FORTY SEVEN - Long ago and Far Away...

In a country too beautiful to describe:

If it rained and your shoes were new you were one of the lucky ones. If it rained and your shoes, as so many were, were old hand me downs or cast offs, your feet got wet. Not so bad in the summer when the squelching cold was easily dried and warmed, but oh it hurt in the winter when you sat in class with the fire warming the teacher who stood, toasting his rear and blocking the heat while you froze a mere few feet away.

You walked or ran home and didn't notice the beauty through the rain. At home it might be happy or it might not and for a few it definitely was not, but either way it was drier and warmer than outside and sometimes if need be there was the barn to shelter in. For a few going home was fraught with danger but not going home was worse, sure you could be thrown to the church who knew how to deal with recalcitrant youth.

The Kitchen was the main room, there the fire burned with the turf that on summer days you had helped to cut. No radio or tv back then, families talked and laughed or cried together in the steaming, smoky kitchen with the windows and door shut tight against the draught.

On happy nights, how a child remembers! stories were told of other times and strange events, of chains rattling on empty stairs, young eyes would gaze fearfully at the stairs and wait for someone else to go first.

When it was time for bed you got changed quickly in the freezing bedroom and if the blanket on the bed was not enough your Mum took your dried out coat and threw it across the bed for extra warmth. Sure it would come to no harm there and in the morning you would put it on to go to school.

For some people and especially for some children this was Ireland not so long ago.

---

This is an old one written about 2010 when I was on a course. I've always liked it so I thought today I'd give it an airing.

---