The Philadelphian (Part Two)

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Mary Gray, and has been added to the site with the her permission. Mrs. Gray fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
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I filled my pockets to take some home for my mum and the younger kids and collected some apples from Clark’s farm, so I had a good feed on fruit on my way home, which was about an hour’s walk up Cahore Road and across the moss banks and fields, over two rivers, then a climb up a hill to our house.

When I got to the house, there seemed to be a lot of strange people about. The doctor was just leaving and a few of the neighbours were standing around. I went inside; the first person I saw was the priest, Father Welsh. He came to me, patted my head and explained that my mother had gone to a nicer place, or words to that effect. I was 12 years old then, but I could understand that my mother was dead; why, only a couple of hours earlier, she was well, walking about and rushing me off to church. I just burst out crying and I took a lot of calming down. Through it all, I can’t remember seeing my father. I suppose he broke down like me, in another corner. I can’t remember anything about the funeral, except that at the graveside, I was in a bad state. Someone was holding onto me, as if I was trying to jump in. I was just in a daze.

I can’t remember who looked after us then; I was the oldest so there was no older sister to do the job. I suppose it was my grandmother, my dad’s mother. I did have three sisters and a brother Danny, who was about 2 when my mother died, so we took some looking after.

I was still at school, but I still had plenty of chores to do despite my dad having someone to help him on the farm; mowing, digging and all by hand, no machinery in those days. They would be digging potatoes all day and we came home from school and had to pick them up. If they were mowing hay, we had to shake it out to dry it. If it was corn, we had to gather up all the sheaves to stand up in fours, or ‘stuck’ as it was called.

All this was just endless, according to the season, plus feeding the stock, mucking out the byres and stables, plus herding the cattle to keep them away from the crops. If they did get into the turnips or cabbage, the cane came down and believe me, we had a few black and blue rings around our legs. I used to be afraid to face strangers in case they noticed them, because they were noticeable for quite a while. Yes, he was a very cruel man, my father. I always seemed to take the blame for all that went wrong.

All this went on until I became strong enough to dig, use the horse and cart, more or less, a man sized job, yet I was still only 14 and had just finished school. I loved school; I was just beginning to learn and pick things up when I had to leave.

I don’t think I mentioned that Cleavis Hill was in a town called Corrick in Co. Derry. It consisted of 3 farms, ours, Margaret’s and Mick’s. Margaret’s was the largest, then ours, then Mick’s. They still lived in their farms up until I was 16; I used to visit Mick regularly, as he played the flute. He told some tall stories.

From what I gather, Margaret lived all of her life with two brothers; they would go to market in the town every Wednesday, and the fair, which was once a month; selling and buying, from what I heard, mostly getting drunk. Someone in town would put them in the cart, point the horse in the direction of home, and off it would go and get them home safe. We had a horse called, Old Johnnie, which often brought my dad home. There were some tricky corners to take, but he always made it.

When Margaret’s brothers arrived home and went to bed, she always went through their pockets and helped herself, and in those days, it was gold sovereigns. Years afterwards, we discovered that she would have collected a right hoard, had she kept them all together. But she had to hide them, so she stuck them in holes in the walls, in the thatch or anywhere that she could think of. This we found out ages after she had died. When we knocked the old house down, the thatch was dumped in the middle and was eventually scattered over the fields.

I was weeding the potatoes one day. I pulled up chickweed, and underneath was a gold coloured medal, as I thought at the time. Nobody could say what it was, as gold sovereigns had been out of circulation for years. Eventually, relations from Belfast arrived at our next-door farm and they let us know what it was, so I was now a rich man. This coin got there through the thatch, which was spread on the fields. I found two more, ages after that, in another field, one when sheafing corn and the other while chasing the cows. One of them dug it up with its hoofs, as I was chasing it and there it was sitting on the top of the freshly dug up soil. They say hungry eyes see far, these finds were spread over quite a few years. The first I found, I got £1.50, that is all I got for each of the others, and to think that today, they are worth £80.00. I bought a lamb and a second hand suit of clothes with the first one and I had some change.

