“They tumble and fight
And they’re beautiful
On the hilltops at night
They are beautiful
Blazing with light
Is the whitest and the tallest and the biggest one
All muscled and fine
When she runs”
Matthew Houck
Dad’s sister, my Aunty Bridie passed away last Friday morning and her funeral was on Monday. Between Saturday , Sunday and Monday we all spent a lot of time in Aunty Bridie’s house in Dundalk meeting cousins , old neighbours, and old friends that we hadn’t seen in too long a time. There were trays of sandwiches, mugs of tea, and many, many home made buns. Lots of people shared their memories of Aunty Bridie and the impact she had on them. Some of these stories were simple, humourous reminisces , and some changed the course of people’s lives. Some of the stories were familiar and well known, but with a personal twist that was new, and some were unknown to anyone in the family. They all brought great comfort and , as can so often be the case at an Irish funeral, they helped turn the mourning of a loved one into a celebration of their life.
At previous funerals I have been asked to help craft the eulogy, but on Monday , for the first time , I was asked to write the eulogy , and to read it out at mass. Over the preceding days many people whom I’d never met came up to me and said ‘You have to be a son of Johnny Bond’s’, and a few cousins couldn’t tell my brother John and I apart.
I have given talks and presentations to business groups of 10 or 20, to conferences with 200 people in attendance, and to classrooms of wonderfully inquisitive children. I have given best man speeches, and on occasion I have stepped in at the last minute when the speaker at an event has run late and given a talk without notes or preparation. And yet , at Aunty Bridie’s funeral on Monday, I was very nervous during the mass. So much so that my Soulmate at one point offered to give the eulogy on my behalf.
“Oh thank God, that would be brilliant, would you ?”
“Hell no !” she replied, and laughed.
Here is Aunty Bridie’s eulogy.
Aunty Bridie
As a child I had two thoughts about Aunty Bridie.
#1 – She baked a lot , which was a great thing.
#2 – You never had to guess how she was feeling. This could be a good thing…or a very, very bad thing.
There is an old saying “Every villain is the hero of their own story.” That is my excuse for claiming to be Aunty Bridie’s favourite nephew. She never said that I was, I was not the oldest nephew she had, or the youngest, or the most mannerly, most attentive, or most frequent visitor. I based this opinion simply on the amount of her freshly baked lemon meringue pie I was allowed to consume in her kitchen.
I loved visiting Aunty Bridie’s house in Coxes Demense as a child. We had moved from Dundalk to the exotic shores of Monaghan, but visited regularly. And on our round of visits to relatives, my brothers and I couldn’t wait to get to the Muckian’s. Apart from the lemon meringue pie, their garden was the corner one, so it was big enough for races, and most magically of all they had swing set with two individual swings and a tandem one. It was our Disneyland. Our other cousins , the Donegans lived nearby, so when we visited the garden seemed to be full of kids. On one visit Sheila, who I always considered to be my older sister, organized us into piggy back races. My youngest brother Stephen, who was on my shoulders, was very enthusiastic about it all and when we fell behind Jackie, carrying Grainne, he started to kick me in the ribs to go faster. We fell and he screamed , like all annoying youngest brothers do. Admittedly, he had just broken his collar bone, and opinion was quickly divided between cousins who said I’d thrown him to the ground, and loving, honest cousins who said we’d fallen. Everyone had opinion, and everyone was sharing it loudly, and then , through the chaos, we somehow heard the backdoor open and in silence we stared as Aunty Bridie ran towards us. I thought I would be killed, stone dead.
She knelt beside Stephen and told him it was all ok, he’d be fine, and that she’d made fresh pancakes and he was allowed the first one. She told Jackie to take him to the kitchen. She told Sheila to go to Aunty Noeleen’s and tell Nanny to come back here. She told the Donegans to go with Sheila. She told Grainne to go in and call ‘999’ and ask for an ambulance. And then it was just me and Aunty Bridie in the garden on our own. I was now crying and shaking. She shouted “PAUL !”, and I snapped to attention. “It’s OK.” She said.” It may be a fracture, it may be nothing. It’s not your fault. Now, when Nanny gets here you need to look after her.”
And that was that.
When push came to shove Aunty Bridie was there to sort it out.
Stephen did indeed break his collar bone that day, but more importantly he never got the first pancake, or first slice of lemon meringue pie ever again.
