THE POST OFFICE

[Matt McNamara]

Hi Joey

I am sorry but your promotion was a bit late for this week’s Routine Orders and managed to slip past me. Anyhow well done also and by the way mine is a Carlsberg


Matt

[rose5mcdonaghtce]

Hi Joey,

Thanks for the congratulations can't believe I made S/M. You better keep your head down, even though she does'nt post, Monica is a big fan of the forum. She reckons I do enough posting for the two of us. She had to park there so we could chat comfortably car to car, us women need our comfort while chatting about the weather etc.,

While on the subject of the post office and telegrams etc.,

Down in Tipp on holidays with Mam's sister I am about eleven, all sitting having dinner when the next door neighbour, (by next door I mean down the road, the sticks) can be heard wailing and screaming as she comes round to the house, this lady would have been considered highly strung (Drama Queen now) comes into the kitchen ashen faced and unable to control her sobs, when my aunt eventually got some reign on her she asked what was wrong, "I've just had a telegram and Neddy's been STRANGLED in England" Neddy was her eldest son. Mam's sister wants to know if the priest or Guards are out at the house "No" who brought the telegram "the telegram boy from the post office in Cashel" Bride is aghast that the post master let a telegram with news like that be delivered with no support for the family specially in '66. Asked where the telegram is "out in the house" eldest son is sent to get it comes back and begins to read the first line: Neddy STRANDED in England, second line: Please send the fare home.

Take a look for that Sam Brown.

Cheers,

Rose.

[rose5mcdonaghtce]

Hi Mary,

Your probably right impossible to reach Peggy's high standards. My sewing, she used to move about the desk with her biro and ask me had I cleaned the chimmney with it, in fairness it looked like I had and the stitching, we won't even go there. Thank God for wonderweb.

Remember learning how to fry an egg, you would nearly make a dinner in the time she would have you stand there basting it with the fat. She would go mad if you turned it on the pan.
Don't think I do a bad job on them now, but again it probably would not be to Peggy's satisfaction. As you say we did the long haul six of the eight years between Peggy and Miss O'Brien had the throbbing fingers and sore shoulder blades, but for the time I don't think they were to over the top.

Thanks for the congratulations.

Cheers,

Rose.

[shamtheman]

Hi All,
Yes indeed, them Telegrams had to be read a couple of times to get them right!

As we know, the Post Office was the bus stop for buses to Brownstown and onwards. Being a pupil of Newbridge College (very posh!), and it being a boarding school, we had classes every Saturday morning. The upside of that was a half day on Wednesday, so I'd get off the 1.20 from Newbridge at about 1.30. This particular Wednesday was very wet, so as I got off, the bus driver asked would I look around the corner towards McDonagh to see if 'Mickey' was coming. I asked who Mickey was, and was told he was an old gentleman, and his dog would be with him. Sure enough, trotting along was Mickey Dolan, my grandfather, and his dog Rex. Mickey loved to hit Williams' in Brownstown (and then the Rising Sun) about lunch time every Wednesday for a few half ones and a glass or two of Smithwicks (and he always pronounced the 'w' in Smithwicks). A little flutter with Mick O'Connor usually determined the time of the return journey. You'd know if he won if Rex got a bag of Tayto. There was always room for Rex under Mickey's feet in the front seat of the bus.

Mickey was a good musician, and played the French Horn in the very first Army Band in Ireland. He was subsequently 'Batman' to Col. Mellerick, but got the sack from that job for nicking his whiskey, or so legend has it. He was handy on the piano, and danced a great Sailor's Hornpipe.

In his later years, and following Nanny's death, he spent the four seasons with his four daughters, three on the Curragh (Betty, Chrissie and Mary) and Noleen in Arklow. When with us in O'Higgins Tce, he loved to walk up to the Canteen for a drink, where the lads there always paid him great respect given his age. In later years, he couldn't walk the few hundred yards, but luckily for him it was at the same time as I acquired my first car. Every weekend when I arrived home, he'd stand up to his full 5 ft, point his stick shakily at me and announce that I looked like a man that could do with a drink! Never once asked for a lift to the pub!

Mickey, like many of his peers, was a character.

Sham.

[gercollinsfurlong]

Hi Rose
Congratulations and well deserved love reading all your posts,its not only what you write its the way you write it who needs a time machine what a gift you have for remembering every little detail well done again.

Geraldine

[gercollinsfurlong]

Hi Joey
Well done to you also, you also take me back with your posts
Would not let Matt off that easy i think he owes you the pint

Geraldine ;D