Jean's Journal: The Riordans, The Famous Five and more
by Jean Farrell
I’m going to share some readers’ comments with you today. I wrote about the television programmes we watched in the early 1960s. Readers reminded me that I forgot to mention ‘The Riordans.’
We were first introduced to Benjie, Maggie, Tom and Mary in 1965, and we continued our weekly visit to their home, in Leestown, until 1979. The whole country must have watched this very popular soap opera. Remember Minnie Brennan and her husband Batty?
Mind you, our first soap opera was ‘The Kennedy’s of Castleross.’ We listened to this on the radio, as we ate our big dinners in the middle of the day, as children! And out of interest, ‘Glenroe’ began in 1983.
A reader told that her house was the first to get a new television, in the early 60s. All the children, in their terrace, watched the van delivering it, one wet winter evening. A neighbour said that a programme called ‘Diving Warship’ was going to be on at seven o’clock. He had read this in his father’s newspaper.
Her brother told all his pals to come into their house and watch it. Such excitement! Ten little boys arrived, bringing their own chairs with them.
“Our kitchen was like a cinema as we waited for ‘Diving Warship’ to begin,” my friend told me. Alas, the programme turned out to be ‘Divine Worship!’ Her hard-working father arrived home for his tea to find half the terrace in his kitchen. He ran them all.
Back outside, they got their football. They decided that television was useless and that going to the pictures was much better.
I wrote also about how reading wasn’t encouraged in the past. One reader wrote that her granny would say, “Take your head out of that book,” every time she passed her reading ‘The Famous Five.’
Mentioning ‘The Famous Five’ reminds me of the following.
My sister’s 12-year-old granddaughter took part in The Credit Union quiz lately. One question asked was “What was the name of the dog in ‘The Famous Five?” My sister watched a puzzled look appear on the faces of the 100 bright children present. No one knew the answer.
This is not because they don’t read. They do. It’s just that they don’t read books like ‘The Famous Five’ anymore. They read ‘Harry Potter’ and much more modern publications. ‘Noddy,’ ‘Malory Towers’ and similar stories, written by Enid Blyton, must be gone right out of fashion.
Many of us read ‘Malory Towers’ and ‘The Four Marys’ in Bunty, long ago. These were about life in lovely boarding schools. The reality was different indeed.
On Sunday evenings, in boarding school (during my early years there) a time was assigned to ‘letter-writing.’
We all sat down in the big hall and wrote home to our parents and friends. We had to leave the envelopes unopened and hand them up to the nun in charge. All the letters were read by her, before they were posted.
We were told that the purpose of this was to make sure we were not sending letters home full of spelling mistakes. I think the real reason was to make sure we weren’t giving out about the school or, horror of horrors, writing to boys!!
When we received letters, these were opened in advance too. Again, they wanted to make sure we weren’t getting letters from boys, perish the thought!! To do the likes of this, nowadays, is probably against some law about invading one’s privacy, I’d say.
Readers commented on my articles about Saint Aloysius School and about the building which housed this school in the early years. I wrote that it was ‘a lovely house.’ A reader took me to task for describing it thus.
Whilst it was indeed a lovely house in its day, I am assured by past pupils that it definitely wasn’t ‘lovely’ when it opened as a school in the 1960s.
The building was criticised by The Department of Education, soon afterwards, as being totally unsuitable for a secondary school.
One reader wrote, “The roof had sagged, the floors were rotting and much of the plaster was crumbling off the walls.” Construction work was taking place as the boys were being taught.
Another reader wrote, “I can remember trying to pay attention while a jack hammer made the wall beside me vibrate.”
This continued until eventually the students moved into purpose-built classrooms, nearby. In the photograph above you can what it looked like then.
Of course since then, the building has a new lease of life and is in use in fine condition again.
I mentioned in a previous article that the Lyster family lived there. They bought the house in 1932 and lived in it until 1960. Readers have asked me are these the same Lysters who owned the fine hardware store in Pearse Street. Yes, they are. They also owned a sawmill in Excise Street. My father used to send us down there for bags of saw-dust. This was to sprinkle on the floor of his butcher shop.
When we were young lots of our neighbours worked in Lysters.
The cash had to be placed in a little round canister which then sped across the shop, on a high line, over to a girl in a raised office. Our big Kerry Blue dog always came with us, when we went to Lysters. As the little canister whizzed across the shop, he’d dash after it, barking loudly. We thought this was hilarious, as little children!
And did you know the answer to the quiz question? The dog’s name was Timmy!
jeanfarrell@live.ie