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Post by rose5mcdonaghtce on Nov 12, 2009 23:50:22 GMT
Hi All
When I was a child Mr. Cadogan was the Post Master, Hugh Campion and Paddy Costigan were the tellers. Mrs Delaney Brownstown kept the place shining. Danny Dunne sat on the forum in the corner, the lads used to give him a cup of tea and sometimes he would have a Gateau swiss roll ( a big treat in those days) and if you were lucky enough to be there at the right time you might get a bit.
On Friday's I used to buy the 6d saving stamp do you remember the book you got, when it was full you had £1. I never got to the £1 would cash in way before that. Paddy O'Brien was the post man every child on the Camp following him on a Friday morning especially in the summer holidays, you were sure of a letter that day the Ma's cheque, he was a very pleasant and patient man.
The phone kiosk inside the post office with the swivel stool, went in everytime for a twirl, the weight of the receiver when you picked it up and pretended to be making a call. The shine on the bars on the counter, no sparing the brasso. The runners bikes outside parked with the pedal on the steps while they collected and posted mail for their Bks. Everytime we passed the stamp machine you always checked to see if there was a stamp in the slot or a penny in the tray. Seeing how far your arm would go in to the post box. Going up to post letters and Mam would put an X on the right hand side of the envelope to make sure I put the stamp in the right place, always licked the stamp to death and Hugh or Paddy would have to put a bit of sellotape on it. Could always smell ink when I went in. The big turf fire in the winter time blazing up the chimmney.
Wondering if any of the lads worked as telegram boys?
On a Friday evening all the recruits on a week-end pass in uniform and their kit bags sitting on the windowsills waiting for the bus to Kildare for the train station, proud as punch in their uniforms going home to show the folks.
Most of the kids collected the childrens allowance for the Ma's on the first Tuesday of the month ours was 10/- or thereabouts, with the present forecast for the budget it will be somewhere in that region again.
Rose.
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Post by shamtheman on Nov 13, 2009 0:05:50 GMT
Nice memories Rose, well done!
I remember Hugh asking me who 'Lizzie was' when I was sent up to the PO to send a telegram (remember them) to her relatives in Cork that she had died the night before. Lizzie was my grandmother Nanny Dolan from 2A Block McDonagh, and she died aged 67 in 1977. Hugh, and everybody else, knew her as Nanny who worked in the 'Wes' for years, so Lizzy was confusing to him.
I was listening to 'Sylvia's Mother' the other day, and realised that the young people today wouldn't have a clue what '40 cents more for the next 3 minutes' meant. We lived with it: the only phones were at the PO, the phone box opposite the 'Picture House' and the one in Sandes. A kindly telephonist and you got 4 or 5 minutes before dropping more coins or saying your goodbyes.
I remember the turf fire well, and people waiting inside for the bus to Kildare on cold days. Hugh was a great and kindly man, and his premature passing was a shock to all.
Sham.
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Post by Brendan on Nov 13, 2009 19:45:41 GMT
Rose & Sham:
Great memories indeed! The Post Office stands out as I remember my first day of secondary school. The first Monday of September 1971, rolled in with unwelcome bells in my head. Eight-fifteen in the morning, I felt uneasy about the unknown. What is it about change, or starting something new? Why does it inject angst into my bones? Maybe it was the thought of going to school in a different town, with different people and being taught by strangers other than the Curragh teachers. Five months after entering teenage hood didn’t lessen my trepidation on the first day of secondary school. Most of us moped about the Curragh Post Office waiting for the bus to Kildare trying to rid our sweaty anxiety against our new clothes.
A dozen lads clustered around the large slate-like windowsill, while the girls congregated around the green and beige telephone booth engaged in idle chatter and nervous laughter. Our imaginations were trapped in ice cubes ogling each other amid layers of nylon, light blue-check shirts and navy-blue cardigans. There was no statements with the lads either. Most of us donned black or gray trousers, light coloured shirts with badly knotted ties, jumpers and jackets. There were similar examples of anxiety across the street outside Powell’s waiting to head to the schools in Newbridge.
Twenty minutes after eight, the CIE bus pulled into the kerb beside the post office. A heavy set, middle-aged conductor, abseiled onto the footpath, his paunch, chiselled from an unknown amount of Guinness, moved up and down like an independent part of his body. He shot an omnipresent stern stare at his new customers. In a strong Dublin accent, he commanded, directed and got an orderly line without the usual fuss expected of teenagers. The saintly secondary school pupils entered the bus under the laser eye of the driver who looked like he was ready to bite our heads off if we stepped out of line on his mobile castle.
As the weeks rolled on, our anxiety blew out the bus window. We became comfortable and boisterous around the post office, we even joked with the CIE crew, Micko and Paddy.
