MY YOUTH
Dunleath Cottages at
Kingshill, Waringstown, County Down, Northern Ireland were built by the very
old titled and respected Dunleath family of Ballywalter, Co Down, in order to help the poor of County Down and I
was born in one of those cottages on 22nd October 1913. The cottage I was born in was one of a pair
and as there were two pairs at Kingshill, ours would have been No 1 or No 4,
depending on which way they were numbered (if they were numbered at all).
I
don’t know how long my father and mother lived at Kingshill, but my first
recollection of the family home was being in a cradle under the window in the
kitchen and I was told later that I was very ill at
the time. I remember that every thing I
saw, or imagined I saw, was very, very large and I suppose, in retrospect, this
was as a result of my being feverish.
I have no recollection of ever having seen my
mother, but on the day she died, she was laid out in a small room that led off
from the kitchen and I remember some person saying that they would have to use
pennies, which puzzled me somewhat.
However, I found out in later years, that using pennies was a method
that they applied to people who had died with their eyes open i.e. they put
some melted sugar round the eye lids, closed them and then placed a penny as a
weight on each of the closed eyes.
Unfortunately I cannot recall anything about my mother’s funeral.
Our cottage had a
kitchen, a room off the kitchen, a scullery with an outside lavatory (dry of
course in those days) and two bedrooms upstairs. There was a large area to the right of the
entrance porch, which housed two hand weaving looms, one for my father, who I
used to see weaving and one presumably for my mother. My father made part of the weaving area into
a ‘huckster’ shop, selling bread, tea, salt, sugar, eggs, flour and all the
very basic items that the local population needed for day to day life.
My first school was at
Corcreany and the head master was Mr Reid.
I don’t remember much about the school, except for one very stormy day
when the fir trees were swaying in the wind and we all had to go outside and
sing ‘Hush a Bye Baby on the Tree Top’.
The headmaster had a son in the Air Force and he used to fly his plane
over his family residence (which was just beside the school) and this very
exciting.
My brother Bob was two
years older than me and he had to stay longer at school each day. I used to get home to Kingshill after about a
mile and a half walk. On the way home, I
often called in at my grandfather’s thatched cottage, where I’d frequently be
given a mug of liquid, which they called ‘Beer Plant’. This beer plant was kept in a glass container
filled with water and fed, as I understand it, with sugar, although there may
have been other ingredients. On a very
hot day, my Aunt Sarah would go out to the well and bring in a pail of
extremely cold spring water, which tasted delicious.
When I arrived home, my
father would have a plate of mashed potatoes for me, with a big nob of butter
in the middle and the cross of St David cut into the mashed potato
surface. Sometimes my father would mix
eggs into the potatoes and that was lovely too. My brother Bob always got his share when he
arrived home later.
I recall that my father always had boiling beef with vegetables on
Sundays and I used to love this. I
remember pulling apart every piece of beef that I received and eating it very
slowly, so as to make it last as long as possible.
The Gregson family lived
just over the road opposite Dunleath Cottages and Mr Gregson’s father Ned lived
further on down the road towards Waringstown.
Ned had a very bad stomach and used to suffer from some very painful
attacks. I recall that if he ever had
one whilst visiting us, my father would get a tin mug of buttermilk and a
spoonful of baking soda, mix it up and after Ned had drunk this, the pain
seemed to go away.
Because Maggie Gregson
was about my age, we used to play together and whenever I was over at her
house, I used to get tea, home baked cakes and apple bread. Being farmers, the Gregsons kept cows, pigs, horses
and grew potatoes, wheat and corn.
Whenever pigs were slaughtered, my father used to get some of the liver
and when this was fried, we regarded it as a delicacy.
My father also got freshly milled wheat and
it made lovely porridge and bread. The
latter was baked by Annie or Mary Lavery (next door neighbours), who were
daughters of my Uncle Robert and were weavers as well. Their mother had died many years before and that
is when Uncle Robert had married Mary Ann Dupre.
My Dad smoked a pipe and
I remember one day when I was tempted into smoking it. But after I managed to get it lit somehow and
inhaled some smoke, I was violently sick and I am sure that it was this experience
that put me off smoking for all time, because I never felt tempted to smoke
again.
