Any Old Iron?

My greatest memory of Saturday nights in our Ringsend house is of my mother ironing in the living room.  Never a woman to rush out and buy the latest gadgets she quite happily made do with what, even then (mid-1960s), resembled an item which would have looked more at home in a glass showcase in the National Museum!  This apparent prehistoric object was in fact an iron made from real iron - now, I don't have to be a Mensa member to guess that this is how it probably got its name.  She had not just one but two for the simple reason that you needed two, one for working with while the other heated on the cooker, in our case, a gas cooker!  I was always terrified watching the blue flame curl around this rusty monstrosity, expecting it to explode through the roof at any given moment.

When mother had cleared away after tea she would place on the oval dining table her ironing paraphernalia which consisted of; a heavy piece of felt on which was placed several old sheets folded into a large square, all of which made for a wonderful deep, thick ironing board.  While this ritual was being carried out, the first iron was heating like billyo on the dreaded gas cooker.  Then, fast as lightning, when the iron had reached the required temperature and for the life of me I'll never know how she knew this, she would place it in its stainless steel shield, put the other iron on to heat then begin work on my father's shirts which would have taken precedence over every other item of clothing.  The trick with this form of ironing was in the speed with which you worked because the irons cooled very quickly.  I wonder now how my mother had such energy at the end of the day, it makes me tired just thinking about it!

I'll never know why she didn't just invest in an electric iron which would have made life so much easier for her but it was probably because of her fear of electric gadgets, she didn't trust them.  Hence, our household didn't possess what would have then been considered luxuries such as a fridge or washing-machine, mother preferring to rely on a tin box hung on our backyard wall to keep the food cool both in summer and winter and rolling up her sleeves each Monday morning which was of course, washday.


Above image via: www.quiltaddictsanonymous.com

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What A Year!

They say God never closes one door but He opens another - well, that's exactly what the year 2012 has been for me.

The year didn't get off to a great start with me having being recently diagnosed with breast cancer then facing surgery and treatment but by mid-summer the door was truly opened with the wedding of our eldest son making hubby and I the proudest, happiest parents in the world!  I couldn't have asked for a lovelier daughter-in-law, we get on fabulously.

Christmas has been extra special for me this year for many reasons, and you know what? - the best has yet to come, more about that in the New Year!

I just want to say a quick Thank You to all of you who were so supportive to me through your lovely comments during the year.

I wish everyone a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful 2013!!!!


Above image: St. Stephen's Green, Dublin, taken by me, September 2011.

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Julia

The subject of the lines below is a lady who was very much part of my early and later life.   At difficult times she always seemed to be there, a warm shoulder to lean on.  Her presence during one very painful life event helped me more than she'll ever know.  Amazingly, her voice has not altered with time, which for me is magic because when I hear her speak, I'm once again that little girl, so excited at being in the company of someone who is very special to me.  It's been a few years since I heard that voice, so before this year is out, I intend to right that.  Meantime, this is for you, dear cousin.



Julia


My newest mother is peering down the Brownie camera lens
while I, in your arms, scowl at the box.
I'm two and a half years old
And not used to having my photograph taken.
My newest backyard is still an unfamiliar playground,
But safe within your arms, the strangeness holds no fear.

I'm eight years old,
It's dark, you hold my hand as we descend the cast-iron steps to your underground workplace.
I've never been in a canteen,
My eyes and ears absorb the sights and sounds of tea trays being delivered through little wall hatches
And the merry chatter of people enjoying their evening meal.

I feel certain it's the same evening, you take me to a big house,
Up the stairway to a room where both cheery mother and bustling brood welcome us with lively banter.
I love being here.
I protest at leaving the joyful spirit of this tenement lodging.

I'm ten years old,
I wait at the corner of our avenue on balmy summer Friday nights.
You bring sixpenny bars of chocolate, that's all I remember.

I'm twelve years old,
You arrive to our house every few weeks with your first-born daughter
In her magnificent high pram with the rose on the side.
I get to wheel her up the avenue.   I get to hold her.
I want to be a mother like you.

I'm seventeen years old,
I'm living with your Mam and Dad.
I don't see you as often as I'd like
But I see your first-born daughter some week-ends.

I'm forty five years old,
You hold me in your arms as I grieve the loss of my not-so-new mother.
She had her problems but she was a good mother.

I'm forty nine years old,
We hold each other as we grieve the loss of my not-so-new father.
He had his problems but he was a good father.

We're both older mothers now.
I don't see you at all.
I want to hear your voice again.
I want to hold you and feel your motherly arms around me.
I want to savour the chocolate bars one more time.


© Ann Brien 2012


Above image:  Me, taken by Julia in my backyard, 1954.

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Too Cold For "Piggybeds"

I'm not quite sure what it is about this time of year but I find myself yet again wanting to describe a winter memory as I experienced it during my childhood in Ringsend, Dublin.   I pray all these  memories I will carry with me to the end of my days, and with some luck, into the next life.

How wonderful it would be if we could transfer our happy recollections into our childrens' minds for them to glimpse what life was like for a child in the 1950s and 60s long before street games were replaced by sitting at a computer monitor where the only physical movement is that of your fingers on a keyboard and the periodic clicking of a mouse.   I suppose it has something in its favour, perhaps the children of today have a level of mental fitness that we could never achieve, but Boy, were we physically fit as fiddles!

Below is a little piece I wrote when remembering the other day, the winter's evening my friends and I had been playing "piggybeds" (a kind of hopscotch) at the end of my avenue and when it became too cold, they went home.

