Trevor Laffan

• 

I was out walking in Cobh last week, when I came across a couple on the quayside, leaning on a railing. They were watching a navy ship preparing for departure. There was lots of activity taking place as the sailors untied ropes, heaved to, raised gang planks and shouted, ‘splice the main sail’ and ‘have at ye me hearties’.

I made up that bit, but you get the picture. They were doing what sailors do to get moving and as I watched the scene unfolding, I wondered if the crew members knew who the spectator was.

The man in question was Adrian Gebruers and while that name might not mean much to people outside Cobh, many will be familiar with his work. He is the Carillonneur attached to Cobh Cathedral. For the uninitiated and musically challenged among us that means he is the guy who plays the tunes on the Cathedral bells. That’s a simplistic description of what he does but there’s nothing simple about playing this instrument. It’s nothing like a regular piano.

Adrian hits the keys with the side of his hand almost as if he is trying to give each one a karate chop. He slides from side to side on his chair to reach the various keys so it’s physically demanding and before he even starts playing, he has to climb a couple of hundred concrete steps just to reach the instrument. This is no mean feat for a man no longer in the first flush of youth.

I approached him and I was delighted to see that both he and his wife are in fine fettle. Adrian has made a significant musical contribution to the town of Cobh over the years and that shouldn’t surprise us because his father before him did the same thing.

Staf Gebruers was originally from Antwerp in Belgium. He came from a musical family and by the age of 16 he was already showing promise. He was conducting his own youth choir by then and went on to study at the Antwerp Conservatoire. In 1922, he was appointed carillonneur of his own parish church and Assistant City Carillonneur of Antwerp Cathedral.

Bishop Robert Browne of Cloyne offered him the position of Carillonneur, Organist and Choirmaster of St Colman’s Cathedral in Cobh, and thankfully, he took up the role in 1924 and he held onto that position for over forty years.

He was a gifted conductor and was director of numerous choirs, including the Irish Naval Service Choir, the Verolme Cork Dockyard Male Voice Choir, and the Cork City Choral Society. But it is probably an unlikely piece of music that the majority of the people of Cobh associate him with.

Laurel and Hardy paid a visit to Cobh in 1953. They were coming to the end of their great careers and the famous comic duo was heading to Cobh to begin a tour of Ireland and the UK for one last fling. On September 9, that year, the liner, SS America, dropped anchor in Cork Harbour that morning and they boarded the tender to come ashore.

It was reported in the Cork Examiner at the time that Stan Laurel gazed in awe at the many thousands of people who had gathered on the quayside to welcome them. They were amazed at the sight of hundreds of boats blowing whistles and fog horns and people screaming. They weren’t expecting it because the trip to Cobh was supposed to be a low-key affair.

As they landed in Cobh, they were blown away when Staf Gebruers, began to play the Laurel and Hardy theme tune, the Cuckoo Song, on the Cathedral bells and the sound boomed out across the town. They were so impressed with the welcome that they insisted on being taken directly to the cathedral to “thank the bell-ringers” for the momentous welcome.

Adrian was only ten years old at the time, but he remembers the day the stars arrived. “When Ollie went to take my father’s hand to thank him, the accumulated emotion of that whole morning seemed to suddenly spill over the poor man and words failed him. Tears began to roll down his cheeks as he engulfed Dad in his not inconsiderable embrace.” Hardy was over 22 stone in weight.

I know how Ollie felt because I was overwhelmed too when I first met the great Staf Gebruers and the memory of that meeting has stayed with me for almost fifty years.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a punctual person. I hate being late for anything, so I always turn up to every appointment long before I need to be there and then hang around until the appropriate time. It’s obsessive and it annoys me but there’s nothing I can do about it.

It makes no difference whether it’s a serious engagement or just meeting someone for a pint, I have to be early. I have never understood where this hatred of being late originated, but I had a revelation recently that may shed some light on it, and it came to me after that chance encounter with Adrian Gebruers.

Back in the late sixties when I was a young lad in primary school, we were encouraged to join a junior version of the Cobh Cathedral Choir. I took myself off to the Cathedral one dark, winters evening to sign up.

I got my times confused and when I arrived, I came face to face with Staf Gebruers, the choir master. He wasn’t impressed with my timekeeping, and he promptly sent me home. That has stuck in my mind and I reckon it’s why I’ve never been late for anything since. It’s all down to Staf; The man who played the Cuckoo Song for Laurel and Hardy.

• 

Defending solicitors regularly offer excuses on behalf of defendants in court to mitigate the offence in the hope of achieving a better outcome for their client. Some have a familiar ring to them like drunkenness which is one that features often. “My client has no recollection of the incident Judge. He was drunk at the time but apologises for his actions and is mending his ways.”

A variation of that is for the defendant to blame his indiscretion on the fact that he was on strong medication and when mixed with alcohol, it caused him to act in a manner that was completely out of character. ‘He is extremely remorseful and gives an undertaking to the court that he will never appear in front of your honour again.’

If you want to witness this yourself, just wander into your local courthouse and you will hear these excuses first-hand. I thought I had heard them all but this one is new to me, even though it is sixty years old and I found it in a court report in the Cork Examiner from 1960. I’ve made some slight changes just to make it more readable.

