nud1e
Registered user
Jaythro's photo brought me back to my childhood.
![Bushvisit03[1].jpg](https://www.ukgser.com/community/data/attachments/59/59704-e63781fb36b81e635c84b3cc37c889dc.jpg?hash=5jeB-za4Hm "Bushvisit03[1].jpg")
I went to my first primary school just down the road in Whiteabbey, and if I spent my 3d bus fare on a bag of chips at lunchtime, I would have to walk back home to Rathcoole. Up the same Station Rd in the photo, before the roundabout, over the railway bridge, and left across the fields to Abbot's Cross, then more fields and building sites to Avonlea Gdns. This would have been 51/52/53 years ago, when I went to St. Joseph's from 5 - 8 years old.
The chipper was on the other side of the Shore Rd, and if the tide was out we would walk along the shore.
The highlights were when the Sunderlands took off from the Lough and flew over the school, when the waves broke over the Shore Rd during a storm. We would look from bird's nests in the bushes by the railway, eat our pieces as we passed the abattoir, and went up to the mill dam where the odd dead dog floated that we would poke with sticks or pelt with stones.
I don't know if my mother worried about my whereabouts, but she was driven to distraction when my sister decided to walk home from primary school in Greencastle.
I think that these were the best of my formative years.
It seems to me that these were unrestricted times, but you had to tell your mammy if you were leaving the street and be back for meals.
I roamed free, explored, walked, ran, fell out of trees, climbed out of windows, crashed tricycles, watched the Lone Ranger in black and white 405 lines on a Friday in the Kennedys next door, listened to the radio, read everything and talked with everyone. If you misbehaved or gave cheek, any adult was entitled to boot your ass or clip your ear. You eat what was put in front of you, you wore what you were given, you had your Sunday best.
Sundays lasted a week.
I didn't think of consequences then or later, lessons would be learnt but it always seemed that somehow things worked out. Like the Easter Monday when I was 13 and decided to take the bike for a ride. In the morning, I left Rosebank St, off the Crumlin Rd in Belfast and late that evening arrived at the grandparents' farm that lies in the townlands between Carrickmacross and Kingscourt. A telegram was sent to my parents and aunt Judy got me and the bike a lift home in a trunk a few days later.
Ignorance was bliss, responsibility didn't existed.
So thanks for the memories, Jaythro
I went to my first primary school just down the road in Whiteabbey, and if I spent my 3d bus fare on a bag of chips at lunchtime, I would have to walk back home to Rathcoole. Up the same Station Rd in the photo, before the roundabout, over the railway bridge, and left across the fields to Abbot's Cross, then more fields and building sites to Avonlea Gdns. This would have been 51/52/53 years ago, when I went to St. Joseph's from 5 - 8 years old.
The chipper was on the other side of the Shore Rd, and if the tide was out we would walk along the shore.
The highlights were when the Sunderlands took off from the Lough and flew over the school, when the waves broke over the Shore Rd during a storm. We would look from bird's nests in the bushes by the railway, eat our pieces as we passed the abattoir, and went up to the mill dam where the odd dead dog floated that we would poke with sticks or pelt with stones.
I don't know if my mother worried about my whereabouts, but she was driven to distraction when my sister decided to walk home from primary school in Greencastle.
I think that these were the best of my formative years.
It seems to me that these were unrestricted times, but you had to tell your mammy if you were leaving the street and be back for meals.
I roamed free, explored, walked, ran, fell out of trees, climbed out of windows, crashed tricycles, watched the Lone Ranger in black and white 405 lines on a Friday in the Kennedys next door, listened to the radio, read everything and talked with everyone. If you misbehaved or gave cheek, any adult was entitled to boot your ass or clip your ear. You eat what was put in front of you, you wore what you were given, you had your Sunday best.
Sundays lasted a week.
I didn't think of consequences then or later, lessons would be learnt but it always seemed that somehow things worked out. Like the Easter Monday when I was 13 and decided to take the bike for a ride. In the morning, I left Rosebank St, off the Crumlin Rd in Belfast and late that evening arrived at the grandparents' farm that lies in the townlands between Carrickmacross and Kingscourt. A telegram was sent to my parents and aunt Judy got me and the bike a lift home in a trunk a few days later.
Ignorance was bliss, responsibility didn't existed.
So thanks for the memories, Jaythro
