Steven Are  ✒ I had cause recently to remember an old memory from when I was a wean in Belfast

One of those memories that are long forgotten until jarred into the present, not unpleasantly, just unexpectedly.

For some reason most of my memories of the Belfast of my youth are when the sun was shining and the summer was hazy. The rains only recur when recalling my teenage years. I’m sure Freud would have an explanation, or Nietzsche why this was so.

This particular memory brought back the abominable smell of the Lagan around the Gasworks, long before the weirs were put in to keep the water level up and the smell down. Apparently, this was a by-product of the Gasworks refinement. Whatever the hell it was it was, when late summer was upon us and the river level dropped the stench could have turned the stomach of Mengele. Acrid, it caught the back of your throat in a way that first illicit cigarette did when you nicked it from a parents possession and feigned maturity in front of your cohorts. God knows what the aul biddies were thinking when they brought all the weans who suffered from a ‘bad chest’ to get a lung full to help clear them. Good for clearing phlegm I’ll concede nowadays but thankfully Medicine has provided more palatable methods.

Not all progress is aesthetically pleasing as what went before, and I remember clearly playing on the cobblestone streets with a ball. Unending games of Kirby and next goal the winner football with that one mental friend who’d think nothing of slide tackling on concrete. Occasionally a ball blasted over the wall of the permanently sulky old fart who hated kids and would never give them back. A few braver souls would comment about broken windows and ball ownership would be rightfully returned, though a clip around the ear from a parent upon returning home over misadventures was not unusual. At the time I was baffled how my parents knew but figured there must have been some sort of telepathy at play, for not a misdeed was missed, nor comment not heard. Such is the wonderment of youth that we think we are so crafty but we’re as blatant in our shortcomings as the next kid.

The coalman who serviced the cheek-by-jowl streets was a kindly soul. He had what seemed to be an enormous horse that pulled the cart around his run. My father had a great affection for these animals and taught me how to plait their hair into braids. An odd thing given the machismo of the times but it is a treasured memory more so now, many thousands of miles and years removed I have taught my daughter how to do the same. I can still recall the coalman telling me gently to always approach a horse from the front and be kind to them. The horse was well used to people but I appreciated the gravity of his advice as though I was entrusted with some great secret that only we and Doctor Doolittle would know!

Years later I asked what happened to the horses during the summer months when there was no demand for coal. I found out that they were taken to large wooded paddocks south of Belfast and allowed to roam free, but when the days shortened they instinctively knew to return to gate for their work, probably grateful of a warm and dry barn over the winter months.

I don’t miss the coal fires and their smoke over the city, but I’ll always have fond memories of cobblestone streets and horses with braided hair.

Steven Are is a Belfast quiller now living in Australia.

The Lagan

Steven Are  ✒ I had cause recently to remember an old memory from when I was a wean in Belfast

One of those memories that are long forgotten until jarred into the present, not unpleasantly, just unexpectedly.

For some reason most of my memories of the Belfast of my youth are when the sun was shining and the summer was hazy. The rains only recur when recalling my teenage years. I’m sure Freud would have an explanation, or Nietzsche why this was so.

This particular memory brought back the abominable smell of the Lagan around the Gasworks, long before the weirs were put in to keep the water level up and the smell down. Apparently, this was a by-product of the Gasworks refinement. Whatever the hell it was it was, when late summer was upon us and the river level dropped the stench could have turned the stomach of Mengele. Acrid, it caught the back of your throat in a way that first illicit cigarette did when you nicked it from a parents possession and feigned maturity in front of your cohorts. God knows what the aul biddies were thinking when they brought all the weans who suffered from a ‘bad chest’ to get a lung full to help clear them. Good for clearing phlegm I’ll concede nowadays but thankfully Medicine has provided more palatable methods.

Not all progress is aesthetically pleasing as what went before, and I remember clearly playing on the cobblestone streets with a ball. Unending games of Kirby and next goal the winner football with that one mental friend who’d think nothing of slide tackling on concrete. Occasionally a ball blasted over the wall of the permanently sulky old fart who hated kids and would never give them back. A few braver souls would comment about broken windows and ball ownership would be rightfully returned, though a clip around the ear from a parent upon returning home over misadventures was not unusual. At the time I was baffled how my parents knew but figured there must have been some sort of telepathy at play, for not a misdeed was missed, nor comment not heard. Such is the wonderment of youth that we think we are so crafty but we’re as blatant in our shortcomings as the next kid.

The coalman who serviced the cheek-by-jowl streets was a kindly soul. He had what seemed to be an enormous horse that pulled the cart around his run. My father had a great affection for these animals and taught me how to plait their hair into braids. An odd thing given the machismo of the times but it is a treasured memory more so now, many thousands of miles and years removed I have taught my daughter how to do the same. I can still recall the coalman telling me gently to always approach a horse from the front and be kind to them. The horse was well used to people but I appreciated the gravity of his advice as though I was entrusted with some great secret that only we and Doctor Doolittle would know!

Years later I asked what happened to the horses during the summer months when there was no demand for coal. I found out that they were taken to large wooded paddocks south of Belfast and allowed to roam free, but when the days shortened they instinctively knew to return to gate for their work, probably grateful of a warm and dry barn over the winter months.

I don’t miss the coal fires and their smoke over the city, but I’ll always have fond memories of cobblestone streets and horses with braided hair.

Steven Are is a Belfast quiller now living in Australia.

5 comments:

  1. Stevie...... At the time I was baffled how my parents knew but figured there must have been some sort of telepathy at play, for not a misdeed was missed, nor comment not heard.

    And there was no smart phones, FB, snapchat etc....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am still amazed at how the womenfolk are still able to do this. A lot of the blue rinsed brigade do not use social media yet have a supernatural knack of knowing everything that goes on.

      Delete
  2. I remember that Lagan smell so well - very strong down at River Terrace when the tide was out. When the Boyne gives off the same odour it takes me back to my childhood along the river bank

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Once across the nostrils it never leaves you. It was horrendous.

      Delete
  3. Wonderful memories, well retold.
    I remember staying in Ballymurphy and the youths mocking my Australian accent. I remember the kids swings were a rope tied around the power poles, simple fun.
    I remember when some kids sprung someone from Special Branch spying on the top of Donegal Rd. They confronted her in her car and refused to move. The peeler obviously triggered a silent alarm and a car arrived and spirited her away.
    Soon the right people were informed and they recovered a short, a Heckler and Koch submachine gun, street plans with house numbers and suspects names and a high tech radio.
    The next day a graffiti when up on the brick warehouse nearby saying ;
    "SAS Beware, We Have Your Heckler". It was glorious ;-)

    ReplyDelete