously generating that longed for respect ,admiration and esteem of one’s fellow man, one's friends, acquaintances, family and all the members of one's community. But, no. He shies away from such an honest and simple solution like a nervous young colt. Salvation is within his grasp but his mind won't allow his arm stretch to its fullest ………….
Friday, June 15, 2007
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Posting my writings
I recently came across an old folder full of my writings. With a sense of dread I started looking through it. However they weren't as bad as I expected and I began to muse as to whether or not I should take up writing again. I've been going through a very difficult time in my life and have been advised that I need to find something to do to relax, some sort of hobby or interest. You see, I have spent the last 15 years of my life building up a company for some people and have always been "too busy" to do much else. Idiot!! Now I find that I ain't gonna be so busy anymore!
I always found writing to be very relaxing and I find that time just disappears when I write. However, after some thought, I felt that the best way to determine whether or not I should start down that road again was to take the step of throwing the work I had done to date out into the harsh light of the internet and into the public gaze. If large volumes of people hate the stuff then I will know not to continue and if there is a more positive response then I will be encouraged to continue. So over the next few months I will post bits and pieces of my work, grit my teeth and watch the response.
Ye Gods! I must be mad....................anyway.
I always found writing to be very relaxing and I find that time just disappears when I write. However, after some thought, I felt that the best way to determine whether or not I should start down that road again was to take the step of throwing the work I had done to date out into the harsh light of the internet and into the public gaze. If large volumes of people hate the stuff then I will know not to continue and if there is a more positive response then I will be encouraged to continue. So over the next few months I will post bits and pieces of my work, grit my teeth and watch the response.
Ye Gods! I must be mad....................anyway.
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