As for the other two, I was much older, smoking, enjoying an odd Guinness, and going out to dances, so you can see how they got spent. I had lots of friends while it lasted. Back to my mother, she died in August I think, 1931.

So, back to the gold coins; I’m sure there are stacks of them still all round the fields. It would be worth getting a device to detect gold, of course, they may be down deeper now I suppose.

In 1932, my dad remarried because he had to have someone to care for us, as I had got another sister aged about 5 then; Catherine, and a brother Danny, my only brother, he would be about 2. So, it was for our sakes I suppose.

We all liked her, we always knew her as she lived in the next-door farm; Annie McFalls, believe me, she didn’t know what she was taking on. Not only us, but he was a demanding man. She had two brothers, Patrick and Johnny, both single and never married. My dad detested both of them and a lot of that hatred came back to Annie, now his wife. As I grew up, I began to understand things. I used to pity her; she just couldn’t do enough as far as he was concerned. In our eyes, she was great.

Now, he had a second family: Johnny, Winnie, Sally, Anna, Patrick and Peter. Where they all sleep is beyond me, four or five in a bed. There were only two bedrooms and a bed in the kitchen in a little offshoot. It was called ‘outshut’. My father’s mum, and dad now moved in with us and they slept in the ‘outshut’. My granddad died first. He was a great man to me anyhow. He bought me a young calf, so now, I had a couple of sheep and a calf. This would be about 1935 and I was about 16 ½. My dad allowed me to help out certain farmers with the hay and spud gathering. I’d get 2/- (10p) a day. Now, it would cost that to go to the toilet.

Seventeen now, so I’m off out at night making friends and taking sides, which was not easy. Only dad was Irish through and through. I wouldn’t say I.R.A., but nearly, so I tried to ‘friend up’ with his mates’ sons, but they ignored me simply because my dad’s second wife Annie and her brother were Hiberians. They were a recognised party in the north then, and the I.R.A. was banned.

The Hibs, as they were called, had a hall in every district and all had different types of bands. They were allowed to parade and march twice a year: the 17th of March and the 15th of August. So I think that is why they ignored me, thinking I’d been influenced by her, which of course, I was, so I palled up with them and joined the Downtown Hib. Band 317, and had some great days out. We paraded a different town or village every time. All the I.R.A. could do then was to hang their flag up trees on Easter weekend at dark of night, as they were barred in the six counties at that time, what a pity things altered. Just look at them now. As I mentioned earlier, my dad was that way inclined.

One day after Easter, he and I were on our way to a field which he had rented, near the town. It was a right round about journey and we never had anything to say to each other. I noticed on our way, there were no flags, someone had cut them down, but all of a sudden, my dad was smiling as we sat in the cart and I wondered, so I looked around and lo and behold, away up on the hill, about a mile away, was a flag flying from the top of a tree, so I thought to myself, “You won’t be smiling tomorrow morning.” And he wasn’t.

That night, I went to the top of that hill and to the top of the tree. The tree was stripped of all its branches and a strand of barbed wire from the bottom of the tree, which was really a pole now, wrapped around to the top and back down again, but I managed to get the flag down and only got a rip in my trousers and a few fingers bleeding. As I was climbing, I thought, if I got shot, I would have a soft landing and that is true, so I made my way to the Hib. Hall, and burnt the flag in front of a few of the lads who were playing cards and naturally, they all said bravo. The old fellow’s face had no smile next morning, but there was one on mine.

I’m going back now to when I was 13; I always had to go down to the town on foot. It took about an hour. I remember once that I was sent for a spade and two ounces of tobacco. The tobacco was in a bar about 4 inches by 1 inch. My dad told me to put the spade in my pocket and trail the tobacco after me. I think it was the same trip when I was told to bring back some sweets for the others. I got a quarter of toffees, chocolate covered; it was the first time we’d had them in town. I knew them at home wouldn’t know about the chocolate, so I sucked the chocolate off the toffees and wrapped them up in their papers again. No one was any wiser.

