Two Walls and a Roof (25 page)

By the time we went to Charleville Tech both Kyrle and I were after becoming real good at electronics
,
and this knowledge was to bring us a huge element of fame on one amazing day
. It brought
great honour to the school as well.  There was an annual countywide school competition being held, with the Lo
rd Mayo
r of Cork presiding and handing out the prizes. Cash no doubt I hoped, and a certificate. Our school used to enter it every year and never get anywhere. The competition was held in the Munster Institute in Cork
city, and as well as a p
rojects event,
there were also a q
uestion
time competition and a public speaking competition
.

We decided to enter all three. Kyrle would build a complete reel to reel tape recorder and I would build the test box I had designed in my he
ad a hundred times
. The school also had other boys entering
,
but all the hope was riding on the two of us as the devices we were making looked amazing to the school. In our school, we were up against guys who were entering projects such as ‘measuring the temperature of eggs in a cock of hay, or
where does rainfall come from’, so I thought
if that’s the best they can do, then it’s no wonder that they never win anything.  I think it took us probably two weeks to make our projects. Kyrle built the whole machine and also the amplifier from scratch and it looked amazing. He needed a speaker and this he made in the woodwork class
.
I made my test box there as well. So as to cover the cone of his speaker and make it look nice, he cut a square out of the silk lining from inside the mother’s only good coat. Of course he hung it back up
,
and as she was always saving it
,
she didn’t notice her loss for months.  I made my test box with ease and loved looking at it. It had a series of switches which would allow me to substitute different values of capacitors or coils or resistors into a circuit via two wire probes. I was also using a compass sitting inside a coil of wire, which was a crude form of voltmeter, and this alone was a genius of an idea if I may say so myself. It was not the most practical thing, but by using my box I could tell if there was a voltage in a circuit by how much the compass needle moved off North. I also had a bulb and a battery in the box to act a as continuity tester. All of these ideas are used today in professional versions of my box, but way back then, nothing like it even existed.

The day came for our trip to Cork and we all trooped into the bus, with Kyrle trying to lift both his speaker and tape machine. We had tested both inventions many times by then and we were very confident
,
as was the whole school
,
that Kyrle
’
s was a real winner. Everyone was amazed at our talents and our reputation as geniuses would be confirmed if only we could win, and become the best in Cork
city and c
ounty.

In the projects room there was a long line of judges sitting at long tables and you passed from one to the other displaying and explaining your project. The long table
in front of them was a bit off-
putting because each guy was talking and showing right beside you, and it was going to be hard to concentrate. Nevertheless Kyrle opted to go first in front of me. He started to show off the tape machine and his speaker and microphone. I saw all the judges lean forward and look at his big box
,
complete with reels of tape. The judge asked h
im to explain how it worked,
could he show it actually working, and had he really built all that by himself. Kyrle said
,
“Yes Sir, if I have a power point I can plug it in
.
I did make it all by myself, well my brother here helped a bit too
,
” and he smiles back at me. After applying power, he turned it on and the reels spun but no sound came from the tape. He didn’t panic though, just did another test. Still nothing happened. The judge was very sympathetic and quite amazed that this young lad had actually made this device, even if it was not working. He was about to pass it on to the next judge when Kyrle says, “If I can use my brother
’
s test box here, I can fix it I'm sure”. Now all the heads turned round again. The judge was delighted to agree and we got at it. Within a few minutes Kyrle
,
using the substitution part of my tester
,
had it working and then it
was talking perfectly,
recording the judge and all those around him. I was totally delighted that I had been able to help him and in so doing it proved the value of my box too. I only had to explain the compass part which worked as a voltmeter and the end result was that I won first place, and Kyrle got second.  We didn’t know we ha
d won though until the Lord Mayo
r made the final announcements and presentations later that evening at five o
’
clock. What I did know though was that later in the day
,
during the question time, I won first place out of all the technical schools in Cork
. T
o add the icing to my cake
,
I also came first in the public speaking competition where I was lucky enough to be asked to speak on my favourite subject
‘
Corporal Punishment
’
or as I called it ‘Pad
’
s Punishment’.

As the Lord Mayo
r began announcing the winners, it was almost embarrassing the amount of things we had won for the
school that day
because our
‘
question time
’
team also won with our help. It was such an achievement that Dan gave us all a day off a few days later, and I remember our pictures with the presentations and certificates used to be hung on the wall of our foyer classroom for years, though probably they are well gone by now.  My main prize
,
as I suspected
,
was cash. I was presented with thirty pounds, and on the way home I asked the teacher if the bus would st
op and I could buy all on board
crisps and lemonade
, which I did. I
f there were any doubts about our fame, they were then well vaporized. Nannie was delighted and took the balance of my money immediately. I don’t think she even gave me back a shilling let alone a pound
,
but she was very proud.  Both Kyrle and I were on a high after that great day. I still have my little certificate stashed somewhere and the memories from that day will never leave me. It was then going to be impossible for that old priest to get rid of me, and Dan had been vindicated at last.