I, of course, with my goulish fascination for bleak winter nights remained in the avenue for a while in the hope that a storm-force wind would suddenly blow up and then I'd also get to hear the eerie fog-horn which always excited and terrified me at the same time!


Too Cold For "Piggybeds"


The street lamp casts its amber glow upon the eight-squared white chalk pattern,
A dirt-filled polish tin lies abandoned just outside square four, its abrupt end to play, the consequence of frozen fingers.
Mesmerised by the bleakness of this November evening,
My gaze begins its long fix on nature's tapestry;
The fog-shrouded moon,
The navy clouds, their wispy pink tendrils trailing off in zig-zag directions and, across the road,
The ink-black Liffey as she rhythmically pounds the sea wall.
Enveloped in the freezing mist
My thoughts now turn to bright red flames leaping in our living-room hearth,
And so, without much inner persuasion, I place the long-discarded "piggy" in the safety of neighbouring hedgerow,
Then make my way homeward to the promising comforts of warm hands and Irish stew.


© Ann Brien 2012


Above image: My avenue, taken by me, July 2011 (hedgerow to right still in existence!).

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Terraced Lives

Every so often, in fact, very often, I browse through the photographs I've taken over the years, and the ones that I linger over the most are those of my beloved hometown of Ringsend, Dublin.

This particular image I took of my avenue shortly before I left in the summer of 1969. As I stared intently at the houses facing onto one another, side by side in a straight row, they looked like dancers waiting for their musical cue to move forward. I believe houses hold memories. I tried to imagine how many family situations made their way through the wallpapered walls of the neighbouring houses, our neighbours on both sides were placid to the extreme.

As I'm fascinated by rooftops I'm so happy to have captured the avenue back at a time when huge TV aerials were essential if you wanted to view television channels from across the water, namely, the BBC and UTV. We didn't have one so made do with Radio Telefis Eireann, great programmes they were too!  Below are my few words of tribute to a time gone by.


Terraced Lives

Like stone-faced dancers
The houses face each other.
Conjoined bricks and mortar hold within them secrets of the dwellers
And, through faded creamy rosebud paper, sounds from distant rooms.
Like grotesque mosquitoes hung in time
Steel grey aerials stand tall against the darkened skyline,
Their rooftop vantage serving the human need to look beyond its own wretched life
Onto an imagined brighter landscape.

© Ann Brien 2012


Above image: Cambridge Avenue, Ringsend, Dublin taken by me, May 1969.

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Remembering Norma Jeane

I wasn't quite eleven years old when the body of Marilyn Monroe was found in the early hours of August 5th, 1962, in her Los Angeles home. Dead at the age of just thirty six. I vaguely remember the newspaper headlines and all the commotion at the time but what I vividly remember is seeing the many images of this truly beautiful blonde-haired woman whose eyes held you captive with their dreamy softness and that perfectly formed mouth.

Eleven years later those same photographs were to once again draw me like a magnet to Marilyn, not only because of her great beauty, but this time, sitting in my Dublin bed-sit, I'd just read about her tragic early life in The Sunday Times Magazine, 7th October, 1973. Some of her pain I could identify with.

During the early 1970s I was doing a bit of photographic modelling and sometimes during a shoot I'd pretend I was Marilyn, I felt inspired by her.  As I'd wanted to be an actress since I was twelve years old I promised myself that if I ever succeeded in fulfilling that dream, Marilyn would again be my inspiration.

Maybe the cause of her death will never be determined but I'd like to think it wasn't murder or suicide.

Famous Marilyn Monroe Quote: “I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”  That told 'em!

Goodbye, Norma Jeane, you are in the hearts and minds of people today, you always will be. Rest In Peace.





Top image of Marilyn via www.telegraph.co.uk
Centre image via The Sunday Times
Bottom image, my photoshoot 1971-1974

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Maeve Binchy - Storyteller Extraordinaire

I was a late comer to the writings of Maeve Binchy.  In fact, it wasn't until the summer of 2006 that I read a whole bunch of her short stories during a long, hot, holiday in the South of France. Reading through each narrative I became increasingly aware of Maeve's great ability to touch the very soul of the reader with her heart-warming and sometimes, quite painful outcome of the characters you got to know so well, you were deeply affected by it. For me, that's the sign of a great storyteller.

Maeve was the author of sixteen novels, two of which were later made into TV films (The Lilac Bus and Echoes). Three others, Circle of Friends, Tara Road and How About You were made into feature films. She also wrote four collections of short stories, a play, Deeply Regretted By and the novella, Star Sullivan.

It was while working in the Irish Times London office during the early 1970s that she began writing fiction and where she would meet her husband, Gordon Snell. Her first novel, Light A Penny Candle, was published in 1982 and remained in the Top 10 charts for fifty three weeks.

My favourite Maeve Binchy quote in which she once said of her female characters "I don't have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turning into confident ducks".  Wow!

On Monday evening, 30th July, Maeve Binchy aged 72, died peacefully in hospital after a short illness with her husband, Gordon and sister, Joan at her side. Her funeral service took place this morning in the Church of the Assumption, Dalkey attended by hundreds of mourners from near and far.  This was a lady so much loved, not only for her great gift of storytelling, but for the lovely person she was. She will be sadly missed.

Our Taoiseach, Enda Kenny in his tribute to Maeve on Tuesday said: "Today we have lost a national treasure...."  We're all with you on that one, Enda.  Rest In Peace, Maeve.


Above image of Maeve Binchy via www.irishtimes.com
Church of the Assumption, Dalkey taken by me on 26th July 2012

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