The defendant in this case was described as a menace to the community, by Judge J. Feran at Ballybunion Court. He imposed a fine of £50, to be paid forthwith, on the 29 year-old Kerryman, for assaulting, resisting and obstructing Garda Thomas Dunne in the execution of his duty.

The defendant who was described as a commercial artist working in England, was fined £1 with £7 17s. expenses and disqualified from driving for two years, for dangerous driving.

Garda Dunne told the court he was walking towards the strand in Ballybunion at about 7.15 p.m. in civilian attire when he saw a car travelling at a very fast speed. It braked hard and swerved over to its incorrect side of the road. The car stopped and then continued on the road to the strand and braked violently again.

When Garda Dunne heard the screech of brakes a second time, he ran towards the car. He produced his identification card to the driver and told him he was a garda. The defendant refused to give his name and address and told Garda Dunne he wouldn’t take him and then drove off.

Garda Dunne asked a passing motorist to follow the defendant and soon came across the empty car parked on the side of the road. He found the ignition key and took it, thinking the car might have been stolen and abandoned. Shortly afterwards the defendant returned to the car, and when asked for his driving licence and insurance he declined and again refused to give his name and address.

The defendant got into the car, but realised the key was missing. He approached the garda and demanded the key and when it wasn’t forthcoming, he struck Garda Dunne on the jaw. They struggled and Garda Dunne knocked the defendant down. They were both on the ground when the local sergeant and another garda arrived on the scene.

Sergeant Cummins caught a hold of defendant and took him away. At one stage the defendant got truculent and said: “Let me go or I’ll kill you.” Sergeant Cummins said the defendant was very excited and resisted slightly.

Mr. O’Reilly, solicitor for the defendant said it was a most regrettable occurrence but asked the Judge to take into account that Garda Dunne was not in uniform on the occasion. He submitted the question of assaulting a garda in civilian clothing was not as serious as assaulting a garda in uniform. It was, he agreed, a very serious offence to attack a garda, but the defendant was terribly highly strung and erratic.

“The defendant has an artistic temperament and cannot bear to be provoked”, said Mr. O’Reilly, who added that defendant completely lost control of himself and tried to beat up the garda.

The Judge remarked that the defendant was very fortunate that Garda Dunne restrained himself when struggling with the defendant because he believed the defendant would not have had a chance against the garda in a free for all.

The judge was obviously impressed that Garda Dunne wasn’t as easily provoked as the sensitive, artistic defendant.

Another court report from the Examiner around the same time showed that not all criminals sixty years ago were masterminds. At Cork District Court in October 1960, before District Justice D. P. O’Donovan, a serving soldier pleaded guilty to a charge of breaking and entering a house in Cork city with intent to commit a felony.

Garda J. Nolan, who investigated the case, said that the defendant had admitted taking an apple tart, a key and some small change. Mr. Goldberg, solicitor, who appeared for the defendant, said that he was a native of Limerick and had previously had a good character both at home and in the army. The Judge imposed a fine of £5, but there’s no mention of what happened to the apple tart.

It was drink and not food that caused a problem for another defendant. “It is with great reluctance I am giving you another chance, but I warn you that if you ever come before me again for assaulting the guards I will give you twelve months in jail,” said Justice J. M. P. Buckley at Rathmore court in Kerry. He imposed a suspended sentence of six months imprisonment on the Rathmore native.

He was convicted of assaulting Sergeant T. Bowen in the execution of his duty. Mr. C. Healy, solicitor, said that his client took excess drink at the races and apparently the brew was potent. He expressed regret for what had happened.

That was sixty years ago, and the potency of alcohol is still being blamed for indiscretions today.

• 

I had an unusual experience a few years ago while living in Cyprus. It was something that happened out of context and registered with me as being distinctly Irish. When you’re away from home for any length of time, small things that you wouldn’t normally pay any attention to, can sometimes catch you by surprise.

There was an Irish guy living close to my apartment. He had previously served with the UN in Cyprus and he liked the country so much that he bought a place there. We bumped into each other one day and he told me to call up to his apartment for a coffee whenever I was free.

A few weeks later, I took him up on his offer and duly arrived at his front door. It was 8pm on the button. The reason I know that for certain is because Cyprus is two hours ahead of Ireland and as I went through the door, the Angelus was ringing out from the TV in his living room. It caught me off guard because it was the last thing I expected to hear in that part of the world.  

I only had Euronews on my telly and everything else was in Greek, so I rarely turned it on. So, to suddenly come face to face with Ann Doyle reading the news was a real treat. It was something familiar and it got me thinking about the Angelus.

For some people, particularly those of a religious bent, the bells ringing out the Angelus is part of their daily routine. It brings a degree of comfort to their days’ proceedings and that’s important. I imagine there are still many families who take time out during the Angelus to say a prayer and there is nothing wrong with that either. But not everyone does it.

When I was working in Dublin, I shared digs with five other guys. The landlady, Molly was her name, and her husband were religious country people and if we were ever having dinner at six o’clock in the evening, the knives and forks were put on the side of the plate as soon as the Angelus started, and nobody moved until it was over. Well that part isn’t strictly true.

