Lend us your jump suit for the briar

I can barely post here without laughing. I was sent one of those Facebook funwall videos by Manuel from Well Done Fillet and it is a classic. You have a free-style disco dancing competition from 1981, you have Sheeba, you have Margot (who was appearing in the Abercorn - LOL), some bloke looking very out of place from Trust House Forte as well as an Ulster Disco Dnacing champ. What more ingredients for You Tube magic do you need?

As I watched I laughed more and more at the antics and shape-throwing until contestant number eight came on, 20-year-old Ronan 'Crazy Legs' Lawlor, representing the Greenan Lodge Hotel, then I snorted. That is where we cut our own dancing feet as teenagers in the 1980s, thankfully those few years made all the difference. No offence Ronan. I don't know whether to admire his crazy leg moves or what... I decided on what.



It is bad to admit I was disappointed not to see who got through in the end, it must have been a hard decision for the judging panel.

By the way the name of the post is a little in-joke for anyone who grew up in Belfast and probably more west Belfast in the 1980s; this is especially for you, enjoy and cringe.

It all started with Swap Shop

ON the whole the telly was seriously sh*te over the Christmas break but I did enjoy 'It all started with Swap Shop' which was on over the last couple of days a programme which we watched religiously in our house every Saturday in the 1970s.



Swap Shop is one of the programmes which gets a mention when people talk about their favourite childhood shows like Top of the Pops on a Thursday night, or Bagpuss or whatever.

I have made the mistake of talking to friends from down the country about Swap Shop only to get this puritanical mantra 'we only had RTE in our house'. Oohhh sorry.

Well in our house we did have BBC and ITV and in the early 1980s we got an RTE aerial, I think by that stage I had either stopped watching Swap Shop or it had finished.

My Daddy was the double of Swap Shop presenter Noel Edmonds and people would tell him that all the time. I remember a neighbour saying to me when I was about seven that I was very lucky to have Noel Edmonds for a Daddy and I remember thinking 'what an eejit'.



Given the splurge of kid's television, much of which is quality, it is mad to think there was a time when kids were not catered for in the way they are now.

I remember Saturday mornings (just about) before Swap Shop when the vast majority of kid's programming involved half hour dramas from Eastern Europe which were badly dubbed and involved kids going around solving mysteries and the like. Then there were the old favourites like Champion the Wonder horse or The Flashing Blade.





Course it was RTE that broadcast the magical HRPufNStuff.



So for all of you who liked Swap Shop too here are some outtakes. In fairness they aren't that hilarious, but sure.



Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs swap shop Noel Edmonds television

Talking pictures

I SAID I would be a better blogger in a previous post and I have sat here going 'hmm maybe I could write about...' 'or maybe I could write about...' - nothing has gone beyond the first sentence. Just as I was about to sign off I thought I might explain the photo I use as my icon. So here goes.



I love this picture, obviously which is why I use it (it is cropped a little). It invokes so much for me. I remember the dress I was wearing, the colours and patterns on it, I also remember I had many outfits like that. I remember the day the picture were taken, I remember the car. Does it sound ridiculous but I can see me in the capture of the child in the picture despite the fact I am four or five years old when the pic was taken. I also love the way my shoes look like they are on the wrong feet, you can't beat the 1970s with a big stick.

It was the second picture in a series of two showing me with one of my brothers in front of the car. The first picture is a typical family kid's portrait of the two of us grinning wearing mad 1970s outfits standing in front of a swanky car and the second is the one I have used to represent me in the blogosphere.

I have somehow mislaid the pics thought I know they are in this flat somewhere and I want to have them framed together - they'll look great.

The pix were taken in the lower Falls in Belfast on Cyprus Street outside my grandparent's house with St Peter's primary school in the background where my Daddy and his siblings went to school. I often remember staying overnight there and not being able to sleep because of the music coming from the teen disco they would run at weekends during the 1970s.

That street, Cyprus Street, where Gerry Conlon one of the Guildford 4 also grew up, is now gone, along with St Peter's School and most of the streets that made up the lower Falls Road.

The streetscape, and much more, of the lower Falls began to change in the 1980s; all the terrace houses built for the mill workers are mostly gone except in small pockets here and there.


Taken during the mid 1990s at Clonard, lower Falls when whole rows of terrace housing was levelled to make way for new housing

This next pic is for Tawdrey and shows another loss - the Glen Road cottages.


Knocked down in the mid 1990s

While things have certainly been gained, a lot has been lost, but sure isn't that change.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs flickr

My first concert 1980s style

SEEING as how my last two posts including the Young Wan's contribution were about first gigs, I thought I would share with you my first gig. Laugh and I will hunt you down.

Unlike the Young Wan who has been brought to gigs by me and some cool ones as I have already highlighted twice no less, my own Mum brought me to lots of Sonny Knowles concerts. Cool no, but did I enjoy them yeah, come on I was eight years old.

