Turf wars

Turf wars

Tom Jones describes how collecting the turf in a pram was never straightforward.

There was everything that I remember about these poor times from the voucher shoes that people mentioned to erm – we had a turf docket where myself and my brother would have eh to use a pram because it had multi-uses and we collected the turf from the top of em Gurrannabraher,


Transcript
"There was everything that I remember about these poor times from the voucher shoes that people mentioned to erm – we had a turf docket where myself and my brother would have eh to use a pram because it had multi-uses and we collected the turf from the top of em Gurrannabraher, I guess. They had a turf place right there in front of the, the – is it the Orthopaedic? Yeah, it was right there, I can remember. And they were tough times, you know, because there was little battles along the way where other kids would try and steal some of your turf. So, you know, you had to be quite tough to survive. We used to go to Fitz’s boreen and then there was this thing where the boys, especially older boys, err, jumping. Which meant; there were a lot of streams out there and you had to jump them. Because if that was on, you either had to make an attempt and if you didn’t make it you got wet. Well you might as well make the attempt, because if you didn’t they’d throw you in anyway. So that was like this competition out there, jumping. And then there was this thing called “bagging” for torneens where they would, you know, go in up to their knees ‘cos the water was quite low, but had this err, this little sack. But they used to, two people would hold it and scoop up the water from under the weeds and whatever, and there was torneens. I guess they were this size and they brought them home in jam jars and whatever."

Cork Folklore Project

CFP_SR00443_jones_2011

The Cork Folkore Project

20th of April

Tom Jones

Copyright Cork Folklore Project

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Tom Jones Turf Wars Bounce Mono.mp3