One of the other two
cottages was occupied by my Uncle Tom Cairns, my mother’s brother and he was a
weaver too. He and his wife had a
daughter and a son Jimmy, who was later sergeant in charge of the RUC police
barracks at Portadown, Co
The walls of the stairway leading up to the
bedrooms in our house were papered and my brother Bob and I used to draw on
them. When someone spotted our rather
messy drawings on the walls, they said to my father: “Why don’t you bate them
..... that will stop them”.
“Och,
what’s the use,” he replied, “sure the world will give them a big enough bating
soon enough”.
That
story was related to me by my Aunt Maggie, who was a sister of Mary Ann Dupre
and wife of Uncle William, my father’s brother.
Uncle William and Aunt Maggie occupied our cottage after my father died. After they died, their son Johnny lived there
and his son Lloyd Lavery was at one time headmaster of
My Uncle James Cairns
was an egg tester with Armour and Co of Lurgan and he once demonstrated to my
brother Bob and me how he operated. He
could pick up four eggs at a time, two in each hand, and after placing them in
certain position behind an electric light bulb, he could see if any of the eggs
contained blood clots.
Each Sunday night, my
father, brother Bob and I used to go and visit Aunt Mary Alice and Uncle James
Cairns at ‘Woodview’, a little distance beyond the cottage occupied by my Uncle
Robert and Aunt Mary Ann. Once there,
the grown-ups would catch up on all the local news and then finally it would be
time for tea and Aunt Mary Alice’s home baked bread and cake. I used to love those Sunday nights and when
it came time to go home, I remember getting under my father’s overcoat and
walking back to Kingshill.
I had two uncles called James Cairns and
one of them Uncle James Cairns (1) lived not far away with his wife Mary
Cairns, who was my father’s sister. They
had 3 children, two sons and a daughter.
With regard to my Uncle James Cairns (2), he was my uncle because he was
married to my mother’s sister Mary Alice.
However, he was also my cousin on account of my father’s sister being
married to Uncle James Cairns (1). These
Cairns were also hand loom linen weavers and lived in a detached cottage of a
similar design to my father’s.
There were 12 residences on the Clare Road between my Uncle James
Cairns (1) and my Uncle James Cairns (2) and of these 12 homes, 4 were occupied
by farmers, with 7 of the remaining 8 being occupied by the Laverys or
Cairns. So we were a pretty closely knit
community.
Uncle John Lavery, who was one of my
father’s brothers, owned a small shop in Avenue Road, Lurgan and he and his
wife had one daughter. For some unknown
reason, my brother Bob and I were discouraged from ever calling at their house
and, as a result, we never did. Uncle John had an egg collection business and he was out
every day with his horse and van, collecting in most areas around
Waringstown. He called with my Daddy
twice a week and brought in supplies for my father’s ‘huckster’ shop.
Another relative was Uncle Willie Cairns,
my mother’s brother, who lived at Derriaghy near Lisburn and was married to
Aunt Fanny, who was from County Wicklow, Eire.
They had no children and were both very nice gentle people. Uncle Willie played cricket for Derriaghy and
was a very fine bowler, who, on one occasion, took all 10 wickets in a match. Aunt Fanny was a little absent minded and one time when I
visited them, she made tea, but couldn’t remember where she had put the cakes
and biscuits. Poor thing spent a long
time going through all the cupboards and boxes, until she eventually found
them.
One day, my father went
to Lurgan to do some shopping and a few days later he suddenly died, although I
never knew the cause. One of the items
he had bought was a pair of hair clippers, which he was going to use to cut our
hair. However, he never got to use
them. In later years, I was never
tempted to purchase hair clippers to cut my children’s hair.
On the day of my father’s funeral, the
mourners came back to our house at Kingshill for refreshments. I remember I cried and although someone
suggested that I should be given some sweets to pacify me, I refused them. I don’t know what happened to all my father’s possessions,
but no doubt they were sold to pay for the funeral expenses. One of his things which I liked very much was
a silver carriage clock, but I never saw it again.
After the funeral, my
brother Bob went to live with Uncle James Cairns (1) and my father’s sister,
Mary Cairns. As
for me, the original plan had been for me to go and live with my Uncle
Alec and Aunt Minnie in
Because Robert and Aunt
Mary Ann had 3 sons and 4 daughters, there were 10 of us including me and it
was a bit difficult to fit so many people into a two bedroom cottage. As a consequence, I had to sleep in what was
called a ‘Settle Bed’, which was a large wooden chest beside the fire and which
was also used as a seat. My main problem
was actually getting to bed each night, because I had to wait for all the other
family members to go to bed, before I could climb into my ‘Settle Bed’. During the winter months, we all sat round
the turf fire and baked potatoes in the hot turf ashes and they were very nice
with butter and salt.