I grew up in a house that didn’t observe the call to prayer. It just wasn’t something we did but I understood that many other families enjoyed that time and fair play to them. Each to his own. So, when I witnessed this for the first time in the digs, I was a little surprised, but it didn’t bother me. I chewed away quietly while they did their thing. I figured as long as they had their eyes closed, they wouldn’t notice. I got away with it for a while too, but I was eventually rumbled.

You see, I was born in Leicester in England. Molly established that and she also discovered that my mother was a Carson and my father’s name was Reginald. Armed with that information plus the fact that I wasn’t saying the Angelus, there was only one conclusion she could come to; She promptly decided that I was a Protestant.

She never discussed it with me, but she did talk about it with the other lads who, of course were more than happy to fan the flames. One guy in particular went to great lengths to strengthen her belief and reinforced it at every opportunity that presented itself. Sean Healy was the main protagonist.

Sean is from Listowel in Kerry and was working in the bank in Dublin at the time. His father was a garda who served in Listowel, so we had something in common but any hope of loyalty because of that association was totally misplaced on my part.

Dinner was usually around 6pm so there was a regular pause for the Angelus. As soon as it was over, Sean would begin questioning me about the traditions observed by Protestants and why we didn’t say the Angelus. It was always in a loud voice to eliminate any possibility that Molly might miss something. “What do ye do in your religion? Do ye believe in God at all? Do ye ever say prayers?”

Poor Molly and Jack were probably wishing he’d shut up and leave me alone. This went on for a few years and there was no point in trying to defend myself because Molly’s mind was made up. I was a cast iron Protestant. I hadn’t the heart to tell her the truth and if I did, she probably wouldn’t have believed me anyway.

Her sister also lived in the house and she died during my time there. A few days after the funeral, Sean came to me and I knew he was up to something. He told me that Molly thought it was very decent of me to attend the funeral and she was even more impressed that I entered a Catholic church. I’m pretty certain who started that particular conversation and I doubt it was Molly but there was no going back after that.

The Angelus has no religious significance for me, but I understand the importance of the moment for others. There are some who couldn’t care less whether the bells chime or not and that’s fair enough too. For a minority though, the sound of the Angelus is enough to fill them with rage. They see it as offensive and outdated and have even campaigned for its abolishment.

Whatever you think about the Angelus, it’s fair to say it can certainly be divisive. For me, the bells are a reminder of the happy times I spent in Dublin and the gang saying their prayers around the dinner table. And I still have no idea what the Protestants do.

.

• 

Did we ever think we’d see the day when the bicycle would be taken away from Postman Pat? Sure, they may as well take Sonia’s O’Sullivans runners and Bruce Springsteen’s guitar while they’re at it. The world is changing so fast, it’s hard to keep up. Progress is a good thing, and we can’t stop it, but we don’t always like the consequences.

These days it’s all about productivity, profit margains, streamlining and efficiency. Improving customer satisfaction means getting them in and out of the premises as quickly as possible with the least amount of interaction. Time is money and every miniute counts. Many of the things we did in the old days would not be acceptable in the workplace today.

My grandfather drove my father up the walls with the amount of time he spent straightening used nails when they worked together. He was old stock and didn’t like waste so when he pulled bent nails from pieces of timber, he would patiently flatten them on a hard surface with his hammer while humming to himself. Then he would put the rescued nails in his pocket, with as much satisfaction as David Attenborough would muster having saved a whale.

My father tried explaining to him that the time spent straightening old nails was costing him more than the price of a box of new ones, but it made no difference. He just thought it was wasteful and he wasn’t for changing. Time meant little to him, or anyone else in those days, but it’s a precious commodity now.

When I was a young, my parents had an account with a local newsagent and in that shop, there was a large timber construction on the wall behind the counter. It was divided into pigeon-holes and each pigeon-hole had the name of a customer printed underneath it. Whatever reading material the customer ordered was placed in there and kept until it was collected.

My father loved ‘Time’ magazine, my mother had her favourites, and I had my weekly copy of ‘Shoot’, the football magazine and they were always waiting for us in the pigeon-hole. They never went astray. It was a simple, uncomplicated system that worked well, and the account was settled at the end of the month. I never considered that one day it might come to an end, until it did.

Maybe it was considered labour intensive and too time consuming but, in any event, the pigeon-holes went by the board. It’s hard to find a shop that even takes orders now and when I’ve tried from time to time, it hasn’t ended well. On a good day, they’ll write my name on a paper and put it somewhere safe but even then, it can disappear.

It’s nobody’s fault. Shops aren’t designed to act as newsagents and shop assistants have enough to be doing without worrying about my order. It’s just another sign of the changing times like the disappearance of Postman Pat’s bike.

An Post is doing away with delivery bikes and according to their website, the top-notch Pashley Pronto bike has been the workhorse of An Post’s fleet for many years. Staff who previously used one on their delivery routes are being equipped with the latest electric trucks, vans and trikes.

No doubt the new electric bikes and vans will be more practical, more efficient and better for the environment, but will they be better for rural Ireland where community life is already taking a battering? A shortage of priests has led to reduced services in some parishes and the closure of many garda stations, small pubs and post offices has done little to promote community spirit.

Young people aren’t too concerned though because they don’t need Mass to meet up. They don’t need the small rural pub either unless it has Wi-Fi and loud music, and they don’t need a newsagent with pigeon-holes because they don’t buy newspapers.

