Pete Newman: Shandon Street, Unemployment, Machoness,

Pete Newman: Shandon Street, Unemployment, Machoness,

Life History:

Pete Newman (also known as Pete Duffy) was born in 1945. He grew up in Orrery Road off Cathedral Road. His relatives came from Broad Lane and moved up to Gurranabraher.
Cyclists going up Shandon Street used to hold on to the back of buses, which pulled them uphill. He recalls that some men could step off a moving bus and land perfectly still on the road. He remembers as a child being in a convoy of steering cars.
Pete says 90% of men during the 1950s were unemployed. He talks about the lanes of Cork; many had cobblers in them who were disabled men from the World Wars. Idle men played cards at street corners. He recalls pawn shops, and trying to pay for a watch in one of them, and remembers the free boots scheme. Women earned money at Christmas by plucking turkeys. He remembers the music his parents liked and the arrival of American rock and roll music. The Northside was very close to the countryside and country people came into the Butter Market.
Pete makes a number of references to men’s macho behaviour: whistling, smoking, swearing.

23 August 2011

CFP_SR00431_newman_2011

Cork, Ireland, 1950s-2000s

Cork Folklore Project Audio Archive

Cork Folklore Project

English

Sound

1 .wav File

38min 29sec

Civic Trust House

.wav

24bit / 48kHz

The following is a short extract from the interview transcript, copyright of the Cork Folklore Project. If you wish to access further archival material for this interview or other interviews please contact CFP, folklorearchive@gmail.com

CO’C: What kinda things did people find hard say now of your parents’ generation?

P D: Make ends meet. It’s only now I see it like, make ends meet like you know? I mean Jeez, the father's suit like could be goin’ into the pawn on a Monday like. And if there was somethin’ on, ‘twould be taken out on a Friday like, when the dole come in. And like in the end like, the father like or the pawn shop didn’t really know who ownded the suit like.I t went on so long and that’s was every family like, every family like. Which result in that, like, the suit could outlive the family because the suit was always kept it was a means of eh, of money like it was kept imperfect nick like you know? You know? That time like pawn shops were fascinatin’ places do you know eh, place was full o’ pawn shops like you know?

CO’C: Do you remember any particular ones?

P D: Well I remember the one down in Blarney Street next to the Blarney Street School an’ I remember eh, eh, there was one up on the end o’ Patrick’s Hill an’ I saw a watch inside in the window and at that time like you, you didn’t have choice of a dozen watches in your drawer like, a watch was a thing for life you know? So I saw this watch anyway and eh, Jesus the watch was fabulous, fabulous, I was thinking’ I could ha’ been a teenager that time. So I decided anyway I wanted the watch an’ so. Your man says eh, “I let ya pay by the week, so pay by the week an’ when you have it paid you’d get it out.” I dunno was it was it ten bob or somethin’ like that. In the end anyway, I couldn’t keep up the payments, I couldn’t keep up the payments for a ten bob watch like you know? So even now today like I’ve this watch now like, I’ve this watch now like for, I’ve it a good thirty-five years now. An’ I think, like in my mind like a watch is somethin’ for life. A watch is somethin’ you get an’ it’s somethin’ for life. I see people they change a watch every day now an’ that’s grand like but for me, a watch is somethin’ for life because like it was a possession I always wanted like you know what I mean? You know? So eh, eh, eh, it was all like, like, the majority o’ time ‘twas second-hand clothes like . Only chance like that when we, when we, we’d say once a year there was this scheme called the free boots and your mother would take you down an’ you, maybe down to Shandon Street or whatever an’ you’d get em, these free boots from the government like you know what I mean? And eh, they were supposed to last ya for the year then like you know? Otherwise, you’d be in rubber dollies in the middle o’ winter like you know?

CO’C: Yeah.

P D: Canvas shoes like an’ no matter what the weather was like, you know? An’ everyone, everyone goin’ to school was in a short pants. You know?

CO’C: What kinda things did your mother do say now to kinda stretch things a bit or to?

P D: Well, em, at Christmas she went pluckin’. Yeah, all the women in our area went pluckin’. You know? Because o’ size o’, like other than the father bein’ on the dole it ended up the mother bein’ the, was bringin’ home the money like. She went pluckin’ and then for the rest o’ the year she went cleanin’ people’s houses. She’d do anything, you know I mean it was like the mother hen like, lookin’ after the family like. Eh, so, like that was the bonus in eh, in eh, Christmas they’d go pluckin’, pluckin’ the chicken and turkey and eh, like one aunt, she moved, she was over there in Middle Parish and she moved to eh, Leamington Spa after and eh, she was a, she was a dinger at the pluckin' like. She could turnout so many turkeys or whatever like you know? ‘Cos if, and the turkey would be clean because if they, if they tore the turkey they have to sow it, they’d have a needle and thread like. So I remember goin’ down, eh, with the food, down to the the mother and at that time that could ha’ been a bottle o’ tea.

CO’C: Yeah.

P D: And a, a bottle o’ tea and eh, maybe a sandwich like I be go down, course she wouldn’t have to come back up then again. The turk, the place she used to pluck the turkeys was down in em, ‘cross from the Mercy Hospital ‘twas in that area. And eh, and goin’ in, and an’ all the women they had bibs on ‘em but they were all covered in feathers like you know? Whole place was feathers like you know? So that, she done things like that to make ends meet like. But she’d have done anything like you know? You know? Which, which they’d all have done like you know what I mean? You know?