The one and only Christmas I spent with Robert and Mary Ann, the
other children (who were all much older than me) induced me to hang up my
stocking to see what Santa Claus would bring me. I did as they said and on Christmas Morning,
I found a baked potato in my stocking.
The water supply for all
these weavers’ cottages was by well and hand pump. I never remember them ever going dry and the
water was beautiful in the hot summers, as it was so very cold.
During the time I was
with Uncle Robert and Aunt Mary Ann, I went to the Church of Ireland public
elementary school in Waringstown. In
summer it was bare feet and in winter boots.
Bare feet were not as bad as it sounds because the sides of the road had
grass verges, which made walking much easier.
However, now and again, I had the misfortune to ‘crigg’ my toe, which
could be very painful.
I also attended the Sunday school classes
each Sunday at the church in Waringstown. The Sunday school sports day was held on ‘The Lawn’
(Waringstown cricket ground) and I was fortunate enough to win those races I
was eligible to run in. On another
occasion, when I went on a Sunday school outing to Warrenpoint, I had my first
tomato. It looked so lovely on the fruit
stall that I had to have one. However, I
was bitterly disappointed at my first taste.
The girls in the family all worked at the
linen mills situated at the bottom of Clare Road, Waringstown, and they rode to
work by bicycle. Cousin Willie also worked in the linen mills, as did Leonard until he
went off to join the Church Army. Willie
liked the odd Woodbine and whenever he wanted a smoke, he would say to his
mother Mary Ann: “Give us a ‘Willie’ ma.”
She would then take a packet of 5 out of her overall pocket, break a
Woodbine in two and hand a half to Willie.
As for Jimmy, he used to go to ‘Johnny's Turn’ (a road junction on the
In 1920, the ‘B’
Specials were formed and recruitment took place for the Waringstown Unit. Jimmy and Willie both joined and were soon
strutting around in their uniforms and carrying their 303 Lee Enfield rifles.
Mary Ann chewed gloves
continually. She had a really exacting
life, what with having seven children to rear and money always being rather
scarce. But as a wife, mother, weaver,
housekeeper and cook, she did very well to keep the family together and
reasonably well fed. The Orphan’s
Allowance she got for me also helped I suppose.
When living with Uncle Robert and Mary Ann,
I was taken to the annual 12th of July Celebrations and that’s the first time I
ever saw a revolver. While we were
walking to ‘the field’ (where all the
At ‘the field’, there
were stalls selling sandwiches and tea and I remember getting a lovely big ham
sandwich and a mug of hot tea, a real treat.
Also
whilst I was with Uncle Robert and Aunt Mary Ann, I used to help Uncle Robert
in the garden and he said of me to a passer-by that I “worked like a black”. Uncle Robert had a shotgun and was a very good shot. On one occasion, he took me with him, when he
had to go to Johnny Levinson’s to shoot a dog.
After Levinson had tethered the dog to a post in front of the house,
Uncle Robert judged the distance, put up the gun, fired one shot and the dog
fell dead.
Then there was Miss Emma McCaw, who lived
in a rather nice imposing house just below Kingshill Orange Hall on the banks
of a small river, which at one time had contained trout. Unfortunately the house had been neglected
and was in a very poor state. I remember
on one occasion seeing a goat looking out of a glassless upstairs window. ‘Missemma’ (as she was referred to) lived alone and at one
time owned horses, goats and other farm animals. However, she became so attached to them all,
that they all died of old age, apart from one goat which ate a £5 note and had
to be killed, so that she could retrieve it.
I remember on the day after Christmas, a
number of local men digging a hole in the middle of the field and dragging her
last horse to its resting place. It was
then covered with soil and for quite a long time afterwards, I could see the
evidence of where her last horse had been buried, as I went to school along the
road.
‘Missemma’ got all her supplies of food
from my father’s ‘huckster’ shop and she always had to have loaves of bread
with an outside crust. I do not know
when exactly she died, but my Uncle Robert purchased the farm after she had
gone. Further up the road from
‘Missemma’s’, about 1/4 of a mile away, was where my Uncle James Cairns (1)
lived with his wife and 3 children.
