Moore Street, 1967–68
post with both hands so you couldn’t be caught and you could get your breath back. After the tig we sat down in the sun on
the kerb opposite Chesty, still sitting in his kitchen chair at his front door.
I spied a patch of dull-pink chewing gum stuck to the
road and poked at it with an ice-pop stick to see if it would
move. Softened by the heat, it came away easily in pinkywhite strings.
‘Hi, I got chewin’ gum! Look!’ I shouted. ‘What is it?’ asked Johnny Barbour.
‘It’s a Bubbly,’ I said, rolling it in my fingers. I kissed it up
to God and put it in my mouth. There was still a bit of flavour off it, as well as a few pieces of grit, which I picked out in a pincer movement with my tongue and fingers. ‘Gis that ice-pop stick,’ said Johnny.
I threw him the ice-pop stick and he poked at a piece of
dull-white chewing gum near his feet. It came up in strings too. The sun was a blessing for chewing gum. He rolled it in his fingers, kissed it and held it up to the sky.
‘I kiss this up to God,’ he said and promptly stuck it in his
mouth.
‘What kind did you get, Johnny?’ I asked.
‘Beechnut,’ he said with a smile, crunching on a bit of grit,
as I had.
‘It’s okay when you kiss it up to God, isn’t it?’ said our Paul,
sitting down beside Johnny.
15
This Man’s Wee Boy
‘Aye, it is. As long as you kiss it up to God you won’t get
poisoned,’ I said and watched our Paul poke another dullpink Bubbly with the stick.
*** It was our first day at school. The classroom at Long Tower
Primary School had erupted with four-year-olds crying for
their mammies. Mrs Radcliffe was being stern with some of
the mothers who were in the classroom. They had to leave. They were only making the children worse. Almost all of the
thirty boys were crying like babies and I wondered what they were crying about. I was the only boy in the class not crying. It took a long time to get the mammies out the door. They stood
outside looking in through the glass at all the wains crying. Then some of the mammies started to cry. Mrs Radcliffe
went out to them, closing the door behind her. Eventually
they dried their eyes and left. Mrs Radcliffe was always stern. When school finished later that day they were all back, crying again in the yard. The mammies had their boys by the hand or were hugging them.
Only a few boys cried on the second day, but one of them
cacked himself in the classroom. Mrs Radcliffe was purplefaced. She took him out to the toilet. When they came back he was wearing someone else’s trousers. We all got a small
bottle of cold milk in the morning. Some boys didn’t drink their milk but Mrs Radcliffe said you had to, to make your 16
Moore Street, 1967–68
bones and teeth strong. They only sipped it. I drank the whole bottle as I wanted to have strong bones and teeth. I had toast
wrapped in bread-paper for lunch. The two slices of cold toast
were really nice because the butter had caramelised with the burnt bits. We got hot tea with sugar at lunchtime. Mrs Radcliffe poured it for us from a giant silver teapot into cups and small milk bottles.
I went home with our Patrick and Karen. Karen was a big
girl in Primary Three in the Long Tower Girls’ School.
On the way home one day our Patrick said to me, ‘You’re
deef.’
I said, ‘What?’ and he said, ‘I said, “You’re deef.”’ ‘What d’ye mean, deef?’ I asked.
‘Me ma said to Paddy Stewart the other day that she
thought you couldn’t hear right, and Paddy said that you might be a bit deef all right,’ he said.
‘But I’m not deef. Sure I can hear ye talkin’!’ I said, feeling
a bit hard done by.
‘Well, that’s what they said. You’re deef and that’s it!’
‘Naw, I’m not deef! I’m not, aren’t I not, Karen?’ I asked,
alarmed and looking for another opinion.
‘Naw you’re not. Patrick, stop you narking him,’ she replied. ‘I’m only tellin’ yis what they said. It was Paddy Stewart
that said you’re deef,’ said Patrick.
‘Well, give over about it now,’ said Karen and we walked
home in silence.