My stepmother once went to the grocery van and the old fellow asked her to get some Rodine, as the place was alive with rats. So when she got back, he said, “Have you got the Rodine?” She said that I had it on the tip of my tongue. “You should have swallowed it,” he said. I think he meant it too.

I’m back to being 17 again now, still working hard on the farm; there’s just no end to it and it’s not very profitable either. During the turf-cutting season, my dad used to let me go and help some of his best friends who cut turf on his land. They used to come from miles up to his mountain. There were at least 100 families who used to rent moss banks (as they were called) off him at about £1.25 a bank. To cut turf, it took 3 people, 1 to cut or dig, 1 to lift them onto a barrow and 1 to wheel them away.

All of these renters lived down in the lowlands and they all had to walk up past our house to get there. Those who had bikes used to leave them at our farm. Not many had bikes. It was on these bikes that I learnt to ride when the old fellow’s back was turned.

Back to when I was allowed to help one of these, it took 3 days to do the job, to cover a rood of ground, which cost about £1.25. Believe me, it was hard graft. I got 3/- a day, 9/- for 3 days; I was rich. By now, the old fellow had bought me a bike for £4.50; not for my benefit, but for his so that I could get here and there quicker, but I got my enjoyment out of it. Thank God he couldn’t ride, imagine not being able to ride a bike. Of course, he didn’t get the same chance as I did, as they would be few and far between in his young days.

A picture house opened up in a village called Gnaghera. It was 1935 and it was the first within about 8 miles at least from the farm. I used to go 3 times a week when I had the price of entry, which was 6d (2 ½ p). So you can see how handy my 9/- wage was. To get off work to go was the problem, as the picture started at 8 pm and we would be in the fields until dark, so I used to hop over the ditch as if I was going for a walk, then I’d dodge my way back to house to change into my best, which was not much better than my working clothes.

I did my changing in the bottom room, as we called it, and it had a small window which opened. I could just squeeze out and very often did, as I couldn’t let my stepmother see me go, or she would be in trouble. If the old fellow came enquiring, she would say, “He’s in the bottom room.” What a shock when he looked and there was no Joseph and the window was open. I always got a knocking about whenever he could catch me, but it was worth it. I enjoyed the film, a cowboy probably.

This went on for a few months until one day, he sent me with a goat, to be served, if you understand. I had to walk for about three miles with the goat on a rope to the place where the billy goat was. When I got there, nothing happened, so I had to walk all the way back. I pitied billy, all that working up for nothing.

The next morning, I was in the yard getting the horse and cart ready for some purpose, when the ‘old fellow’ came out and the first thing he said was, did I get the goat done? We had a few words and I told him to do it himself next time. He ran at me and I ran all around the garden with him chasing after me. Of course, I was quicker and he soon ran out of breath. Actually, I can’t remember what happened when we eventually did meet up.

By now, I had come to all I could take, so I decided that I must get out. A few weeks ago, I’d been to see an army camp outside the town and I liked what I’d seen, so I made up my mind. I had already sold off the couple of sheep I had, but I still had that calf my granddad bought for me. It was a two year old and was worth a few quid, but it was up on the mountain with eight or nine others of my dad’s, and the fair day was tomorrow.

As they were all half wild with having been on the mountain all summer, I couldn’t sort mine out from the others, so I had to drive all the lot about three miles to about a mile from the town where the fair was to be the next day. Anyway, I got to this empty barn and managed to get it separated into the barn, and tied up. Then I had to round up the others and drive them all the way back. ===========================================
Other parts to this story can be found at:

Part One: A5719331

Part Three: A5719494

Part Four: A5719656

Part Five: A5719719

Part Six: A5719791

Part Seven: A5719872

Pr-BR

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