Life Is Funny

By James McKeon

A gambler to the end I started talking to God again and told Him all about my dream. I had one life. This was it. I reached for the stars but little did I know what God had in store for me. Life is funny. If only I knew then what lay ahead; deep and murky shark-infested waters. My heart was filled with naïve optimism. That day I grabbed a rainbow and had no intention of letting go. On the 29th of November 1985, after 29 years incarceration, I left the post office. I said my goodbyes, hugged my old friends, and sat down to write.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Dec 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781984592941

Book preview

Chapter 1

I was born at home 7 May 1942. It was a dark, wet, lashing-rain Thursday. Was God trying to tell me something? To make it worse everyone hoped and prayed for a girl. When I was presented to my grandmother, Hannah Maria, a small, wiry woman who was fond of a drink, she had one peek and dropped dead. I felt guilty about this for years. While war raged in Europe Ireland free-wheeled along in blissful neutrality. Someone said it was one of the rare times that the Irish went out of their way to avoid a fight. The family lived then in Railway Cottages on the edge of Cork city in the South of Ireland. I was called James after my father. The cottage went with his job, a miserable job, linesman in the nearby train station. Every day he walked for miles checking the tracks. Our home was encompassed, engulfed, day and night by coughing, spluttering, smoke-spewing trains. Cork was a sleepy little hamlet surrounded by a plethora of beaches. The city lay snug in a valley between two rivers. It was a noisy, bustling city usually crammed with all kinds of everything. Often flooded, locals called it the Venice of Ireland. Funny, I never heard Italians call Venice the Cork of Italy. It was surrounded by hills, saucer-shaped, sports-mad, wet, loquacious and as intimate as any village. Everyone knew everything about everybody. I was a chubby, nervous little boy, with a mop of curls, and a face spattered with freckles. I hated those freckles. Women were constantly admiring my curls. I also hated those curls but every time I sneaked into my mother’s room, borrowed a scissors, and cut one off, two seemed to grow. It was an ominous sign when my birth caused a mild family tragedy. My mother, Eileen, already had two sons. There was great disappointed when I arrived. My grandmother, who was a bit bothered anyway, was forever on her knees lighting candles, in between sips of whiskey. Her favourite saying was ‘water is grand if taken in the right spirit.’ Every day she could be seen mumbling novenas for a baby girl. It seems she was told that my mother had at last given birth to a little girl. When she took me in her arms for the first time she had a quick look and keeled over.

As the family moved from the Railway Cottages after the war my memories of living there are selectively hazy. I wondered then, and still do, did people avoid me? A book was my best friend. I always seemed to be on my own reading anything I could get my hands on: magazines, comics, especially books on travel, space ships, men conquering mountains or brave explorers reaching the North Pole. My life was filled with mythical heroes. Already a daydreaming child, these books fanned the flames of my vivid imagination. I remember being often caught for breath and very asthmatic and once nearly died from a bad pneumonia. In fact the family had a make-shift coffin ready but, like a hero in one of my books, I managed to recover. By the time I was two and a half I had developed an adventurous streak and often went rambling off on my own expedition with my mother frantically worried about the danger of the non-stop passing trains. I also enjoyed climbing anything, the higher the better, especially the fourteen-foot wall in front of the cluster of cottages. Hardly a day went by when my mother could be seen pleading with her darling little- boy- blue to come down for his dinner. She hugged me and begged me to stay away from that wall and then she gave me a flake across the puss for being a bold boy. I vividly recall standing by the kitchen door listening to the puff-puffing of the dusty old steam trains farting and belching smoke like giant dragons as they clitter-clattered out of sight. Even today that stale smell of smoke still lingers in my nostrils. Looking back I can still see my father, sucking a Woodbine, as he struggled over the garden fence and waved goodbye to me before sliding down the steep, earthen bank onto the edge of the railway tracks that ran behind our cottage. I watched him wait until a goods train laboured by and, with a noticeable limp, he cautiously hobbled his way across the tracks. Rheumatism, from years of wettings, had left its mark. This was his short cut to work every morning.