They have little use for the post office because they don’t write letters. They communicate with each other by email, text or through their headphones while shooting the enemy on their latest Internet war game. They buy everything from Amazon, and have it delivered right to the door by courier, so they are less reliant on Postman Pat than the rest of us. That doesn’t bode well for the future of our posties.

Postmen and women all over the country came in for a lot of praise for their dedication during Covid -19. They’ve been going the extra mile for their customers and keeping an eye on isolated and more vulnerable neighbours. Checking in on them to make sure they’re OK.

They collected parcels and letters during the lockdown and distributed them free of charge. They fetched provisions from the shops and pharmacies and delivered local newspapers. They really rose to the challenge and deserve the plaudits for their service to the community.

It reminds me of a postman we had in Cobh, when I was a child, called Kevin Sealy. He was a giant of a man standing well over six feet tall and he wasn’t skinny either. He was a fine cut of a man.

He travelled everywhere on his trusty bicycle and it looked tiny when he walked beside it. He had a word for everyone and always seemed to be in good humour. He was well regarded in town and, like a policeman, he brought a sense of security with him wherever he went. Nobody would mess with Kev. He was part and parcel of the daily routine and a fountain of knowledge too.

If Kevin were around today, he would find this changing world a strange place. He would have plenty to say about it and taking his beloved bike away from him wouldn’t be easy either.

• 

The Department of Health has launched a campaign aimed at encouraging children to eat more healthily to combat the increasing obesity rates. It also hopes to create awareness about the type of food children are putting into their bodies and the amounts they are consuming. They produced a guide on portion sizes too which makes great sense, and this should also help kids in later life with food preparation and cooking.

I must be honest, I was never much of a cook but my lack of talent isn’t entirely my fault. I was brought up in a home run by a typical Irish mammy who believed her role in life was to prevent the family from starving to death. There was a standard portion size in our house that could have been classified as a shovel full.  

The kitchen was her domain, and I was never encouraged to go anywhere near the stove. When I left home, I was fed and watered during my time in Templemore. After that, I worked in Dublin for a few years and lived in digs with five other guys where the landlady cooked our grub and even prepared sandwiches for those of us on shift work, so I was mollycoddled again.

When I returned to Cork in 1983, I moved back home for a year while the house was being built so it was back to my mother’s cooking. There was no talk of healthy eating or portion sizes then either. It was good wholesome food, piled high and I’m showing the signs of it now.

I was just about able to boil a kettle by the time I got married in 1984 and my wife must have discussed my lack of culinary skills with my mother at some point because she took great pleasure in telling me that my mother used to take the top off my egg. When I tried to defend myself by telling her that all parents did that for their kids, she agreed but pointed out that by 22 years of age, most kids have figured out how to do it for themselves. Fair point I suppose.

With the two of us working, I had to pull my weight in the kitchen. I could manage scrambled eggs or beans on toast but that was hardly a substantial meal for a hungry wife coming home after a hard days’ work. The oven was a complete mystery to me, and I was reluctant to go near it, but I was saved when I discovered the pressure cooker.

It was basically a big pot with a lid, and it cooked the food under pressure. Just put some water into the bottom of it, put the food into a tray and seal the lid. There was a weight that went on top of the lid and as the water heated in the pot, the steam lifted the weight and escaped through a little nozzle and soon after, hey presto, the dinner was ready.

Nothing is simple though and one day while preparing the dinner I was distracted. I put the food in the pot, sealed it and turned the heat on but forgot the water. After a while, I heard a strange sound coming from the kitchen and when I peeped in, I could see the pot doing a little dance on the cooker. It was vibrating violently and suddenly there was a loud pop and the little escape valve shot from the pot and lodged in the ceiling.

Whatever I had been cooking erupted from the pot like a mini Vesuvius and ended up all over the cooker. The floor was destroyed and there was a strong smell of burning. When we left that house many years later, that mark was still visible above the cooker.

Shaken from that experience, my fear of cooking returned and after that I went back to the humble saucepan. I kept it simple with stews and curries from then on, nothing too adventurous. It kept the wolf from the door and there was no danger of blowing anything up but recently, I’ve taken things to another level.

My wife came home a few weeks ago with a thing that looked like a massive egg with a handle on the front of it. To me, it was just something else to clog up the kitchen, but she told me it was an air frier. I was sceptical at first, but I have been completely won over by this gadget. It has an element and a fan, so it cooks everything by hot air. It’s ingenious, it’s healthy and there’s no mess but that’s not all.

My sister, Deb, dropped down a few Slimming World cookery books. Not sure why she thought I needed them but maybe she was just having a clear out. Anyway, I had a look through them, and I was pleasantly surprised. A lot of the stuff in there looked very appealing. I had always assumed those meals were full of twigs and raw leaves and tasted like cardboard, but I was wrong. This food is lovely.

The ingredients take a bit of getting used to. It can be off putting when you see a list of ingredients you’ve never heard of with names you can’t pronounce, especially when all you have in the cupboard is salt and pepper but once you invest in a decent spice rack, this cooking lark isn’t so complicated after all. I’ve even started to use the oven and surprise, surprise, there’s no mystery to that either.

