Collecting waste with Pedro the Donkey
Dublin Core
Title
Collecting waste with Pedro the Donkey
Subject
Jim remembers as a child, collecting waste for the pigs
Description
As a child, Jim Mckeon hated his daily chore of collecting waste for the family pigs while all his friends were playing football.
Transcript
"My weekly, my daily chore that I hated was to tackle up Pedro the donkey, we had a few pigs, and go round the neighbourhood collecting waste. We just called it waste. Twas leftover food, mashed potato, bits of bread or whatever, to feed the pigs. So every day when I came in from school all the boys started playing football. I was stuck with this chariot, like. I went off down the lane, down Fairhill, and down around the bottom of Gurranabrather. You'd have your usual customers. I had a bin so you'd take the plates, and little bins, dishes of waste food. I suppose they were delighted to get rid of it as well you know. Saturday mornings then I went down again with my chariot downtown, down to Union Quay Barracks, the Garda Barracks, on a weekly collection of their bin. So I brought down a big loose bin, an empty one and put the big heavy one, the full one, up on the donkey and cart. So that was every Saturday morning. It just shows the traffic in town, it was absolutely nothing. There wouldn't be a car in town, you know? You might come across one or two in an hour but there was no traffic. Bikes were all over the place, you know. So that was my daily chore and I hated it. So when I joined the post office at fourteen as a telegram boy that job was thankfully handed over to the next brother."
Transcript
"My weekly, my daily chore that I hated was to tackle up Pedro the donkey, we had a few pigs, and go round the neighbourhood collecting waste. We just called it waste. Twas leftover food, mashed potato, bits of bread or whatever, to feed the pigs. So every day when I came in from school all the boys started playing football. I was stuck with this chariot, like. I went off down the lane, down Fairhill, and down around the bottom of Gurranabrather. You'd have your usual customers. I had a bin so you'd take the plates, and little bins, dishes of waste food. I suppose they were delighted to get rid of it as well you know. Saturday mornings then I went down again with my chariot downtown, down to Union Quay Barracks, the Garda Barracks, on a weekly collection of their bin. So I brought down a big loose bin, an empty one and put the big heavy one, the full one, up on the donkey and cart. So that was every Saturday morning. It just shows the traffic in town, it was absolutely nothing. There wouldn't be a car in town, you know? You might come across one or two in an hour but there was no traffic. Bikes were all over the place, you know. So that was my daily chore and I hated it. So when I joined the post office at fourteen as a telegram boy that job was thankfully handed over to the next brother."
Creator
Cork Folklore Project
Source
CFP_SR00392_mckeon_2010
Publisher
Cork Folklore Project
Date
Not stated but judging by the interviewee, probably forty/fifty years ago: 1950s?
Contributor
Jim McKeon interviewee
Rights
Copyright Cork Folkore Project
Format
Mp3
Language
English
Type
Audio
Identifier
CFP_SR00392_mckeon_2010
Citation
Cork Folklore Project, “Collecting waste with Pedro the Donkey,” Cork Memory Map, accessed May 19, 2024, https://corkfolklore.org/cmm/items/show/12.