Anyway the theme of this is my first concert with pals. And it was to King when I was 13, remember Paul King of 'Thats what my heart yearns for now, love and pride' and MTV fame.

Isn't he dreamy?

My pals TawdreyAudrey who occasionally leaves a comment here and CC who also pops by now and again were my companions. Well really I was their's because they had tickets and I didn't.

But dolled up we got and off we went because I was going to chance my arm and try to get in free, an enormous passtime in Belfast in the 1980s.

So we went up to the security and I told some cock and bull story about how we all bought our tickets together but I lost mine and was there any chance, please, please, please, please, would they let me in without in. And they did.

This became my job over the years something to do with having an innocent face or something. We would try everyweek to get in free to the Plaza (any other Belfastites remember the Delta and Plaza?) with excuses that a rockabilly took our money and stole our carryouts. The best thing about these clubs was you brought your own drink.

Course when I was actually old enough to go there, is there an age limit on an underground club?, my Mum mortified me one time ensuring I didn't go back for a while.

She decided one Friday night that it would be cool for me to go out with her so off she traipsed to the Plaza thinking I would be there only I was actually at home and tucked up in bed.

When she got home she recounted what happened starting with 'You are going to kill me'. She had called to the door of the plaza and asked the doormen (such a wrong description of them but however) if they knew me and if I was there. Off they went and the next thing she heard all over the place was my name being announced by the DJ saying 'is *my name* here, yer MMMMMAAAAAAAAAs looking ye!'.

The word Ma is a mad one in Belfast and a source of many jokes, my favourite being 'yer MMMMAAAAAS yer da' or the more charming 'tell yer MMMAAAAAA the fivers behind the clock' actually in Belfast they say 'clack'.

Jaysus I couldn't show my face there for weeks.

But back to the King concert, Paul King looked at me when he sang, he really did :)

I remember my ears ringing for days afterwards. Course none of it compared to what it was like going to Dublin for a concert which I wrote about last year here. That was a really magical time for me as a teenager.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs concerts Paul King Sonny Knowles

13, 13 and well ehm 13!

MY post the other day concerning what to do with my 13-year-old daughter over her long summer holiday got me thinking to the amazing summer I had when I was 13.

My Mum, Aunty, nine-year-old cousin D, 15-year-old brother C and myself all drove to Portugal in a Volkswagen golf. Would you believe we broke down a total of 13 times, funnily enough, but definitely not at the time.

a much newer and improved golf

Before I go any further, this might be a bit long, well it was a long drive to Portugal and this post concerns the drive and a little bit of the drive back, just to explain the 13 references you understand.

The plan was to drive the 100 miles to Dublin, catch a ferry to Holyhead, drive overnight to Plymouth to catch a ferry to Santander in Spain. And finish off the journey with a lovely drive through Spain to the Algarve where we had booked a villa for the summer.

We caught the ferry to Wales by the skin of our teeth due to traffic in Dublin (no change there then). The stress of hightailing to Dun Laoghaire ferry terminal wasn’t helped by cousin D repeatedly saying ‘We’re not going to make it, we’re not going to make it…’.

As I said we did and off we drive overnight through Wales.

However, somewhere in Wales my Mum continued on a road that we should have turned off from and we only realised after passing a signpost saying London was however far away it was.

It was at this point I became the navigator and not my Aunt. I would sit in the front seat, one of the massive pluses with being the navigator, plot our journey, keep an eye out for upcoming roadsigns and turn offs as well as everyone and again boring everyone with little snippets about where we were from the guidebook. Actually we did all enjoy this.

One quick turnabout later and hours extra driving back towards Plymouth, we got there in time to wave the other lucky ferry-passengers who weren't late and who were now on their way to Santander.

It's not a good feeling watching the back end of your ferry sail away.

In keeping with what would be the unearned and misguided optimism of that road trip, we booked into a B&B and made the most of our night in Plymouth. (At the time I remember V was massive and we watched it that night in the B&B, sorry that’s my only memory of Plymouth).

The next ferry to Santander wasn’t leaving for another five days so after some money calculations and phone calls home with promises of more money the plan was to catch the next day’s ferry to France, which we did.

And so begins the saga… And what a saga it was too.

We broke down 12 times on the way.

The month before the trip, Mum and I were in a car accident, where the front of the car was wrapped around a lamppost and thankfully we weren’t hurt. But it left us with the problem of what to do with the car we were supposed to be travelling to Portugal in?

One swifty car repair job later, and one which incidentally was carried out too swiftly because something they did or didn’t do meant that as we drove through the French, Spanish and Portuguese countryside the car kept overheating, and the fan belt would snap.

I learnt more about fanbelts than you would imagine the ordinary 13-year-old girl would know, we all did. We all became proficient at opening the bonnet and going ‘MMmhhh, looks like the fan belt again’.

At one point, we broke down in the absolute middle of nowhere, it was just after lunchtime and we were all looking at each other thinking ‘now what do we do’.

(Actually we always broke down in the middle of nowhere.)