My mother would be surprised at this transformation and that I was finally able to take the top off my own egg. But if she was here now, I bet she’d still be doing it for me.

• 

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like today if you hadn’t made certain decisions? Maybe a simple decision that might have seemed insignificant at the time but went on to have a major impact on your life. Or what would have happened if you hadn’t made that phone call, or hadn’t had that chance meeting or if you hadn’t been in the right place at the right time?

For example, many years ago, I escorted a bus load of children to the City Hall. They were coming from Belarus in the aftermath of the nuclear disaster at the ChernobyI power plant and I was very taken with the plight of those kids. They were still on my mind when I finished work, so I made a last miniute decision to return to the City Hall to find out more about them.

I met Simon Walsh there and that meeting led to twenty years of involvement with Chernobyl related issues, lifelong friendships and some incredible experiences. Some good, some bad but they were all due to that one decision.

None of my decisions had catastrophic consequences though unlike one made by Michael Keogh. Keogh was from Tullow in County Carlow and had a spirit of adventure. He left home to join the German Army and rose to the rank of Field Lieutenant. Keogh was duty officer at a Munich barracks in 1919 and was on his break when he was called to deal with a riot in a local gymnasium.

A local agitator was making a political speech to a crowd, including soldiers, when some of the crowd turned on him. He was dragged outside with another man and they were getting a severe beating when Keogh arrived on the scene. Some of the mob were armed with bayonets and it seemed to Keogh that the two men were about to be killed so he ordered his men to fire a few shots in the air to disperse the crowd.

The two men, battered and bloodied, were brought back to the barracks prior to being transported to hospital for treatment. They probably wouldn’t have survived that ordeal if Michael Keogh had not arrived on the scene. When Keogh asked the guy with the small moustache who he was, he gave his name as Adolf Hitler.

Hitler was just starting out on his campaign of hate at the time and if it wasn’t for the Irishman, Adolf may have had a much shorter life and history would be very different today. It’s impossible to calculate the number of deaths he was responsible for, but it certainly runs into the millions.

Hitler was hardly deserving of any luck, but he had his share of it. He survived several potential life-threatening events because good fortune smiled on him. Evan Andrews, the historian, wrote about some of them.

Georg Elser was a struggling German carpenter and vehemently opposed to Nazism. In 1939 he knew Hitler would speak at a certain location in Munich and Elser successfully planted a bomb near the podium and set it to explode midway through Hitler’s speech.

Hitler moved the start time of his speech to 8 p.m. so he could be back in Berlin as soon as possible. He finished his remarks by 9:07, and by 9:12, he had left the building. Only eight minutes later, Elser’s bomb went off, levelling the pillar and sending a section of the roof crashing down on the speaker’s podium.

Eight people were killed and dozens more injured. Elser was captured that night while trying to cross the Swiss border, and he later confessed after authorities found his bomb plans. He spent the next several years confined to Nazi concentration camps. In April 1945 he was dragged from his cell and executed by the SS.

In 1943 a disillusioned German military officer approached a member of Hitler’s staff as they were about to board a plane and asked him to take a parcel containing two bottles of Cointreau brandy to a friend in Berlin. The officer obliged, not knowing that the package actually contained plastic explosives rigged to a 30-minute fuse.

A few hours later, he received word that the Führer’s plane had landed safely in Berlin. A defective fuse had prevented Hitler’s plane from being blown out of the sky.

In 1943 the Führer was scheduled to visit an exhibition in Berlin and another officer volunteered to organise a bomb attack. Security was so tight he decided a suicide bomb was the only option, so he did his best to stay glued to the Führer’s side as he guided him through the exhibit. The bomb had a short 10-minute fuse, but Hitler slipped out a side door after only a few minutes. The would-be suicide bomber was forced to make a mad dash for the bathroom, where he defused the explosives with only seconds to spare.

Probably the best-known attempt on his life was the briefcase bomb in the bunker in 1944. A group of conspirators planned to kill the Führer with a hidden bomb and seek a negotiated peace with the Allies. The bomb was placed under a wooden table close to Hitler, but it was moved inadvertently and ended up behind a thick leg of the table which saved him when it exploded, and he survived with non-life-threatening injuries.

Michael Keogh did what he had to do back in 1919. He responded to a call as he was trained to do and, in the process, he saved two lives, but little did he know the impact that decision would have on the rest of humanity. If he had been blessed with the gift of foresight, he might have done the world a favour and taken a bit more time to eat his lunch.

• 

I was lying in bed last week when an old poem I remembered from my school days popped into my head; ‘The Dong with the luminous nose.’ It didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time and it still doesn’t. The Dong was just a figment of Edward Lear’s imagination and I have no idea where I dragged it up from, but it got me thinking about something else.

I’m regularly approached when I’m out and about by locals keen to raise the issue of dog fouling. It’s not the most pleasant of topics but many are driven to talk about it because it’s a huge problem and most of us are fed up with looking at it.  

Stepping in it isn’t pleasant either but that’s difficult to avoid because it’s everywhere. Our footpaths, streets, green areas and even private gardens are destroyed with the stuff. It’s disgusting and I’ve been prattling on about it for years but I’m afraid I’m wasting my time because the local authorities seem to have little appetite for tackling the issue.