17
This Man’s Wee Boy
A day or two later me ma called into the school to get me
out early. She was standing in the corridor when Mrs Radcliffe said that I had to go. We walked from the Long Tower
School towards Abercorn Road where Riverview House was. As we walked me ma said she had to get an hour off work in the factory to take me to get a hearing test.
‘I’m not deef, Ma, amn’t I not?’ I asked, looking up to her
face to see her reaction.
‘Och naw, son,’ she said, with an anxious smile back at me.
‘Everybody gits an ear test when they’re young.’ ‘Everybody in the class?’ I asked.
‘Aye, you’re the first. Aren’t you the lucky wan?’
When we got to Riverview House we were taken by a
smiling, blue-uniformed nurse into a cream-painted room
with two wooden chairs and a wooden table with a wooden
mallet on it and a pair of black metal earphones wired into a grey metal box on the wall above the table. The nurse explained that I was to put the earphones on my head, she
would go out of the room and that I was to tap the table with
the wooden mallet after I heard a beep on the earphones. Me ma sat down at the table opposite a large, square window
looking into another room, behind which the nurse would sit down. I was to sit facing away from the window. The nurse placed the earphones over my head, covering both ears. I couldn’t hear a thing from this point on and wondered was I
supposed to be hearing beeps or was I really going deef. I had 18
Moore Street, 1967–68
the mallet in a death-grip, and had heard nothing yet from
the earphones. I waited … and waited a few seconds more … I heard a very faint beep. A weak one but I definitely heard
it! I raised the mallet and brought it down hard on the table
with all the strength of a boy worried about going deef. Bang!
Me ma, who had been looking in at the nurse and not at me, screamed ‘Jesus Christ!’ at the top of her voice, jumped up
from her chair, her handbag fell off her knees onto the floor
and all her belongings fell across the floor. Papers and lipstick everywhere. The nurse rushed in from the windowed room
next door and said, ‘Are you okay, Mrs Doherty?’ I could only
hear the talk in muffles. Me ma sat back down on her wooden chair, put her hands over her face, and her shoulders started
heaving. I thought she was crying into her hands but then I
heard the laughs of her and, when she took her hands away, her eyes ran black with make-up.
‘Jesus, Tony Doherty!’ she said, still laughing. ‘You’re goney
bring on a heart attack!’ The nurse and me ma got down on
their hunkers to lift all me ma’s things from the floor. Me ma then placed the handbag squarely on the table.
‘I know, Tony,’ the nurse said, smiling and patting my
hand after she lifted the earphones from my head. ‘Just hit
the table a wee tap so I can see your hand moving through the window.’ She placed the earphones over my ears again
and returned to the other room. My knuckled grip on the mallet remained strong, despite the nurse’s advice. I had the
19
This Man’s Wee Boy
earphones on and could hear nothing. So I waited … me ma, her still giggling and looking at me this time, put her hands up to her ears. I waited …
I heard another very weak beep. Weaker than the first
one but definitely a beep! Again, I brought the mallet down
hard on the wooden table with all my strength. Bang! Me ma, who had been watching me this time, put her hands round to cover her open mouth as she looked, wide-eyed, in through
the window at the nurse. The nurse came in again from the other room, gently lifted the black earphones off my head and said, ‘Mrs Doherty, there’s not a thing wrong with this boy’s ears, but could you take him out of here before he wrecks the
place!’ My grip on the mallet released at the news and I put my hands down by my sides.
‘Oh dear, nurse, I’m really mortified,’ said me ma, who was
still wiping the black make-up from her eyes with a hankie.
‘That’s okay, Mrs Doherty. He’s a wile man, that ’un!’ said
the nurse, smiling back at us.
‘Och, I know. He’d get ye hung!’ laughed me ma as we
went out through the large wooden doors.
‘I’m not deef, Ma. Aren’t I not?’ I asked her again as we
climbed the stone steps up to Abercorn Park.
‘Naw, you’re not at all, son. You’re just in a world of your
own sometimes.’
I wondered what she meant as we passed the swings and
slides towards home. 20
Moore Street, 1967–68
I’m not deef and that’s the main thing! I thought to myself
and couldn’t wait to get home to tell our Patrick. ***
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