Brendan
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Post by shamtheman on Nov 13, 2009 23:15:43 GMT
Is Brendan of the Delaney variety?
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Post by rose5mcdonaghtce on Nov 14, 2009 0:05:08 GMT
Hi Brendan,
Lovely post well written, know exactly how you were feeling, was the same on the far side of the road in Sept '68 in my maroon skirt, jumper and canary yellow blouse and brown gaberdine coat and twice as anxious as everyone else when I got to Powells and discovered I had lost the £5 the Da had given me for books, wondering should I go back and look for it or miss the bus and face into my first day late.
As the years rolled by I was'nt so much anxious as miserable as I hated my time in the convent, looking over at the post office clock and counting the hours I had to put down until I would be getting off the far side, when the bus rounded at St. Brigid's the cream and green phone box was a very welcome sight. Used to have some laughs on the bus, and most mornings the 8.30 bus would not be able to accommodate the crowd, was always very mannerly and let everyone else on first, have to wait for the 9.10 then and miss Assembly and half of the first class, no manners when the 4.10 arrived in Newbridge made sure I got on could not wait to get home.
Regards,
Rose.
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Post by Brendan on Nov 14, 2009 0:56:31 GMT
Sham: 'Tis me! As a lad, you were always ten miles ahead of us all in terms of academics - good on ya!
Rose: Have to admit, I visualised the post office of my youth like a video, or should I say like a DVD in the way you described it. What an awesome memory you have. I'm on the waiting list for your book.
Brendan
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Post by maryfarrell6 on Nov 14, 2009 9:10:31 GMT
Hi Rose, well once again you've written another beautiful description of one more beloved landmark of our youth. Like Brendan said its like watching a video. Rose you have a wonderful gift , for people reading about the Curragh for the first time, your posts paint the full picture. For all us campers you bring it all back to life. I don't know about everyone else but I could not only visualise the Post Office and Mr Cadogan, Hugh and Paddy also Mrs Delaney but, I could virtually smell the brasso and polish feel the welcome heat that came from the turf fire on cold wet days. And all of this was done through the eyes of the girl I was back then. Because as I read it feels like stepping into a time tunnel and I am looking up at the counter, having to clamber up onto that swivel chair always needed a friendly hoist to get onto the window sills [no change there] I love reading your posts simply for that reason your descriptions bring back so many memories that we can feel, see, touch, hear and taste you make the years roll away and I'm once again the young happy, carefree child I was back then. All your posts do the same thing So for that alone thank, you keep them coming Rose and when is this book due out? Take care MaryF
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Post by limerick on Nov 14, 2009 17:00:14 GMT
Hello Rose,
You're mention of Hughie Campion, RIP, reminds me of my own and his involvement with the local Suncroft GAA Club. We trained out on the green near Williams pub. The following were also involved with Suncroft HC during the same period, Paul Casey, Joe Cashman, Dick Cahill, Johnny Kelly and many others. I wonder where they are now!!
Con
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Post by limerick on Nov 14, 2009 17:01:42 GMT
Hello Rose,
You're mention of Hughie Campion, RIP, reminds me of my own and his involvement with the local Suncroft GAA Club. We trained out on the green near Williams pub. The following were also involved with Suncroft HC during the same period, Paul Casey, Joe Cashman, Dick Cahill, Johnny Kelly and many others. I wonder where they are now!!
Con
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Post by shamtheman on Nov 14, 2009 19:24:57 GMT
Hi All, It was amazing all the business and transactions you could do only in the Post Office back then: stamps (for posting and saving), telegrams, tv licences, dog licences, childrens allowance, pensions, parcels. Nowadays, I get there once a year to get 5 doz, stamps for the Christmas Cards. What with texts, mobiles and the internet, the art of communicating by hand writing is all but vanished. A good thing the bould Matthew saw a gap in the 'Curragh Market' and has us all talking as neighbours again, irrespective of time and distance.
Brendan, I figured it was you given the musings of an ex-pat in the parish next to the Arran Islands, where the tint of spectacles is probably far rosier than 90 minutes down the road in Clonmel. Anyway, good to reconnect; sign up as member, 'guest' leaves you on the doorstep!
Rose, remember the frosty winter mornings when we'd pray hard that the d**ned bus would.t make it up 'Biddy's Hill' and we could head for home and a day off. Didn't happen too often, but it never happenred for the Kildare bound, all downhill to school for them!
Sham.