They’ve made little headway in the last fifty years, so I reckon it will still be a problem it in fifty more. By then, I will have had first-hand experience of the cremation process, so it won’t bother me. Hopefully, pavements in the afterlife will be poop free but for now, down here in the real world, the problem is getting worse and there are a couple of things I don’t understand.

Why have a dog in the first place if you’re at work all day and the animal is alone in the house or garden barking itself hoarse? That can’t be much fun for the dog and it certainly doesn’t bring joy to the neighbours.

Why do some owners open the front door first thing in the morning and hunt their dogs out for the day, to wander the streets creating piles of poo everywhere? If people don’t want an animal hanging around the house, why bother with a dog? They’d be better off buying a cow.

I don’t have a dog, but I recently found a heap of mess in my garden and I had to deal with it. If I could have proven the identity of the offending animal, I would have had no hesitation in returning the pile to its rightful owner. I have two grandchildren who play in our garden and I have to inspect it whenever they’re coming to visit because a couple of dogs are using my place as a public toilet.

You might think this is a modern problem, but dog fouling is nothing new. It’s been with us a long time and while trawling through the Irish Examiner Archives, I discovered we were complaining about it fifty-three years ago.

In the Evening Echo in 1967, there was a letter to the Editor from a reader who signed himself Brush and Shovel, Cork. He wanted to know why the “Budgetmaker” didn’t put a bigger tax on dogs. “They roam the streets fouling everywhere. People who haven’t a farm should be made pay £5 tax on their dogs. It would also, save money for the unfortunate ratepayer. Imagine paying men to clean up. Please, “Mr. Budget man,” increase the tax on all dogs inside the borough boundary.”

I don’t think the ‘Budgetmaker’ paid much attention to Brush and Shovel because the problem didn’t go away. In 1976, nine years later, the same paper reported that the Environment Minister Mr. Denis Howell received a report from the inter-departmental working party on the control of dogs, concerning the danger to health from fouled footpaths and open spaces. He was considering the report before deciding on publication or further action.

I have no idea what was in that report or what further action they agreed on but nine years later, in 1985, a warden service to round up stray dogs was urged by Mrs Alice Glenn (FG). She complained that the streets of Dublin were being continually fouled by dogs, causing embarrassment to residents and visitors alike and she called for dog licence fees to be increased.

Later that year, greater powers to deal with the country’s stray dog population were approved by the Government at a Cabinet meeting. Dog wardens would be appointed by the local councils to enforce the stricter regulations.

The new laws would deal with the size of the dog population, the prevalence of stray and uncontrolled dogs and the irresponsible attitude of dog owners. The fouling by dogs of parks and other public places would also be tackled. That plan didn’t work out too well.

But we weren’t the only ones suffering from an abundance of dog poo. In 1989, the Evening Echo reported that dog fouling was causing problems in England, but George Buckley had a solution. He was chairman of a parish council in Yorkshire and in that role, he had received dozens of complaints from irate residents with soiled shoes.

He said these dogs were the scourge of pavements up and down the country and because people were now more aware of the problem, many owners preferred to exercise their dogs “under the cover of night”. He said they often used darkness to conceal their foul deeds, leaving night-time strollers to tread a hazardous path in their wake.

Mr. Buckley, who was also a pharmacy lecturer at Nottingham’s Trent polytechnic, suggested that pet food manufacturers would inject their products with chemicals to make Rover’s returns glow in the dark. He thought the glowing poo might embarrass the owners.

It’s a pity that didn’t work out because it would have given us an opportunity to replace Edward Lear’s poem with one that would make a lot more sense; ’The dog with the luminous poo’.

• 

I came across a little story over the weekend that I would like to share with you. It started with a black and white photograph of an elderly man and a boy standing beside each other in the wheelhouse of a boat and it was taken almost sixty years ago. It’s the kind of photo that you would probably toss aside if you found it in your drawer but this one had a name written on the back of it.

Bear with me while I set the scene and I’ll try not to bore you to death, but I need to give you some insight into my family tree first. To be honest, it’s not a subject I am very familiar with, but I know enough to be getting on with and it’s relevant to the tale. Kind of.

My great grandfather came from Northern Ireland and I think he came to Cork to work in the maritime industry. Anyway, he had two sons Michael and Bill Carson and both of them ended up working on boats around Cork Harbour. Michael was my grandfather.

His brother Bill worked on the General McHardy, a naval launch that ferried military personnel around the harbour between Spike Island, Haulbowline and Cobh back in the day. His daughter Peggy is in her eighties now but has all her wits about her and she has a great memory.

Peggy has the photograph in question, and it was taken in the wheelhouse of the General McHardy. The young boy in the photo with him was wearing her father’s cap and the name Lee Lawson Stockdale was written on the back of it. She had an idea that he was connected with a visit to Cork by the American Ambassador to Ireland in the early sixties and she was wondering what ever became of him.

It didn’t take much detective work to discover that the American Ambassador to Ireland at that time was Grant Stockdale. He was appointed to the position in 1961 by President John. F. Kennedy and in May of that year, Mr. Stockdale set sail with his family, on the SS America to take up his new post in Ireland.

When they arrived, the SS America dropped anchor outside Cork Harbour. These days we’re used to liners coming right up to the quayside but back then, things were different. Larger ships remained outside the mouth of the harbour and passengers were ferried ashore on tenders.