Two months before my third birthday I watched silently through the curtains of my bedroom window. A horse pulling a long flat cart drew up outside our house. My father had borrowed it from a railway colleague. We were moving home. Everything in the house was loaded onto the cart. It was like a mountain of paraphernalia. Then it was tied down with ropes and bits of wire of every description. I had one last look at my wall. I knew even then I was going to miss it. The neighbours gathered round, said their goodbyes, wished us well, and the convoy, with me perched on top, trundled shakily down the hill, and wound its way through the streets. We struggled up Fair Hill to Washbrew Lane: a narrow, red-bricked, spindly lane, until we arrived at Paddock House, an ivy-covered farm house surrounded by two rough acres of stones, nettles, an apple tree, and falling-down sheds. Paddock House was over a hundred years old. Downstairs was one big draughty room covered in red tiles. There was an open fire always heaped high with logs. Nearby was a flat, black hob. There was one other room downstairs. This room was referred to in whispers. The door was rarely opened. Although seriously damp there was a hint of past grandeur about this room. It had a rickety black table with a ping pong net attached to it, a small chandelier looking down on a brown worn carpet, and a battered piano which had seen better days, standing apologetically in the corner. Dozens of sheet music of old Irish melodies were stacked behind it covered with cobwebs, and gathering dust. Outside in the back, behind the house, stood a dilapidated toilet covered by sheets of rusty corrugated tins. The indoor bathroom was a bucket on the landing. This was my grandfather’s family home but since his wife died on my birth they were uncomfortable with him living by himself. He was a stern pro British Army veteran who had fought in several battles from the Boer War to Khartoum and the First World War. He proudly drank his tea from a large chipped mug with a picture of the Queen embossed on it. There were yellow photographs all over the house of him with army comrades in khaki shorts with cricket bats and helmets, and jolly old fiddle sticks, and monkeys on their shoulders. Funny, during the burning of Cork in 1920, his allegiance to the Crown mellowed a little when British soldiers blew bullets up his arse and sent him scampering for his life.

Paddock House and the surrounding area was an idyllic upbringing for an impressionable three-year-old. It was jungle filled with mystery: oceans of muck as a playground, gooseberry bushes, a pig, two chickens, a dog, an old horse, and an Aladdin’s cave of unexplored sheds. The dog, a savage Kerry Blue called Gyppo, would attack anything that moved. I lived in constant fear of this dog. He frightened the life out of me. Sometimes I got to ride the horse. One day this cranky old nag put a stop to my gallop. He threw me into a forest of nettles. Not alone was I badly stung but I also broke my left leg.

The family lived in the shadow of a steep cliff. I loved to climb up this cliff and then perch myself on a rusty tin, and slide down at breakneck speed. I also had the luxury of my own pet donkey. I called him Pedro. We were inseparable throughout my young life. There was a wasteland of plots nearby called Bonties after the ghost of a monk who occasionally appeared there. To be honest I never saw him. People left their horses to graze here overnight before collecting them the following morning. Every night all the fun-loving young boys in the area played cowboys and Indians shooting imaginary guns at imaginary Indians while we rode real live horses. A narrow, twisting stream meandered along the bottom of the cliff and sneaked behind the lane until it disappeared underground. Life was simple; they were happy times yet a cruel savagery lurked in the background which was deemed to be the norm. A captured cat would be callously thrown to a pack of dogs and cheered while it was torn to shreds. Old dogs would be regularly hung from nearby trees. It wasn’t confined to animals. A handicapped boy, convulsed in a fit, would continually bash his head against a wall until the frenzy subsided or he knocked himself unconscious. It frightened me to see him lying on the ground, his face covered in blood, at peace with the world, until the next fit. It also shows the cruelty of that time when it was common, and accepted, to see a horse being whipped unmercifully or a sealed bag of unwanted pups dumped in the stream. Yet, all through the summer, this innocuous stream was our Mecca. In our ignorance we knew nothing else. It was banked up with rocks and sods. This was where I, like everyone else, learned to swim. We didn’t care about pollution, dead dogs, water rats or broken bottles.

