Modern Living
Back in my young days… we raced home from school and once we were through the front door three things happened.
- The aroma of Mammy’s cooking set the taste buds to overdrive.
- Realisation struck that your bladder needed attention, and as you took the three strides to reach the stairs….
- You removed your coat and hung it over the knob at the end of the bannister rail before racing up the stairs two steps at a time to the smallest room in the house. If you were in luck there was no queue. Alas, some days the door was locked from the inside, so the waiting outside involved dancing steps far better than you ever saw with Riverdance accompanied by many choruses of: ‘Hurry up! Hurry up, I can’t wait!’ Oh the pain, I can feel it now!
I wonder if that was how Irish dancing started?
If mammy was busy or distracted the mound of coats built up at the end of the stairs, but mostly the cry rang out “Hang up your coat properly” and we had to go back upstairs to our rooms with the outdoor stuff. We did, like most homes back then, have a Hallstand. It had hooks for coat hangers and for hats. There was also a little compartment with a hinged lid and for some reason The Royal Liver Assurance books, for the 1d a week policies were kept there. It was also the home for gloves and wooly hats.
Our home which housed eight of us, had less storage space than your average one or two bed apartment nowadays. Mind you we had fewer clothes and personal belongings back then. The beds were on legs so shoes were stored under them. I was reminded of this the other day when I saw this on the road from Ballymena, near the Battery:
At least it gets rid of the smell!
Yes they are shoes!
JL Pagano said,
January 27, 2009 at 7:15 am
Apparently the shoes are meant to me some kind of signal to do with drug-dealing: unfortunately I see them all over. Personally I’d just love to actually see someone getting them up there.
Caren Kennedy said,
January 27, 2009 at 7:25 am
How naive am I?! I’ve lived in Dublin city centre for years and often see shoes hanging from wires. I always assumed they were from kids who were being bullied. Hmm.
Baino said,
January 27, 2009 at 7:27 am
The urban myth about drug dealing survives here too. It is ’said’ that the closest house to the said shoes is the abode of a dealer but I’m not sure whether it’s true or not otherwise it would make busting the bad guys very easy! Kids do it here too and sometimes the shoes are almost brand new . .sign of the times I guess . . . I suspect it’s more of a tease to watch someone walk home in their stocking feet!
Nick said,
January 27, 2009 at 9:39 am
My first priority when I got home from school was to eat a plateful of food because I was always starving. I always had a good lunch at school but for some reason it never filled me up for long. My mum was convinced I had a tapeworm.
I thought dangling shoes were the sign of a drug dealer too, but as Baino says that would make it all too easy for the police to nick them. Must just be a common prank.
Grannymar said,
January 27, 2009 at 10:01 am
@JLP - This shoes idea, does it work like the star grading for Hotels? The more shoes the better the drugs?
@Caren - The old saying is true: ‘You learn something everyday’!
@Baino - I have to admit that I thought the new artwork was the result of late night revelry after a skinful in the local hostelry.
@Nick - You had a tapeworm, we had hollow legs! Once the dance routine on the landing was over we galloped like dray horses down the stairs and into the kitchen wailing for food. I am not sure mammy enjoyed our musical return from school.
kenju said,
January 27, 2009 at 1:00 pm
We see shoes on wires over here too, and I never knew what it meant.
If I started to dance when I need to pee, the reason for dancing would soon evaporate - (or run down my legs!)
Grannymar said,
January 27, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Judy,
Even to this day I have excellent control of my bladder muscles.
Primal Sneeze said,
January 27, 2009 at 1:37 pm
You’re close on how Irish dancing started.
Via Eolaí, here’s the real reason.
Grannymar said,
January 27, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Primal,
I remember that video, it was excellent!
wisewebwoman said,
January 27, 2009 at 5:21 pm
What a flood (hehe, the pun!!) of memories you generated for me today. We had a hingy thing in the hall stand too. It hoarded mitts and gloves that had lost their partners. The bathroom was always so cold we would race out of there, then Daddy put in an infrared heater and you couldn’t get me and my books out of there!!