When
my Uncle Alec and Aunt Minnie eventually got a house, I headed off to
Belfast. I can’t remember when it was
exactly, but I do recall being taken by open horse-drawn trap to Lurgan
station, where I joined the train from Lurgan to
The house was small, with a sitting room, a
kitchen and scullery and two bedrooms upstairs, one of which I occupied,
because Alec and Minnie had no children.
Off the kitchen, there was a small enclosed yard, with an outside toilet
with a concrete floor. It was a very
nice little house, which was heated by a coal burning range, on which Aunt
Minnie did all the cooking and which kept the house warm during winter.
Shortly after I arrived, Uncle Alec bought
me a little male Kerry Blue puppy. I was
extremely pleased and was able to take him for walks in
However, life had to go on and I went
Ulsterville PE School, which was situated in Edinburgh Street, Lisburn Road and
not very far from where I lived. The
headmaster was a very nice gentleman called Mr Lamont, who lived near
When Mr Daly took the boys to Musgrave Park
for football practice, he always had his cane with him and if anyone misbehaved
or played badly, they were punished accordingly. I went to Sunday school and church each
Sunday morning and was the only member of the household to do so.
I was unfortunately bullied to such an
extent at school, that I resorted to fighting to defend myself, which in turn
led to my being punished by Mr Daly, which resulted in my having blue wealds on
my hands. So what with that, losing my
puppy and missing my brother Bob, I must have become depressed, for that’s when
I decided to go back to Kingshill.
I had saved up a few pennies and as the bus
fare to Lisburn was only 2d, I set off for Lisburn one day on the bus,
prepared, if need be, to walk the 12 miles to Lurgan and then the 3 miles to
Kingshill. I don’t remember much about
my journey, except that I got a lift in a horse drawn van to Moira and then
walked the rest.
I had
no idea where I was going to stay, but I ended up with my Uncle Tom Cairns at
Kingshill, a brother of my mother. When
his first wife had died, he had married my cousin Annie Lavery, a daughter of
Uncle Robert from his first marriage. I
remember sleeping with Uncle Tom in his feather bed.
However, within a few days, my Uncle Alec
arrived in Kingshill and I was soon on my way back to Belfast. But apart from a severe talking to, I wasn’t
punished. When I went back to school,
all the bullying stopped and Mr Daly was like a father to me. He sat me next to a very nice girl called
Muriel Chapman, who was the daughter of a dentist on the
Everything went well and I was quite happy,
especially as I had some young friends to play with. On one occasion, two other young boys and I
were playing up beyond the
Gospel meetings were taking place quite a
lot about this time and we used to go to them.
I remember one preacher outside the mission hall, who was giving his
testimony. He said that life was
wonderful in his home – “Even the sewing machine was a Singer”. Well
anyway, we all got saved, whatever that meant, and took it so seriously, that
we put our cigarette cards down the drain in
Then there was the time of the Gospel
Campaign and the threat of everlasting damnation! The ‘hot’ gospeller said categorically, that
the end of the world would take place in a few days time. Being quite gullible at the age of 10 or 11
years old, my friend and I went into
The only name I remember of any of the boys
and girls I used to play with was Freda Calvert. Her family owned the little shop at the
bottom of
Each Friday night, they used to show films
for children only in the Grosvenor Hall at the bottom of Grosvenor Road. It wasn’t a proper cinema and the screen was
a large piece of sheeting fixed at the end of the hall and if you were a late
arrival, you had to sit nearly up against the screen. On one occasion, when a cowboy film was being
shown and we were right up at the front, these horses suddenly came galloping
up the screen. We immediately took
fright and fled out of their way.
When living at 27 Brookland Street
(possibly 1924), I found that Uncle Alec had a camera and because I showed
great interest in it, he let me have it and bought a film for it. He gave me tuition on how to use it and also
how to develop and print the film. So
after a few mistakes, I was able to take snaps and produce the finished
pictures. They weren’t very good, but
were of great interest to me. Alec
also got a crystal wireless set complete with head phones and I used to have
great fun adjusting the ‘cat’s whisker’, in order to get the station loud and
clear, which wasn't too often. I also
used to go up to the top of
Sundays at Brookland Street were quite
nice, especially if the weather was good.
Alec and Minnie liked to go out on the trams to a point near the Cave
Hill in the Antrim Hills, overlooking
When I didn’t have to go walking with Alec
and Minnie, I usually found my way to the Belfast rubbish dump, which was quite
an exciting place on a Sunday afternoon.
