On the last day of the year I find myself thinking back to an old friend from childhood for whom this year was the last of his mortal coil. Jimmy Harpo Murray was a character from the earliest days. As kids on the scent of adventure and devilment there was so much we did together. Life was carefree, cushioned somewhat by the illusion that if we messed up this one there would always be another one in some imaginary place called Heaven. Although then, Jimmy’s idea of what Paradise really was seemed to be Parkhead in Glasgow where the angels wore green and white hoops and the devils in blue were not all that welcome.
Jimmy hailed from a large family in Belfast’s Markets area. We didn’t know him as Harpo then, although why we never tagged the name to him given the remarkable resemblance to the most silent of Marx brothers with his mop of curly reddish hair, escapes me. The family later moved to McClure Street in the Lower Ormeau Road but were fortunate to move out before the area became a killing ground for loyalists on the prowl for an easy innocent target. It was while he lived in McClure Street that we became firm friends.
One of our shared passions was soccer. I had been to see my first Liverpool game, played against Linfield in Windsor Park, while his loyalties lay further North than the Scousers. He was a Glasgow Celtic supporter and I have this distinct memory of watching the 1970 European Cup final with him in the living room of his home on a rain swept Belfast night. The game was played in Italy and Celtic were beaten by an Ove Kindvall goal for Feyenoord after Tommy Gemmell put the Glasgow side ahead. Jimmy’s disappointment was greater than mine.
Shortly after that game we avidly followed the 1970 World Cup which was won by a brilliant Brazilian team never to be equalled since. From their first game against Czechoslovakia they dazzled their way to Jules Rimet glory. Around the same time we were running our own soccer team, Santos, named after Pele’s club team in Brazil. There were probably dozens of Santos teams formed that year but for us our own was the real Santos, the rest ersatz. Our full eleven played throughout Belfast in the Chelsea rig of the day, and went unbeaten. Myself and Jimmy would argue like mad on the pitch, I too bossy and he too much of a free spirit to be told how to play by a self-appointed captain. He eventually led a rebellion and the team fell apart.
Together we made up a formidable team of inveterate orchard robbers, often making what seemed like suicidal leaps from trees to escape being caught by irate apple growers. Memories come flooding back which also cast us as line walkers doing the railway tracks for hours on end, sustained by a packet of cigarettes and what buns we managed to steal from the Scammels belonging to Inglis Bakery which were parked close to the tracks at the Markets.
The bond of friendship, when forged at such a tender age, seems filled with the potential to be undying. It is rarely so. Life’s events intervene and new friendships are formed that are much more complex and less forgiving than those formed when so young. Inevitably we parted ways. As the conflict deepened he moved off to the West of the city and I ended up going to jail. After release I would bump into him on a few occasions in Ballymurphy as he sauntered his way through the streets. He would always stop and gave me his craic and then move on to whatever destination he was heading to. Although we played no part in each other’s lives after those heady teenage years, his death in September left a void in a heart that was once young and as wild as the flowing hair of Jimmy Murray. There was no way that his infectious sense of mischief would not stir something in me when I learned that he had died.
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A lovely walk down life,s memory lane Anthony, and good memories are the gift of life, I remember growing up in Andytown when the tree lined main road was not much wider than a country lane and there were thatched cottages in Stockmans lane, and the orangemen walked to their field in Finaghy rd,we robbed orchies in a area about a mile square comprising the Lisburn rd ,Finaghy rd north, Andytown RD Fruithill ,boy were they halcyon days,going to school in Casement park,A million years away from 1969 and the ending of innocence,now see whay you,ve started Anthony where,s my onions Marty f
ReplyDeleteMarty, orchie raids were the stuff of life. I had quite a few mates willing to go on those escapades. Stumbed across a well tended gosseberry plot once on the Ravenhill Road. Don't think we left a thing on the bush. People like Jimmy Murray fill childhood with happy memories
ReplyDeleteOne of the mates got caught after we were chased from a msssive apple and pear orchie attached to a big house next door to Musgrave park, the peelers brought him home in one of those big black cars they used and he got a slap as well, and who was one of the peelers none other than the pig Mc Neely, we talked about that for months,we also used to collect the empties from the orange field in Finaghy rd north and bring them to the rear of the white fort and got 3D PER bottle,we also used to ambush the poor busmen on the trolly buses we drenched them with water bombs, we were bad I tell ya and jaysus you,ve fallen asleep Marty f p.s.thanks for waking up those memories Anthony
ReplyDeleteWe called it scrumping over here, over walls and fences into back gardens like a bunch of locusts, ending the day with a gut-ache after eating to much fruit. Funny thing was, I lived in the countryside and we would go into the town to scrump, looking back I have no idea why, probably a gut feeling you do not steal off your own and it was great fun getting one over on the townies.
ReplyDeleteA Mick your a bad article,and your right about the stomach ache,anyway I,m going for a few jars and I,ll down the first in memory of Anthony,s mucker Harpo slanite lads Marty f
ReplyDeleteMick, you are a bad apple!!
ReplyDeleteMacker, I just now read this piece on Jimmy Murray and to my shame I did not even know that he had died. As you say, our lives often take other paths but like yourself I remember Harpo very well. We had many laughs both with him and about him. Do you remember the time he dropped a cigarette butt into an oil drum outside |Geordie Stows yard and the thing exploded? He was in hospital with burns to his face and head and we went to see him when he got out at his house in McClure St. He had lost his eyebrows and all his hair was singed and blew back on his head and somebody said he looked like the baby Jesus. I also remember some 20th century apple robbery when you, me and the Baby Jesus and maybe one of his brothers stole a box of apples off the back of a McGrattans fruit lorry. Memory tells me that one of the McCartans was also involved in this enterprise, I have a sense of a young Malachy McCartan 'keeping dick' I have never been able to enjoy a Cox's Orange Pippen since because we ate ourselves sick on them. Anyway. that was a nice piece on Harpo
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