XO
WWW
Grannymar said,
January 27, 2009 at 5:37 pm
WWW,
Magpie11 said,
January 27, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Getting home…lay the table or clean the shoes…turn and turn about with my sister…… slices of bread and marge with Marmite and jam…separate slices….I had to have the jam first because I couldn’t stand the stuff and my sister had to eat the Marmite first because she hated that!
As a one time stepper and having two sons who both went to Irish dance classes that video was great fun and very interesting….. some say that the Irish form of solo stepping started with marooned Spaniards from the Armada…..why then are some traditions so similar to Westmorland Clog? Fascinating subject….
Magpie11 said,
January 27, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Oh I forgot…where is the place where they hang certain articles of ladies underwear on the lines or on bushes?
Grannymar said,
January 27, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Magpie,
Why didn’t you swop bread slices with your sister?
Maybe all these dance steps started as a means to keep warm in our cold climates!
Lines of Ladies Undies? I think you need to elaborate.
steph said,
January 27, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Grannymar,
My junior school was next door to our house.
In our final years there, my twin brother and I used to sometimes sneak through the hedge at break time to go home for a pee and a biscuit. Our mother was out at work in the mornings and never knew.
We’d have been in BIG TROUBLE if anyone had ever found out!
Whenever we were sick at home, it was always great entertainment watching our friends play in the school playground, from our bedroom windows
Grannymar said,
January 27, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Steph,
Nowadays you would not slip through a hedge to go home during school hours. Security is so tight and everyone is worried about political correctness…. I often wonder when children are ever to learn about life in the real world.
lilinator said,
January 27, 2009 at 9:37 pm
We still have the hall-stand exactly as you describe, with hooks and the hinged box in the middle. As I keep saying - nothing changes!
Grannymar said,
January 27, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Lily,
Come in and take off your coat!
Our hall-stand was a wedding present given to my mother and father back in 1941. I think my sister still has it somewhere.
Magpie11 said,
January 28, 2009 at 2:03 pm
My sister would never have done anything so helpful for me…anyway it was a sit down teatime and my mother was at the table with us. We had cooked breakfast, school dinner and tea.
Ladies undies…I don’t know where it was but I saw a picture of this bush and then one of electricity lines with those two cupped items on!
probably on TV
As for loos…various buildings down the garden…and if you “Couldn’t go” you got put into an airing cupboard to warm up! Odd!
Magpie11 said,
January 28, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Dance steps…I know that there is nowhere in the “English Speaking World” that has not got or has not had a tradition of step dancing of some sort….. even if it has been taken over by indigenous peoples or by the descendants of slaves. It’s a fascinating subject….a lot of quadrilles in the West Indies have their origins in these Islands, particularly England and Ireland. The Masquerade dancing on Montserrat seems to have its origins in Ireland…all to do with migration from Ireland to Trinidad of Catholic Irish and thence to Montserrat (and Antigua) when the Brits took over Trinidad from the French and Spanish.
The costumes echo mummers ragged costumes and the traditional drum accompaniment was played on a single headed shallow drum with a single beater! Does that not sound like a bodhran?
OOps! I’ve gone off on one again…sorry
Grannymar said,
January 28, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Magpie,
I don’t remember ladies bras on garden bushes or a clothesline, it must have been TV. Mind you pants have appeared here a time or two!
Re the loo - If we had a problem ’starting’ mammy turned on the water tap!
I am amazed at how much you know about ‘Dance’ from different countries.
Magpie11 said,
January 28, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Dance has been a passion for some considerable time….I specialise in English Folk Dance which has had huge influences all over…. I have heard it said that there were no jigs in Ireland before the English imported them…no evidence so I take it with a pinch of salt! Either way…the Irish have made them their own and in many styles.
We do share Mumming as a tradition and a variety of other dances.