The cause of the excitement was due to the presence of some men with
terrier dogs and ferrets. The dump was
overrun by rats and it was good sport to hunt and kill them. One man would put a ferret into a rat hole
and when the rats appeared, the terriers would be released. It was very exciting to see how a good
terrier could kill a rat and I remember that there were quite a lot of gangs at
the tip with their ferrets and terriers.
I think it was in 1924 that Uncle Alec
applied for and got the post of manager of Coulson’s Linen Works at Market
Square, Lisburn. After a little time
travelling to Lisburn daily, Alec rented a very nice terrace house at
Alec applied and got me accepted into the
Boys’ Cricket Club and he obtained a man-sized bat for me, which he shortened
by cutting a piece off the bottom.
During the cricket season, the Boys’ Team used to go to play matches against
The Llewllyn Avenue house had a really nice
kitchen, scullery, pantry, sitting room, three bedrooms and a bathroom (which
was a real treat), yard and garden. One
of my jobs was to keep the coal burning cooking stove clean and every Saturday,
I had to clean it and have it shining, using Zebo. In the
spring, I showed great interest in the garden and, using the little knowledge I
had gathered from my Uncle Robert, I was able to plant seeds of various kinds,
usually all vegetables.
Uncle Alec applied for and obtained permission
for me to attend No 1 Presbyterian Church Elementary School, situated at Market
Square, Lisburn. I enjoyed my time there
and made many friends: Ronald Harvey who lived with his family in
During the time I was living at Llewllyn
Avenue, a detachment of the British Army came to Lisburn and camped in Wallace
Park. The troops slept in small bivouac
tents and cooked food on oil burning stoves.
It was a great attraction and all the young people for miles around came
to see them. I was very interested and
spent all my spare time there looking and listening, which is what may have
inspired me to consider the army as a possible career.
We were all very happy at Llewllyn
Avenue. However, it is said that all
good things come to an end and in my case, it was quite true. Because of the Depression of 1929-31, Uncle
Alec lost his job when Coulsons closed down and went out of business. As a result, he could no longer afford the
rent on
At about this time, it was decided that I
should give up school and look for a job.
So I applied for and got a job as an apprentice shop assistant with
Andrew Harper Gents’ Outfitters at
I served in the shop for most items, but
not for customers who required advice about what they should buy etc. I also had to make deliveries and it was
because of this that Andrew Harper and I parted company. One day I was sent on a delivery and whilst
out, I got the most awful wetting, due to the very heavy rain. As a consequence, I was very sick with
bronchitis.
Uncle Alec protested to Andrew Harper and
wouldn’t let me go back there, because he said that I had been hired as a shop
assistant, not a messenger boy. As a
result, I had to sign on the dole, but was refused benefit, because in their
eyes, I had left my work voluntarily.
Uncle Alec took my case to some tribunal
and it was decreed, that as Andrew Harper had not provided me with waterproof
clothing, Alec was within his rights in refusing to let me go back to Harpers
and, as a result, I received the dole, for the period from when I left Harpers
till the tribunal gave its ruling and also thereafter.
I tried and tried again to get work and so
did Uncle Alec, but times were very hard and we couldn’t find any. As for Minnie, she was still away and would
not consider coming back to live in
In 1930, in a bid to get Minnie back, Uncle
Alec eventually applied for and got the tenancy of a new house on the Ballynahinch
Road, Lisburn. He couldn’t really afford
it, but with odd jobs here and there and my dole money, we managed to get by
and happily Minnie came back.
As a result of
Uncle Alec’s efforts, I received 6/= per
week dole money, which I duly handed over to Minnie, who always gave me 1/=
back. By saving my pocket money and
little sums I was able to earn by doing messages and other odd jobs, I had the
princely sum of just over £5 by the spring of 1931.
Times were still very hard and because I
felt I was a great burden to Alec and Minnie, I decided I would have to do
something to make things easier for them.
So without telling Alec and Minnie (which I regretted very much later
on), I set off for England on 30th March 1931, to go to either Aldershot to
join the Army or to Newmarket to try and get a job as a stable lad, as I was
very interested in horses.
My memories of Uncle Alec and Aunt Minnie
are that they were very nice, kind people and they gave me a lot of love,
attention and good advice. They taught me
to be good mannered and considerate and encouraged me to help all those around
me, who were in need of it.