When I was a teenager
,
we always seem
ed to have had long hot summers
full of fun and all kinds of great adventures. As I look back on some of those days
,
I have to believe that some
Force or Guardian Angel or Spirit
had to have been watching over me because I escaped an early death far too many times to think otherwise.

Around nineteen si
xty seven or so
,
our neighbours, John and Donie Connoly,
and I were sitting on the banks of the Awbeg River one beautiful sunny day in July discussing how we would become famous. We argued back and forth on the best way to achieve this, and finally concluded that in a small town the
only thing we could do was a Christmas day swim;
an unheard of idea at the time. The swim would take place in the very river we were then looking into, all serene and peaceful like
the ‘gentle Mulla’ in poet
Spenser
’
s
Faerie Queene
, with no currents and almost no water either
. O
f course the warm sun was
also
shining across our backs.

We decided to do it, shook hands on the de
al and began to spread the word
that we would swim the river the following Christmas Day. The general feeling among those we told was
,
‘well so what, anyone can do that
,
’ and it looked like Buttevant was not ready to grant us fame for that event, but we had shook hands on it, so we had to go through with it, and  we started to ‘train’ for the day.

Training for me was
to wash every day from then on
in cold wat
er, not a difficult task for me
as we rarely ever had any hot water. The months passed by and we kept spreading the word
,
hoping for an audience on the morning, but still no one gave a damn.

About ten days before Christmas
it began to rain like mad. Within days the river began to flood
,
and one evening we went down and had a look at it all. I was petrified as I’m no great swimmer, and the water was already out in the fields
with
the very spo
t where we had made our pact
under at least two feet of water. The lads were still all for going ahead, as Donie was like a fish in
the water and afraid of nothing;
not even God
,
and John was almost as good. Christmas week arrived and the rain
,
which had stopped for a day or two
,
began all over again
,
lashing down in buckets. Then we
heard that ‘the powers that be’
were secretly ‘
confiscating’ our swimming togs
to prevent us from drowning
,
as Nannie was sure would happen. To get arou
nd their plan, I borrowed tog
s from a friend of mine
. Christmas morning arrived;
cold, dark, and miserable, but not raining at least
. W
e felt that there might still be a crowd
to see our swim.  The Connolly
s were as determined as ever and their poor mother Liz
,
who was Nannie
’s secondary b
ank, was sure we would all die. She could not stop her sons or their mad friend from going, and so
she begged us to at least have t
he Pope
’
s blessing from the Vatican so that we would all go to Heaven when we drowned. To pacify her we had to kneel and pray as we got the Pontiff’s blessing from Rome, curtsey of her television set. I remember not thinking much of the Po
pe, but genuinely praying a lot
that we would survive. Then off we went after hugs, kisses, and tears from poor
Mrs.
Connolly and her family. Nannie had refused to kiss me goodbye, as she said the Devil was still stuck inside me because I was breaking the heart of an old woman and ruining her Christmas dinner. But secretly I believe she felt sure that we three would not do the swim because we had no togs, and we would all be too shy to go in naked.

We got to the river entrance
with not one person to be seen as an audience
;
fame seemed to be eluding us. As I suspected
,
Liz Connolly had hidden her sons
’
togs, but that did not deter them one bit, and
they announced that they were going in naked
. I felt a bit odd about that initially, but soon the feeling left me, so we all stripped off stark naked and got out of the car in plain view of the road. We climbed up on the wall and stood there for a while examining the situation
while
shiver
ing
with the cold. By then most of the field was flooded
,
with a current coming from the river swirling out into the field. It looked very dangerous but I did not have a
real bad feeling about it, think
ing I could probably stand up in the current if needed. As we stood naked on the wall we began having some doubts about the current, but not Donie. We all shook hands
,
yelled something mad and jumped in over the wall
, running
right into the freezing waters. I can’t honestly remember what happened next
.
I do remember the shock of the cold water, and it suddenly feeling way deeper than I had hoped for, but it did not go over my head
.
I think the current pushed us down the field to a shallow area by a gate. The next thing I remember was the three of us were walking naked back up the road to their car, shivering and laughing our heads off with relief. When we got to the car we shared my towel to dry off. I think the two lads brought no towels
,
feeling they might not need them after they drowned, or they cared little about drying off. We got dressed quickly just as the local policeman arrives on a pushbike. “What the hell are ye doing in there
?
” he shouts in
the window. “Nothing G
uard, we were just swimming”
.
I sniggered and Donie a
nd John exploded laughing. The g
uard
,
who was at a loss to know what to do next, just shook his head and left. I suppose someone driving past into Buttevant must have seen us on the wall, and rang the guards telling them of the naked guys about to jump into the flood.

We went home for the dinner full of excitement, full sure that now we would be famous, but alas, I believe
no one in Buttevant even cared
or believed that we had actually done the swim
. A
ll we have now is the memory of it. Over the years I told numerous people about it
,
but it h
ardly got me a look of surprise;
certainly no fame came from it. Of course it
’s quite commonplace today
with sea jumps
,
lake jumps and even river swims on Christmas day for charity, but no one ever that I know of jumped into a flood, and I still say it deserved more fame than it got. Now like the famous line from Titanic
,
‘it only resides in my memory now’
. P
erhaps the Pope
’
s
b
lessing did save us after all, and kept me alive for the many other escapades that were ahead of me, but I would have more faith in the gift from the Faeries.

