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GI4RSI > BARNEY 24.09.04 08:58l 45 Lines 5239 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 13158-GB7FCR
Read: GUEST
Subj: Remember the days...........................................
Path: ON0AR<ON0AR<GB7FCR
Sent: 040924/0817Z @:GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU #:13158 [Blackpool] FBB-7.03a $:13158-GB
From: GI4RSI@GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU
To : BARNEY@WW
Do you remember days of tuppenny wafer and penny poke?
Hello there! How are ye all doin?
Does this photo (note: only available via e-mail) above awaken any memories, especially in the minds of fashion-conscious ladies?
Maybe you don't remember the old fashioned shawls'? Many a good song was written about them, for instance, "My shawl of Galway grey," etc., but 1 hear they're not called shawls now, but ponchos.
1 took that photo myself one day in the summer of 1934 on a visit to Belfast, while she was getting a tuppenny wafer for herself and a penny poke for the child. Do you remember them'? Remember the ice cream handcarts also? How was it that there wasn't any danger from "hygienic germs" then'? Nobody even heard of them!
Nowadays the carts have been superseded by mobile vans, brightly coloured and neon lights and 'chimes' that would deafen you if you're within a hundred yards of them.
In the towns there are fancy ice cream parlours complete with piped 'musak' and mirrors and lights etc.
I remember some of them in Strabane. Divers in the Back Street, Cassini in the Main Street, Vacarro in Castle Place, and, of course, in Omagh there was Battisti and a few others I can't remember. And what lovely real ice cream it was, too, usually made from a special family recipe 'the rale McCoy'.
I have a special memory of one in Strabane when I must have been only about eight or nine years old.
At that time, my mother used to get a woman from Sion Mills to walk into the town on a Saturday to help with the washing etc, and sometimes she brought her wee son Georgie with her
and although only about 10 he, too, had to walk the three miles.
I got the job of cleaning and polishing all the boots and shoes in the house, usually about 10 of them or so, as my father took great pride in having a great shine on his, sometimes changing twice a day.
As the saying goes `You could see yourself in the toecaps,' but he often said to me: `What about the heels? That's what others see. You may be able to see yourself on the toecaps, but the heels are important too!
I often thought: `there is great truth in that, a sermon in a sentence.'
I was rewarded with a whole penny for my trouble.
Of course, a penny bought a bar of chocolate, or a half dozen brandy balls, or a "penny poke" of ice cream.
We didn't know how well off we were in those far off days!
When Kitty brought her "wee Georgie" in with her, he gave me a hand with the polishing, and he got a penny too! One day my mother gave us a silver thrupenny bit between us. We were thrilled - a whole thrupenny bit! We thought we could buy the world!
Georgie was no mug. He took charge of the thrupenny bit and whispered to me, "Come on and we'll try to get into the pictures." There was a matinee in the Pallidrome at the time.
So away the pair of us went - but we couldn't get in - it was tuppence each and we were a penny short.
So Georgie said: `Come on, we'll get ice cream somewhere in town. We hadn't far to go - so into the shop we went, Georgie leading on, and up to the counter he went, slapped his hand on the counter and said to the Italian man.
"There ye are Mister there's a thrupenny bit. Give us all the ice cream you can for that."
He shouted at us `Get out - get out, you rie, you have no money."
Georgie said: "Oh Mister, we had a thrupenny bit - we had surely. Maybe it fell down behind your counter."
He lifted a knife and chased us out!
There was the pair of us, standing outside the shop, almost crying and George said: "It must have slipped out of my hand, but we'll go round the corner of that entry there and pray to St. Anthony for it, he'll get it for us.
So into the entry we went. He kneeled down on the wet stones and mud and prayed harder than I had ever prayed before, although I must confess I had never heard tell of St. Anthony.
`Come on now,' said Georgie, and into the shop we went again, only to be confronted by the angry ice cream man: "Did I tell you to get out."
"But Mister," said Georgie, 'we didn't lie, we had the thrupenny bit. Have a good look for it, for we have been praying to St. Anthony for it and he'll find it for us.
The ice cream man smiled a sad sort of a smile and said: "You pray to St. Anthony. Oh when I was a little bambino my momma told me to pray, but when I left home, I forgot to pray? My momma is up in heaven and she pray for me now. You are good boys, sit down and I'll give you ice cream for no money."
There were tears in his eyes, his heart was heavy, but it was full of kindness. He set a plate in front of us, filled it with piles of ice cream, and red jelly and red juice and told us to eat up. I never had a feed like it before - or maybe since.
As every good boy should, I said my prayers regularly, every night, but didn't expect much.
But the person who taught me the cash value of prayer - and that it worked was wee Georgie.
As far as I remember he died in his teens and now lies in Melmount Cemetery. I never pass that way but I think of him and his faith in the power of prayer.
Try it for yourselves - it works!
God bless you. Barney McCool
73 - Kenny, GI4RSI @ GI4RSI
Message timed: 09:15 on 2004-Sep-24
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