The arrival of Ambassador Stockdale created a stir and this visitor was far too important to be sent ashore with regular passengers on an ordinary tender so Bill Carson was despatched in the General McHardy, along with a welcoming committee, to fetch the VIP and his family and bring them to Cobh.

Mr. Stockdale was obviously very impressed with his first view of the harbour judging by a report in the Cork Examiner. “This is one of the most beautiful spots I’ve seen,” said the newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, as he stepped aboard the naval launch, General McHardy, from the liner SS America in Cork Harbour to-day.

Mr. Stockdale was accompanied by his wife, his two sons. Grant (14), Lee Lawson (8) and his two daughters, Anne (17) and Susan (6). The Ambassador was wearing a light green tie which he said was planned and directed specially for the occasion. The children, too, wore green emblems and Susan had green bows in her hair and leprechauns embossed on her dress.

It was while they were on the launch to Cobh that young Lee was photographed with Bill Carson. As they approached the town, the bells of St. Colman’s Cathedral rang out with the American National Anthem, the Irish National Anthem and “Faith of Our Fathers”. When the party landed at Cobh, they were greeted by Mr. Frank Steele, Chairman of the Cobh U.D.C. and Mr. D. J. O’Connor, Town Clerk.

Mr. Stockdale didn’t last long in his role though and his time here was short lived. In February of the following year, 1962, there were rumours of his impending resignation which he denied but by July, he had returned to the States to manage his business.

He had a close personal friendship with President Kennedy and when he was assassinated in 1963 Stockdale took the news badly. He is said to have cried when he received a phone call informing him that his close friend was dead. A fellow worker reported trying to comfort him, but he was inconsolable and unable to speak he was so upset.

Ten days later, Grant Stockdale fell from the window of his 13^th storey office. Investigating detectives recorded the death as a suicide and said Stockdale had been in almost constant despondency since the assassination.

The loss of his father had a big impact on ten-year old Lee Lawson and it altered the course of his life. He had met President Kennedy when he was only eight years old and the youngster asked him what he needed to do to become president. JFK apparently advised him to learn his history and mind his mother.

“I was on a path for a political career,” Stockdale said. “Had my father lived, I would have gone into politics, but his death changed all that.” He joined the US Army instead, studied for a law degree and eventually became a colonel, serving in Berlin, Afghanistan and the Pentagon.

Today, Lee Stockdale runs a successful law firm in North Carolina and has raised five children with his wife Gail. He enjoys playing electric blues harmonica and wrote a novel, Murder of Law.

That’s what became of the boy who was photographed with Peggy’s dad almost sixty years ago and when she heard that story, it brought a tear to her eye.

• 

Up to a few years ago I didn’t have much of an idea about prostate cancer. My father had it and I think my grandfather may have had it too but as far as I was concerned back then, it was something that old men got. Even though I knew some of them died, I still wasn’t too concerned because it was a long way off becoming a problem for me.

That all changed in 2018 when I received that diagnosis myself. It didn’t make sense to me because I had just turned sixty and I didn’t think I was elderly. I Googled the symptoms and that only added to my confusion because I didn’t have any of them.

The symptoms include having to rush to the toilet to pass urine, or passing urine more often than usual, especially at night. Having difficulty passing urine including straining to pass it or stopping and starting and not being able to empty the bladder completely.

I didn’t have any of those, so I reckoned it was a false alarm and another test would explain it all away. It didn’t work out that way though and before I knew it, I was on my way to an MRI and a biopsy and then surgery in September 2018.

That was two years ago. I’ve just had my latest check up with the consultant and I’m happy to report that so far, it’s all good. I feel great, I’ve lost just over a stone in weight, I walk four miles a day and I recently started playing tennis again. It’s good news but it could all have been very different.

September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month and the message is simple. This type of cancer is very treatable if caught in time so early diagnosis is critical. For that to happen, we need to be aware of what’s going on in our bodies. We should be talking to our GP’s and having regular check-ups but that’s not something men are good at.

I’ve written about my own experience previously and as a result of those articles, quite a few men have contacted me. Some were worried about facing into surgery while others were post- op and worried about the future. I’m no expert so all I could do was tell them about my experience as someone who has been through it. I’m happy to do that any time because it’s really important to get the message out there that prostate cancer is not an old man’s disease. John Wall can tell you all about that.

At 48, John Wall is a father and husband living life with an advanced prostate cancer diagnosis. When John heard about the Marie Keating Foundation’s “Stand Up For Your Prostate” campaign and learned about how the campaign was encouraging the men of Ireland to be more open about their health and take the stigma out of prostate cancer, John wanted to share his story.

“For 46 years of my life, I never thought that my health would ever be an issue. I was happily married with a loving family, a good job and a great future to look forward to.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t exactly the fittest person in the world, but I had given up drinking and smoking many years ago and also had an annual medical at work each year, so I thought I was fine. That was me living blissfully unaware of what lay ahead.

I noticed during the early months of 2017 that I was having to pay frequent visits to the loo, especially at night. I never paid much attention to it. As awkward as it became, I thought it was just part of my middle-aged status. I did go to my GP twice but because of my age, nothing was considered other than an infection, so off I trotted with some antibiotics.

