When I was 13

1983

I turned 12 (my 13th year) in January and was all stressed out about secondary school. Back then you had do do your ‘entrance exams’ and if you made a mess of these you were consigned to the educational slow lane for the next 5 to 6 years.

I wanted to go to the same school as all my friends but my vicarious parents were having none of that. I had two choices – Cholaiste Chriost Rí – a bastion of Irish speaking and gaelic football. Luckily for me, I scored an E in the Irish entrance exam which counter balanced my A in maths to convince my parents that I’d be put into the class with the knuckle draggers.

The alternative was a place called St. Francis Capuchin College, Rochestown. this was a Victorian pile run by men in brown dresses. out in the countryside. I had come from a sweet suburban school built in the 1970’s and was now sitting in a place that resembled something from a gothic/catholic horror.

I did better in this entrance exam and coupled with the Capuchins‘ policy of equality for all and no streaming it was decided that this is where I’d spend the next 5 years. (back then you didn’t ask the 12 year old whether they thought it was a good idea or not. They didn’t have a clue and they were better off not being asked. If they were asked what they wanted they’d have spent the rest of their life stuck in front of an Atari.)

Once that momentous decision was out of the way I had to get my confirmation out of the way. Despite the superficial bravado of these days I was actually a deeply spiritual child and had it not been for the ban on ‘impure thoughts’ and ‘impure actions’ (and marriage, come to think of it) I’d have been a great priest. Having just read that sentence and in light of recent ‘revelations’ about the actions of priests in Ireland it might make me sound like a bit of a pervert but it is the total opposite that I’m trying to convey.

Anyway, the ‘confo’ was a great financial success (blue polyester three piece suit, black shoes, cream shirt and blue tie – underwear and socks supplied by model’s mum) and I was able to go on the ‘school tour’

To Amsterdam

And so began a lifelong interest in the ways of the Dutch.

Some of the more memorable events of this trip to Amsterdam were:

My first passport and flight in an aeroplane – I have a distinct memory of stuffing my pants pockets with as many ‘lemon scented towelettes’ as they would carry.

First trip outside the Emerald Isle (my father was 25 when he first left, my son was 3 months on his first trip).

First trip to the red light district in Amsterdam (not last)

First (and last) trip to Brussels and the European Parliament.

First (and last) visit to the Delta project. However, this had a deep and lasting impression on me and was one of those moments where I knew I wanted to be an engineer (more than anything else as opposed to some Saul-like moment).

I bought my mother a little delft windmill. she still has it on the sideboard at home.

Because of that trip and because I had no strong desire to spend another summer in a field in Ireland in paramilitary garb I got a ‘buy’ on the summer camp with the Scouts.

 

The other major event of 1983 (for me) can be summarised by the following words:

Helsinki

August

5000m

Eamonn

Couhlan

When I was 12

Now it is 1982 and I’m 11 1/2.

I’m back in Mr. Deegan’s class at school and as I’m generally outgoing I’m getting on great.

In the summer of 1982 the first real adult event of my young life happened.

It wasn’t a girlfriend (another 7 year wait there)

It wasn’t a big set of balls (still waiting for that one)

It wasn’t finding a giant stash of porn (only 2 more years to go on this one).

No, it was much more important than any of these.

It was 2 weeks of scout camp in a wet field in Ireland in the summer of 1982.

I was out for a run today and I was trying to come up with a simple explanation of what it was like. I thought it was a bit like a boarding school except there was no matron to go running to. I thought it was a bit like a prison camp but in a prison camp you had visitation rights from the outside (and you had a roof over your head).

Here are some anecdotes to give you an indication of how it worked.

We went away as two scout troops – the 6th and the 47th Cork. Think of the 6th as a group of mummy’s boys who had hankies in their pockets and combed their hair.  I was in the 47th. We wore parkas and had mullets. We wore loafers with quarter irons.

We were broken down into 4 patrols. Each patrol had between 5 – 8 scouts. The two most senior scouts (a 15 & 16 year old) were the Patrol Leader and the Assistant Patrol Leader. The next most senior scout was called the senior bum (about 14 years old). Everybody else was a bum.

I was 11. I was a bum.

Guess which one of these was our emblem?

 

Radical Youth Organisation of the 20th C

Radical Youth Organisation of the 20th C

 

We slept in an Icelandic tent.

So named because of the temperature inside them at all times.

 

Notice the warm groundsheet? exactly

We got to our field in Co. Clare and spent the first two days recreating civilisation with sisal, timber from the local forest and a bit of mud. Think Ray Mears but making wash handbasins, clothes hangars, dressers, elevated tripod dining tables and even little gates to our versions of suburbia.

The ink blot test would have nothing on this.

After that we had to spend two weeks in a middle world somewhere between living like a crusty and a reject from the Hitler Youth. It was all marching around in uniforms or wearing the same pair of jeans for two weeks.  All the while trying to dodge the random violence metered out by teenage boys to each other.

At 11 there was no one left to pass the thump onto.

The only day-release we got from this ‘camping holiday’ was to go on scheduled day hikes to one of the adjoining towns or villages.

Hands up when the following seems like a bad idea:

We’ll send a group of 11-16 year old chain smoking boys out on a random walk to a town 5 or 6 miles away that they’d never been to before. There, they will sit in a pub for the afternoon and then walk home. to a tent. In a wet field.

But they’re smart enough not to walk. they’ll hitch a lift off a complete stranger.