After waiting for more than an hour for some divine intervention, our deus ex-machina came by in the guise of a farmer and my Mum stuck out her thumb and hitched a lift back to the nearest town, the one where we had already spent a couple of hours getting the fan belt fixed.


The offending article

Hours pass and she doesn’t return. Night falls and my Aunt has us praying a rosary for the safe return of Mum. Everytime, which wasn’t often, we could see car lights approach in the distance we were all on the edge of our seats hoping it was her.

Eventually she returned with a tow truck in tow and back we went to the town where we had already been.

In another incident in France my Mum offered me as a translator in a garage because I had spent two years studying French. Big mistake or should I say grande erreur!

It went something like this:

Mechanic: L’eau est chaud
Me: Yup, the water is hot (turning to Mum) the water is hot….
Cue everyone: Yup the water is hot.
Mechanic: French blah, blah, blah, blah and quickly, more French blah or bleh and even more quickly….
Me: ^*?!?%^%($”????? (blank expression)

Most of the other breakdowns we delved into the phrase books which had by now become absolutely priceless and invaluable.

Because of the detours, car repairs, B&Bs and other unexpected expenses, we ran out of money and spent four or five days sleeping in the car, all of us, all of is sleeping in the car.

I would not recommend this at all. My brother was nearly 6ft, I was about 5ft5, my Mum 5ft2, Auntie 5ft2 and cousin D about 5ft. There wasn’t room to turn your head in the car and it was fairly minging to say the least.

We would buy baguettes and a bottle of water and we lived on this for days. We would all get annoyed with cousin D because he was incapable of drinking the water without leaving floaters and I remember constantly thinking about food, burgers, and fizzy drinks.

We stopped in a small beautiful village somewhere in the south of France and I popped into a bar to use the bathroom. On my way out I noticed a bowl of blackened bananas, that obviously no one wanted, so I stashed two up my t-shirt and ran out back to the car.

I guiltily produced the bananas to my aunt, who is one of the most gentle and good women I have ever met, and confessed my thieving secret.


yum

She silently took them from me and divided them among us, those were the tastiest banana sandwiches we have ever had.

Have you ever heard of Paddy Reilly? No? He’s an Irish singer and the only music Mum and Auntie would allow on the car stereo was Paddy Reilly and Crystal Gayle (not that I mind Crystal but Paddy’s fecking ‘Rocky road to feckin Dublin’, that’s a different story altogether.)

But we all loved Blondie and Madness so of all the music we brought away with us, we were occasionally allowed to listen to Blondie and Madness, thank God for small mercies.

We used camping facilities to wash during the travelling days, and oh my god what an eye-opener that was for me at 13, my brother at 15 and cousin D at nine. The toilets were a hole in the ground that you stood over and let it all fall out and the women would strip off from the waist up and have a good wash in front of everyone. The two boys were in boy-heaven.

The journey was dotted here and there with visits to towns, phonecalls home, pleas for wired money, hanging about in banks, annoyance and finally jubilation when money would arrive and we could get decent food in one of the many wonderful patisseries and cafes we passed.

At one point driving through from France to Spain through the Pyrenees, which were absolutely beautiful, the rain came down in torrents, right on top of our uncovered and not waterproofed suitcases and luggage on top of that brave wee car.

So the first stop after the rain in Spain (okay, okay, the first stop in Spain after the rain) was in a small beautiful village, I cannot remember the name, where we washed our clothes in a horse trough and hung them over walls to dry before continuing our journey.

We spent a night in an industrial park in Bilbao and drove down through Spain, breaking down as we went.

The last time we broke down on the journey there was 200 miles away from our destination and we were towed back into Lisbon making us, if I remember rightly, more than 350 miles away from our final destination. But in comparison to the journey we just had, 150 miles was a wee jaunt down the road.

My brother, cousin and I were allowed, illegally, to ride in the car on the back of the tow truck, well there was no room for us in the main carriage of the truck. Great craic for us though…

Luckily the man who owned the garage, and plush it was, fancied my Mum and allowed us to spend the night on the fancy large leather sofas as it was nearly midnight before we got to Lisbon.

So we slept soundly and woke up all fresh and ready for the last small leg of our journey.

So if you have been following this story you will be wondering when the unlucky 13th breakdown happened (of course the others were lucky!!!).

The 13th took place on the homeward stretch of the fantastic journey.

The Lisbon mechanic fixed the car beautifully; we didn’t have one worry on that score the whole holiday. The fan belt was secure, working perfectly and keeping the engine lovely and cool. That wasn’t the problem, this time.

We stopped at a small walled village to pick up money which had been wired to us and my Mum when backing out doing a very narrow three-point turn, she backed right into a pile of logs, one of which pierced the back tyre.

She lost the rag and banged and banged the steering wheel as we sat in stunned silence and as villagers started to crowd around the car.

And remember this was only the highlights of the journey which happened some 20 years ago (Jaysus where did the time go?), the holiday itself is another story altogether…