Aunty Bridie, Aunty Noeleen, and my Dad, Johnny, grew up on Market St. with their Mum, universally known as Nanny Bond. Nanny was a widower, and also bereaved , having lost two sons, George and Noel. It was a 2 up 2 down, and also had their Granda Bond and Uncle Ernie in residence. Times were hard, and yet everyone’s recollections are of a happy house where all the neighbours’ children seemed to spend their time. Over the past few days many old Market St. neighbours have shared their memories of having jam on bread for the first time in Nanny Bond’s house, and everyone looked forward to Friday nights when family bags of chips were shared with all and sundry.
When Aunty Bridie and Uncle Brian had their own house, this sharing philosophy continued, and there are many examples on the condolences page of childhood memories of getting sweets and treats on visits to the Muckian’s house.
There is another saying ‘By your friends shall you know them’. On Saturday , while Bridie lay in repose, Phil McFaul and Rose Farrelly called to pay their respects. For as long as anyone can remember if you ever needed to be guaranteed to meet any of these ladies, all you had to do was go to the Imperial Hotel at 11’oclock on a Friday morning. My Dad remembers them already being friends when he was 4.
My Dad also remembers Bridie and Brian getting engaged. Rather than getting an engagement ring, they bought a black and white television so that instead of going to the cinema and dances , they could sit in and watch television. The televison was the first one on Market St. Nanny Bond was regularly out with friends , and Brian would always encourage Dad to join football and athletic clubs, which he always resisted. So in order to have the house to themselves, Brian would give Dad half a crown to go to the cinema. Dad was a regular in The Magnet and The Adelphi after that.
In the then new estate of Coxes Demense where Bridie and Brian made their home they quickly recognised that the children needed something to do, so Bridie initiated the setting up of the Redeemer Brownie Pack, and Brian set up an athletics club. This community spirit has clearly inspired their own children as Sheila, Jackie, Ciaran and Michael are all very active in their own communities.
They didn’t pick it up off the ground.
Sometimes we don’t always realise the positive impact we have on one another. There have been numerous stories over the last few days of people saying how Bridie made them dresses when they couldn’t afford one, lending clothes, toys, bicycles to neighbours, and always staying in touch with old friends.
The ripples of Aunty Bridie’s time here continue to affect us all.
Her children are amazing.
If I could ask all of her grandchildren to stand up for a moment.
These people are truly wonderful.
They are her legacy.
Godspeed, Aunty Bridie.
I finished and took my seat. And I couldn’t remember a single word I’d just said.
Outside the church at the end of the funeral people commiserated with each of us and two people said to me “Your brother’s eulogy was lovely, Bridie would’ve loved it.” And one of those two people was one of my cousins !
Toodles,
Paul
P.S. This is hauntingly beautiful, and it’s for you. Wolves by Phosphoeescent.
P.P.S This is an old audio blog.
P.P.PS And this is this week’s worky blog :
Fads, Pockets, and Pads
The wonderfully French, French poet, Charles Baudelaire was the first modernist and was responsible for the famous quote :
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.”
The wonderfully Scandinavian workwear company, Snickers, pulled the same trick , but in reverse. They convinced the world that they had a patent for the kneepad pocket on their trousers, or more specifically, that they had the patent for a top loading knee pad pocket on their trousers, and all of their competitors tried completely tiresome and impractical bottom loading kneepad pockets, or , even less useful, side entry knee pad pockets.
Many people queried how it was possible to get a patent for a pocket, and some even went so far as to get samples made of their own top loading knee pad pocketed , but as soon as they showed them to potential customers and word got back to Snickers, these people would receive, by registered post, a stern warning from a very expensive solicitor, written on very expensive paper, and quoting very long and intimidating patent numbers, and they would, as directed ‘cease and desist’ trying to copy their top loading knee pad pocketed trouser.
This bit bears no relation to the previous bit, or the bit that will come after, but whenever I see or hear the word ‘pocketed’ I think of Stephen Fry. He read the audio book version of the first Harry Potter book and he said he loved reading it and read it flawlessly. He got on well with Joanne Rowling, and for every other book in the series she asked that he read all of the books. This worked well until the third book, The Prisoner of Azkaban, when he stumbled over a sentence where Harry Potter was stealing or hiding something and he had to read “…and Harry pocketed it.”, so much so that he had to re-record that sentence 14 times and still couldn’t say it. He knew that Rowling had insisted that the audio version of her Potter books had to be exactly as the written ones , in case some children were listening to the audio as they read along with the book, but he called her and said “I’m really struggling with this one phrase, ‘ and Harry pocketed-ed-ed it.’ , would it be OK if I changed it to ‘ and Harry put it in his pocket’ ?”