In the latter part of the sixties
,
music becam
e the outlet for teenage energy;
at least it was my outlet and that of my friends.  We were immersed in the acid bands of the era
:
Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Who and Deep Purple to name just a few.  These bands were emulated by the new driving force in Ireland
, a growing rock band scene. We liked T
he Freshmen and the heavie
r bands like T
he Plattermen and of course our all time favourite was ‘The Taste’. This was the great Rory Gallagher
’
s
r
ock and
b
lues band. He was a world class guitarist and lived in Cork City. Rory was the young people
’
s hero, and mine certainly.

My friendship with Joe Hurley had faded quite a bit over the years and a
round nineteen sixty five or so
I began to find friendship with three other lads. Kyrle had become friendly with them during my summer vacations in Waterford, and I just seemed to drift into that group as Joe drifted out.

We were all becoming avid
r
ock
m
usic lovers. T
wo of the lads were Jerry Hayes and Liam Fowler;
Joe Moloney would join us later. All of us loved the freedom portrayed by the rock music, the long hair, the tie dye shirts, and every form of rebellion possible. It did not take long for the town to brand us as Buttevant’s hippies. I remember tying rocks and old
rubber balls into my tee shirts
while trying to dye them in an old pan down t
he yard. They turned out so bad
that the
y actually looked real good.
I wore them when Nannie was not keeping an eye on me
,
often changing outside the house. Pad Keely was not impressed with this carry
on
,
but to his credit I don’t remember him ever casting real aspersions on our hairstyles
. H
e had plenty of other material to throw at us.

We four used to go for walks down the Charleville road and sit
on the bridge dreaming of fame
and what it would be like to live in America among the great musical stars of the day. Looking back on it now, I remember that Jerry Hayes had a kind of mystique abou
t him, wearing really long hair
and a moustache, and he always spoke with a soft gentle voice. I think women could not figure him out, and that accounted for their attraction to him. Liam Fowler
,
who was slightly taller, was good look
ing, fun loving, and a generally
very likable guy
. H
e also seemed to have some magnetism for the women as well. Joe Moloney was always deeper, quieter
,
and like me, he seemed to be searching all the time for the ‘right’ woman to come along.

As teenagers we had no way of seeing our favourite bands, but we could dream of the day when we would see them live,
which
we did often. Unknown to us, fate was about to step in and provide us with some transport. It came out of Jerry
’
s passion to drive cars fast
. E
ven though he could not drive at all at that time
,
he still wanted a car for the ‘cool look’ it would bring him. We were growing up fast into young adults, full of the joys of life, as Ireland was also growing economically into a time of new hopes and dreams. Unlike today, we were then living in a time of  relaxed laws in Ireland when no guard really took it too serious
ly
that you had neither a driver
’
s license, nor an insurance certificate,
so
one evening Jerry felt that he would ask his dad for the loan of ‘the van’. Jerry somehow persuaded his father, who was a local builder, to
give him a loan of his work van;
a dramatic mistake indeed. Then
,
even at a very young age
,
young Hayes had pretensions of becoming a rally driver, or more likely a Formula 1 driver
. T
he minute he got behind any kind of an engine he became a complete lunatic.  He just loved speed and driving fast had been his passion for as long as I knew him.  It was the funniest thing to see poor Kieran Hayes, Jerry’s dad, slowly crawl up the town, never going any f
aster than thirty miles an hour
so as to ‘save the wear and tear on his van’, and knowing what speed his son would be doing in it later that evening. We would be watching this from the street and smirking away as the fever would be gripping Jerry at the sight of his dad
’s snail-
like pace up the street.  No sooner would he be into the van and out of sight of the house than Jerry
’
s foot would be boring a hole in the floor, converting ‘the snail’ to ‘a moon rocket’ in seconds.  He would be driving flat out at seventy or eighty miles and hour, and bends on the road made no difference to this speed
;
they were just challenges to be overcome.  He had this theory that we
,
his passengers, were really only ballast, as when he would fly round a bend he would shout out
,
“
Bank to the left
,”
or
“B
ank to the right”
. W
e
,
like slaves in the belly of the van
,
would suddenly throw ourselves at the left or right side of the van while laughing our heads off.  This weight transfer was often all that kept us on the road and on four wheels
,
and many a time he drove on just two of those.  We became very used to this ballast work over the years and would almost automatically throw our weight at the sides without any call from Hayes.  But any poor misfortune who didn’t know the score got scared shitless, and wou
ld leave like a ghost having re-
found religion during a short spin with Hayes. If Hayes happened to be giving some girl a drive
,
he became even worse
going
out of his way
to impress her with danger;
a rather poor method in hindsight. After we spent some years travelling the roads of Ireland with Hayes, we all believed that he was actually a most brilliant driver, and would trust him with our lives
. O
ften we did, but one night he really scared us badly though to this day he denies its seriousness.