And we’ll make sure there are no mobile phones.

We loved it. (escaping, that is)

Our usual plan was to make it to whatever little town we had to get to. Find a shop and get some real food (generally a packet of raspberry creams) and then find an open pub and sit there drinking lemonade, eating crisps and smoking fags while we played free games of space invaders by un-plugging and plugging-in the machine for free games.

Looking back it almost seems enjoyable.

But it wasn’t. It was shite and I’d never send one of my kids there.

At 11.

By the time you’re 13 it’s a great laugh and I’d definitely send them on a scout camp then.

The only thing about an intense experience like this is you get to remember all the songs from the summer of 1982.

Remember these anyone?

 

And all of this was taking place while Mrs. T was sailing south to ‘give it to the Argies’

 

When I was 8

I should have mentioned yesterday that in 1977 my little sister Catherine was born. She is now a mother herself but back in 1977 she became one of my two little sisters who was known as ‘the babies’.

This blog post should be called the era of the broken bones.

We took the whole Evel Knievel thing to a new level.

The hair, the jump suit, the fractures

By this stage, 1978, I was 7 and was already a seasoned expert on greenstick fractures.

And I wasn’t alone.

At this stage I had been knocked down by a car and had broken my collar bone.

I’d fallen off a 6 foot high wall and broken my wrist.

My sister had been knocked down and had broken her leg in 3 places.

My brother had broken his arm in two places while practising Kung-Fu with a guy called Stephen McFeely (now a civil servant in the Central Statistics Office). Adrian was the block of wood, Stephen was Bruce Lee.

This was normal and most of our friends had broken some bones by the time they had reached 9 or 10.

I remember that one of the coolest things you could have as a kid was a graffiti covered plaster of paris cast on your hand. It gave the hint (even at the age of seven or  eight) of a more mysterious life of adventure rather than the one you actually lead. – So you wanted to break your arm crashing your bike while attempting to jump a ramp like a motocross rider rather than falling off a swing while being pushed by your mum.

It also meant (if you were lucky enough to break your writing hand) you could get off 4 weeks of homework. 4 weeks! Mother of God, that was nearly worth the pain alone.

In 1978 there were a few other significant events in my young life. One was the first significant financial event of my young Christian life – My First Holy Communion. The other significant financial Christian events were my Confirmation (cash in) and my marriage (cash out).

Now, if you’re reading this from outside the Green and Pleasant Land you might think I’m taking the piss out of Holy God but the thing is, if you’ve lived here for a long time you realise that the Irish are culturally Catholic as opposed to theologically Catholic.  What do I mean by this? Well, during my teens the only reason most of us went to weekly Mass was either because our parents would kill us if we didn’t or because we wanted to look at girls’ asses. It had little to do with transubstantiation.

Anyway, I quite enjoyed the whole ritual and was a pretty good ‘practising Catholic until about 1991 but I’ve probably been a better Christian since then. The only down side was that you had to go to Mass for a few months wearing a suit (at the age of 7) and had to constantly make up new sins because you were going to confession every week.

The basic sins back then were:

I disobeyed my parents.

I stole biscuits.

I was mean to my brothers and sisters.

Any other versions of these sins (mean to friends, stole money, disobeyed my teacher and so on) were also dropped in depending on whether it was the same Priest as the previous week. You’d look useless if you kept committing the same sins over and over again. Committing the same sins every week could lead to a penance of a few Our Fathers rather than the easier penance of a few Hail Marys.

I had my first big worry in 1978 as well.  It wasn’t whether I’d grow up, get a job and get married. No, nothing that far into the future.

No.

I was worried about something much more significant –

My first man teacher.

Man, I was shitting it.

You’ve got to remember that this was this was the era of corporal punishment and a ‘man teacher’ was a whole world of pain. The stories were legend and they generally revolved around being picked up by your ears for minor infractions.

So, in September 1978 I got my first ‘man teacher’.

And I must have been the luckiest kid alive. We got a brand new guy out of teacher school called Jim Deegan. I had him for my last 2 years of primary school as well and he was one of the, maybe 4 or 5, teachers in my life as a student (that went on until I was 22) that changed my life.

I suppose everyone has as few of these teachers but this guy was exceptional. He used to drive a shitty red Fiat 127 and he wasn’t the tallest man in the world but he was a gifted teacher.  He was from Limerick but I don’t know whether he kept teaching or not.

The difference between him and other teachers was that they were excellent at maths or english or latin but he was someone who brought out the best in a student no matter what the subject or the student.

1978 brought two other significant events.

One was the birth of the second of my little sisters – Elizabeth. She was the second half of ‘the babies’. As they grew older they became known as ‘the smallies’ and once they got fed up of this, sometime around the age of 9 or 10, they became known as ‘the girls’. Which they still are.

Youngest sister.

The second was the start of my running career. At about 7 or 8 both myself and the golden pencil went off to join the local running club. This involved training on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and then heading off on a Sunday morning in a mini-bus for a meeting in some country town.

Looking back on it now I can see where the Africans get their disdain for all the high tech gear and nutrition we now espouse. We only ran barefoot because our parents weren’t going to invest in expensive grass spikes if we were going to drop out after a year or two. Our pre-race nutrition was generally some O’Dowd’s white bread and jam sandwiches and a bottle of cadet lemonade.

That said, we were running 100 & 200m so we didn’t really need to tap into or glycogen levels too deeply.