I did have my PSA (Prostate-Specific Antigen) checked as part of a blood test and the results were off the charts but I was not a candidate for Prostate Cancer. I didn’t fit the age profile. I was too young.

In July 2017 I began to experience slight pains in my right leg. Initially didn’t think much of it, but it got to the point where even whilst sitting, I had difficulty lifting the leg. I’m was never one to head straight to my GP on a whim, but my instinct told me this time was an exception. That evening, I was referred for a scan that would change our lives more than we could ever have imagined.

My scan showed an enlarged prostate, along with a significant enlargement of my lymph nodes. After several days of poking, prodding and discussions using words that we couldn’t even spell, our worst fears were confirmed. The diagnosis was Stage 4 Prostate Cancer with advanced secondaries in my lymph nodes. I was only 46.

I’ve reached out to other men on Twitter to offer advice based on my experiences. We need to talk, talk to each other, support each other because we have no idea what the future holds.”

John is right about the uncertainty of the future and that’s why we must do what we can to increase the odds in our favour. The best way to achieve that is to catch the disease early. A simple, regular blood test is a good place to start and don’t be afraid to talk to your GP.

I contacted John to make sure it was ok to use his story and I’ll leave the last word to him;

“Why wait for something to go wrong before we visit our GP? I mean we service our cars whether they need it or not. It’s time we started to service ourselves!”

• 

It’s not too long ago that I was feeling sorry for my late mother because she couldn’t get her head around the Internet. The whole thing overwhelmed her. She was a worrier and didn’t like taking chances or trying new things. The thought of making a mistake terrified her.

She had a tablet but was afraid to experiment with it in case she did something wrong and it didn’t matter how often we told her not to worry, it made no difference. When she came to a point where she wasn’t sure what the next step was, she would just put it to one side and leave it rather than trouble someone for assistance.

She loved her crosswords and was a big reader, so we bought her a Kindle. She used it until she ran out of books that I had loaded onto it and then went back to her crosswords. The thought of trying to upload new material was a step too far. She wouldn’t ask us for help because that would be wasting our time. In her mind, she would be bothering us.

It drove me nuts and there were many times when I found myself getting frustrated with her, but it was her way and she wasn’t going to change. She fell down the stairs at 5am one morning and ended up in a heap in the hallway, bleeding from a head wound. I got there soon after she rang and when I saw her, I called an ambulance.

She spent the next hour apologising to me and the ambulance personnel for the inconvenience she caused by having us out at that ungodly hour. While she was being put onto the stretcher, she asked one of the crew members to put a towel on their pillow so she wouldn’t get blood on it.

She never returned home after that and came to live with me when she was released from hospital. She fell because she was seriously ill with cancer and she kept quiet about that too. She died a couple of months later in my house.

During the time she was with us, I only heard her complain a couple of times and that was when the doctor called after 9pm. She told him he had enough to be doing without visiting her at that hour of the night and he should be at home with his feet up. That gives you some idea of the kind of woman we were dealing with.

She would have struggled with Covid-19. She would have been stressed to the last, not for herself but for the rest of us. She would have worried herself to death that maybe she could become a victim and a burden to those charged with minding her. If she contracted it, she would probably have kept that to herself as well.

She’s not alone because as far as I can see, that’s typical of the Irish mammy. They’re a tough bunch and they have been through the mill in the past and survived. They are a resilient generation and you can always count on them to do the right thing. They will follow the HSE guidelines and maintain social distancing, wash their hands and wear their masks because they care. They care about their family, friends and neighbours and they want to beat the virus.

Covid-19 is a ruthless opponent and I’m glad my mother has been spared the experience. As a nation, we did really well for the first wave of the virus. We locked ourselves down and did as we were told but as soon as we dropped our guard it snuck back into our lives to torment us again.

It hasn’t been easy by any means and it has been particularly difficult for those who lost friends and family. They watched funerals from a distance and some never even got a chance to say goodbye to their loved ones. Many family members couldn’t travel home for funerals and had to follow proceedings on the Internet.

That’s what my mother would have done if she was still with us. She would have followed the advice and abided by the guidelines. She wouldn’t have wanted to pass the disease to anyone else because she was responsible.

My daughter was due to get married in April but when the virus struck, she cancelled it and postponed it until August. When the restrictions weren’t lifted by then, she decided to postpone it until next year. She took it on the chin like many others and did what was right.

Then Golfgate happened. The very people pleading for adherence to the guidelines went for a game of golf and a meal. Eighty-one of them. They gave the middle finger to the rest of us and went for a day out in contravention of the very rules we were asked to comply with.

Phil Hogan, Jerry Buttimer and Dara Calleary showed an astounding degree of arrogance with their total disregard for the guidelines and, as a consequence, put a serious dent in the morale of the nation. Some are now questioning why we should obey the rules when those who should know better are doing their own thing. 

Those same people are now telling us it’s vital for Phil Hogan’s position to be filled by a strong candidate. Apparently, we need another Big Phil type character to look out for our interests in the run up to the Brexit negotiations. An experienced politician.

I disagree. What we really need is someone who will lead by example and put the country’s interest before their own. If my mother was alive, I’d nominate her but as that’s not possible, I propose any other Irish mammy for the position. Then we’d have someone to follow.