She said ‘No’.
She then went on to include the phrase ‘…and Harry pocketed it.’ In the four subsequent books, which she knew Fry was signed up to do the audio versions of.
Where were we ? Oh yes, pockets.
Snickers had the knee pad pocket work trouser market all to itself for over 30 years. Then a very small workwear company , who didn’t really know what they were doing, made their own version of a top loading knee pad pocketed trouser. Mark Twain, the very American author had this brilliant quote :
“The best swordsman in the world doesn’t need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn’t do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn’t prepared for him; he does the thing he ought not to do; and often it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot.”
So this very small workwear company made the trousers and received, by registered post, a stern warning from a very expensive solicitor, written on very expensive paper, and quoting very long and intimidating patent numbers demanding that they cease and desist. And what did this very small workwear company do ?
They asked if the very expensive solicitor could send them a copy of the patent application and a copy of the certificate granting it.
And they never heard from the very expensive solicitor ever again. At this point they should have conquered the world, but if you read last week’s blog, you will know that they genuinely didn’t know what they were doing, and their trousers didn’t sell for a myriad of other reasons. If you didn’t read last week’s blog, yes, the ‘ignorant antagonist’ company was indeed the 4th largest workwear company in Monaghan.
Pockets have always caused us trouble.
In the late 90’s we were involved in a shoe business based in Belfast. We had 7 stores, and the first online footwear shop in Ireland. We sold everything from Converse, Buffalo, New Rock, Dr.Martens, Kickers, Etnies,Vans, Camper, Red or Dead, Diesel, to Art Shoes. One of the brands we loved selling was a ladies Spanish brand called El Dantes. We didn’t sell a lot of their shoes, but their styles were usually a season or two ahead of everyone else’s and made the window display edgier. One season they had a stiletto heeled calf length denim boot with a jeans pocket on the side. We sold a lot of them. On a Saturday my friend and company director, Talat, will never forget , he was visiting the Derry branch , checking up on what was selling well, and while he was in the office chatting to Lisa, the manager, a terrified member of staff knocked on the door saying that there was a very angry woman in the shop with her teenage daughter demanding to speak to the manager.
“What’s her problem ?” Lisa asked.
“She found this in the pocket of the El Dantes boots.” The staff member opened her hand to reveal a small, square shaped , gold foiled packet. Yes, it was indeed a condom.
Talat and Lisa started to laugh and told the staff member to go back and say that the girl put it there herself. The staff member didn’t move.
“What ?” Lisa asked.
“It’s Mrs.McGuinness.”
“Not…”
“Yeah, Martin’s missus.”
“Oh Sweet Divine Jesus !”
“What’s the matter, we don’t put condoms in boots !” Talat said “Just go and say we have no idea what she’s on about.”
“I’m not telling Martin McGuinness’ missus that her daughter, Martin McGuinness’ daughter, had a condom of her own and hid it in the boot.” Lisa said.
“I’ll tell her. Get me a new pair from stock and I’ll show her that there’s nothing in the boots.” Talat said confidently. The staff member got him a pair and Talat strode purposefully onto the shop floor and held out his hand to greet Mrs.McGuinness.
“Yous have some neck selling condoms to teenage girls !” Mrs.McGuinness said.
“Well , I can assure you…” Talat said opening the box of a brand new pair of El Dantes boots and taking the boots out he held them upside down and shook them..” …that we …” He stopped, mid-sentence , as a small, square shaped , gold foiled packet fell to the floor between them.
“You were saying ?” Mrs McGuinness said smiling.
Mrs.McGuiness got a refund and her daughter got to pick anything in the shop she wanted instead, and Talat assured her that every pair of El Dantes in every shop would be checked and ‘sanctified’.
So , pockets, tread carefully is my advice.
Strangely, Snickers never held it against us and for many years we’ve been their largest stockist north of Dublin.
Stranger still , even though out of every 100 pairs of Snickers trousers that we sell, 98 of them have top loading knee pad pockets, and yet out of every 98 of those that we sell, we only sell two pai rs of Snickers knee pads to put in them.