Chapter 2

Looking back at this playground of my youth conjures up a deluge of paradoxical memories: my forever-lingering uncertainty, the importance of religion, the priest was god, innocence, the inescapable smell of Jeyes fluid, fleas and DDT. Washbrew Lane was a dead-end. At the top was an old broken-down well. The lane was made up of 27 small houses, each one with a half-door and its own birdcage, each more colourful than the next. Women usually leaned over the half-door and watched the world go by. The nearby quarry was spattered with pigeon lofts. There was an everyday cacophony of sound: dogs, cats, canaries, and, especially, children. There seemed to be children everywhere. You’d be tripping over them. It was a common sight to see a passionate confrontation between two mothers, tearing the bejasus out of each other, over their beloved offspring. Yet, a genuine neighbourliness and love always prevailed. I still have clear memories when an elderly man died while sitting on the toilet bowl and the old women washing the body in preparation for the funeral. Lady Poverty was an unwanted companion. She ruled with an empty fist and never seemed to lower her ugly head. Everyone was equal as they scratched and scraggled to stay above the breadline. In many ways, Cork’s poor were its royalty. It was just after the war and there was a depression that went with it. There were no jobs or money, and even less education. The boat to Dagenham was always full. My strongest abiding memory growing up was poverty. For instance, going home one night a man walking in front of me was eating an apple. I followed him all the way up Fair Hill until he eventually finished and threw away the remains of the apple. I immediately picked it up, gave it a wipe, and devoured it. No one ever seemed to have money. I sometimes made a few pence by tackling up Pedro to a cart and delivering bags of turf to some neighbours. These bags were bigger than myself. The turf was hosed down by the unscrupulous turf dealer to make it heavier. Against all that it was a hugely exciting place to live, bubbling with tremendous characters. There was never a dull moment. Nicknames were rampant: Josher Walsh, Choo Choo Kelleher who was a train driver, Dickie Glue, a handyman who’d fix anything, Born Drunk who liked a drink or two, the lovely Lizzie Maloney, in her black shawl, Tucker Twomey, who lived on spuds, Rashers Ryan, who lived on bacon, Hada O’Callaghan, who would talk a rat out of his hole, and Agoo Murphy. Agoo got his name from his pigeons. If ever one of them was reluctant to return to his loft he’d imitate the pigeon’s mating call by repeating ‘agoo, agoo’. It worked every time. The name stuck. Agoo was the proud owner of the very first car that I and my wide-eyed pals had ever seen. We all just stood around in awe of this gleaming object as if it was something from outer space. Another man from up the hill had a thriving business. He had a big loft at the back of his house. His market was our unsuspecting English visitors. He would sell a prize pigeon for a pound note. After explaining the thoroughbred background of the bird’s family tree the pigeon was then placed in a shoe-box full of holes so that the bird could breathe. The bottom of the shoe-box was layered with wet saw-dust. The pound note was exchanged. The visitor went away happy. By the time the boat was half a mile out of Cork harbour the bottom of the box gave way. Naturally, the pigeon’s instinct took over and he flew straight home to his loft where he got a fine feed of corn and a cool glass of spring water. This transaction could be repeated several times a week.

Each season had its own unique character. There was no chocolate for Easter. After a long seven weeks of fasting for Lent a giant goose egg, smothered with salt and butter, was devoured with a lip-licking relish. Summer was everyone’s favourite: long, lazy and hazy. I loved school but I enjoyed being off even more. Sport was the main pastime: hurling, high-jumping, long-jumping, shot-putting with a big rock, and soccer with a worn-out tennis ball that flew around the mangel field like a ping-pong ball. These rough and tumble games went on for hours, and usually ended up in a brawl. The girls would sensibly sit on the safety of the surrounding bank; apathetic supporters waiting for a fight to break out. Sometimes they’d play their own games like picky or skipping to the timing of their sing-song rhymes.