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Post by carolinemul on Nov 14, 2009 21:36:49 GMT
Hi All, glad you posted about the Post Office, one of my favourite places in the Curragh with its big clock in the window. Its amazing how a post can bring memories flooding back that you hadn't thought about for years (in my case decades!!) but I loved the Post Office, there was a 'smell' which I loved and it was probably a combination of the turf and paper and damp and slippy tiles. Like Rose I remember the saving stamps and I never got the book full either Rose, full of great intentions of what I was going to buy when it was full but I think the sweets in McAteers always got the better of me and I folded and cashed in the lot! When we were waiting on the bus on a cold or wet morning across the road at Powells shop to go to school I would look at the clock in the Post Office window and think in eight more hours I will be getting off the bus the far side of the road and that clock will say 4.30 Yipee!! I'm home!! The Post Office had the bus times too - am I right?
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Post by rose5mcdonaghtce on Nov 14, 2009 22:07:41 GMT
Hi Sham, Brendan, Mary and All,
Thank you for all the compliments, Mary its a pity Peggy did'nt think I was such a good story teller when it came to writing compositions.
The Dubs had the under the clock at Clery's as the meeeting place for courting couples, us Campers had the post office. As the pictures was nearly always the entertainment for the date the arrangements would be made for seven thirty outside the post office.
Hal Conway's bus trundled up the hill at about seven forty five to pick up the Bingo fans who would be waiting at Powells, most of them there from about seven fifteen in case they would miss the night's game. When you rounded the corner Mrs Houlihan RIP Timmy's Ma would be the first to shout hello over, you would reply and then all would be quiet for a few minutes, the next thing she would shout over to you that there had been a fine looking fella there when she came up, but he had headed off about five minutes ago. The response back would be I'm not waiting for anyone I'm here to make a phone call, up you would head to the box, now if your date was approaching from the right it was fine you could keep an eye on proceedings, but from the left, there was no glass in the back of the box no means of knowing if he was standing at the window sill, in there sweating he had come and gone, wishing and praying Hal would come early, if you took a peep out, Mrs Roche would ask you were you watching for someone or was Button A stuck, there dreading you were going to be stood up in front of an audience. When he did arrive the oohs and aahs would start, Mrs H carrying on like she was your mother, "have her home by ten" "make sure you bring her upstairs"etc., To avoid the slagging would go in two's or three's and pretend to be making yet another phone call until the other party arrived, there used to be some expressions on faces when they would round the corner and see the group, no one would make a move until they actually approached the one they had arranged to meet, panic in case they had to pay for all into the cinema and disbelief that their date had brought not one but a bunch of gooseberries.
Rose.
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Post by rose5mcdonaghtce on Nov 14, 2009 22:20:14 GMT
Hi Caroline,
The bus times I think were posted in the post office window, but Powells were actually agents for CIE at the time, taking deliveries of parcels and newspapers etc., don't remember Powells having them written up you just asked whoever was behind the counter and they would rhyme them off as could the lads in the post office.
Rose.
PS For Joey Kelly.
Did Bat Downey from Brownstown have anything to do with the post office, barely remember him, but Mam knew him very well from the very early days of the musical society and somehow or other I think of the Post Office when I think of him. Also the Dept of Forestry had their offices at the rear of the post office and Mrs Royle the teacher from the boys school, her husband worked there did'nt he? theres a question and a statement for you Joey.
Cheers,
Rose.
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Post by maryfarrell6 on Nov 15, 2009 11:02:12 GMT
Hi Rose, Congratulations Sergeant Major a well deserved promotion wonder if that would impress Peggy? I dont think any of us came near Peggies 'standards' Do you remember the way she'd hold our compositions[no essays for us] between her thumb and index finger as if they were contaminated? Now my sad attempts at knitting or embroidery deserved that treatment having dropped stitches and been unravelled so many times that they resembled a grubby floor cloth. But I was proud of them! I like you had the long haul with her and Miss O'Brien have to say didn't have any bad experiences at school, oh dont get me wrong I did get the cane and had my fair share of throbbing fingers but on the whole my memories are all good. I did love the cookery lessons one in particular was her teaching us how to fry the 'perfect' egg. She went on and on about how some 'establishments'dared to serve up hard lacey eggs fried in dirty fat[no vegetable oil then] and she said when that happened she always sent them back and make them change the fat until they got it right [bet that made her popular] and she told us if we were ever in restaurant to do the same. Now as dining out wasn't a regular event for us I remember being in awe of the fact that anyone would even dream of sending back food [how times have changed] So to this day I'd like to think my fried eggs would pass Peggies inspection!!! But then again maybe not Bye for now MaryF
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Post by kellquinn on Nov 15, 2009 17:40:27 GMT
Hi Rose Congrats on the promotion. Had I known today when we met today I would have bought you a Patsy Pop, Hope Monica learns how to park properly lessons needed me thinks. Your query re Bat Downey, did he not sort the Post in the Office, and yes Mr Royle did work for the dept behind the Post office. Again, Rose well done on the promotion. I think I have a spare Sam Brown lying around somewhere.
Regards
Joey K
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