My father always made me feel special. Every chance we got we went to the seaside at Youghal. Because he worked in the railway the train was always free. Most Sundays he’d bring half the children in the lane with him. It just took a knowing wink, and the ticket checker turned a blind eye. My father was a powerful swimmer. He could float on his back for ages like a giant walrus with me sitting on his chest imagining I was paddling through shark-infested waters on a wooden raft escaping from a desert island. We’d play games, ride a pony or build huge sand castles on the beach. Whatever it was about the seaside, the sun or the sea breeze, I was always starving. My mother would bring a big bag of sandwiches. Everyone’s favourite was cold pigs’ feet. Again, I’d feel special when I was sent to buy a gallon of boiling water from a local house to make mugs of tea. I was never a great swimmer. I was nervous. When I was fifteen my very first visit to the outdoor baths with my pals was a disaster. All excited, I stripped off quickly, ran to the pool shouting, ‘last one in is a cissy’, dived spectacularly into two feet of water, and split my head. Those sunny Sundays were great but I couldn’t wait for Friday to arrive. It was payday. I had no patience. Eventually my father would make his grand entrance, always laughing, his face black from the dust of the job. First he’d produce a small bag of sweets. Everyone got two sweets each. He then gave us our wages. Mine was six pence. I felt like a millionaire. Lizzie Maloney had sneaked me in under her shawl to see my first film when I was four. I’ll never forget that film: the Fighting Sullivans. It was the beginning of a love affair with the cinema. But now I was twelve years old, all grown up. The Lido cinema was my Mecca, the centre of my life. In reality it was a glorified flea-pit. It cost three pence to get in. A jam-jar was also accepted as payment. Glass was scarce in post-war Ireland. The local jam factory paid the cinema three pence for each jar. Every night that little cinema was jammed. It was so packed some people couldn’t get to the toilet. They just ‘went’ where they were. It wasn’t uncommon to get a jet of warm urine into your back in the shadow of darkness. It was noisy. It was rough. It was filthy but, to us, it was a magnetic wonderland. We were bewitched, transported back to the American Wild West, the jungles of darkest Africa or to the far-off North Pole. With our hearts in our mouths we could witness Tarzan wrestling with a deadly crocodile. The crocodile didn’t stand a chance. The Durango Kid or Hopalong Cassidy would single-handedly out-shoot a tribe of Cherokee Indians. Captain Marvel and Flash Gordon took on the evil Emperor Ming as he tried to invade the galaxy. How we laughed at the antics of Laurel and Hardy and the Three Stooges. We didn’t just watch these films. We lived every second of them with an animated passion, cheering if the hero won, warning him if he was in any danger, and booing at the nasty villain. My precious six pence wages stretched a long way. After the cinema, on the way home, it was two pence for a bag of chips and, finally, six rock-like toffees for the last penny. I fondly remember the simple naivety of those halcyon days. As the years have flown by I am now old-fashioned but sometimes influenced by my innocent parochialism, I wonder if progress is really going backwards. I once wrote to my hero, Hopalong Cassidy, in Hollywood. I got no reply. The pain of youthful rejection hurt me for years.

Josher Walsh lived next door to Agoo. For some weeks he was out of work and receiving welfare money. One day the social welfare lady was doing her rounds in the lane checking out people. Josher was in the pub when he was supposed to be sick in bed. Panic set in. His wife, Annie, swung into action. Some men were playing cards nearby. She ran over and grabbed one, Cal Murphy, who was particularly pale-faced and half Josher’s size. She dragged him protesting to the bedroom to act as a substitute husband. Moments later the welfare lady entered the Walsh home. She gazed sympathetically at the fearful Cal as he lay curled up in bed with the blanket tucked up under his chin to conceal his clothes. She took one look at him and said, ‘My God, Josher, you’re the colour of death. Stay in bed for the week.’

Back then, doors and half-doors were always open for anybody to come and go. Boys and girls regularly stayed in different houses. Some houses had no beds. The boys usually slept on a big mattress on the floor, covered by overcoats, which was quite comfortable until it got a bit worn. It was no fun trying to sleep with a big pointy spring stuck in your backside. I spent most of my time in Hada’s house. He was an ageless, likeable, old rogue and he was better known as the ‘bastern man’ because he described everything in this way. If he wasn’t complaining about the ‘bastern’ weather it would be the ‘bastern’ government. Hada was a great man to spin a yarn about the good old days. Every now and then he’d pause for breath, inspiration, and a pinch of snuff which usually left him with glaubs of snuff all over his nose. He’d sometimes offer his audience a pinch or two. We’d generally accept, trying to act grown up, but we’d always end up in fits of uncontrollable sneezing. If we got too demanding for his precious snuff he’d fill his tin box with coffee. After stuffing our noses with coffee it didn’t take us long to get the message. Humour and initiative were never very far away. One day I was fooling around in the ‘forbidden’ room with my brother, Pat. We accidentally knocked, and broke, a vase from the mantelpiece. We heard our father’s footsteps. Quick as a flash, I placed the cat on the mantelpiece. My father put two and two together and took it out on the innocent cat. I felt guilty about this for years. Eventually I told the priest in confession. Confession was a frightening ordeal especially when you had no sins to confess. Sometimes I had to make up sins to tell the priest, like not blessing myself when I passed by the convent. That was a big one. Every Saturday night we religiously attended confession. I have a feeling my mother wanted to get us out from under her feet. It