Book review
Indicating just how desperate this woman was, she admitted that she tried to bargain with the man, saying it was ok for him to remain married to the other woman and herself at the same time. She pointed out that in his culture, this man could have four wives. Now that she has come to her senses, she looked into divorcing the man. But she can't legally do it from Ireland. She could hire a solicitor in his country but she was advised not to go to the Middle East."
Another isolated man, living in Cork, placed an ad in the Echo last year, looking for a medium sized dog. "This pensioner, who had been in the Congo serving with the defence forces, ended up telling me about his family. He had been born in a county home and didn't really know his mum and didn't know who his father was. He told me about trying to connect with his family (which includes siblings) and the impact that has had on his life. You could see why dogs were like family to him."
There's an odd story in the book about a man who had advertised for a DVD of 'The Remains of the Day,' starring Anthony Hopkins. O'Connell made contact with this man who turned out to have an obsession with Anthony Hopkins. He had watched almost everything the actor had ever appeared in.
His last dog had died and he reckoned that a new dog would probably be his last as he was getting on in age. The man became emotional when he spoke about the dog that had died. An ad on DoneDeal in July 2017 read as follows: 'Horse-drawn Victorian hearse, very old. For restoration. Circa 1870. Original condition, needs slight work to restore. Might consider part exchange. Also selection of traps and carriages. €2,850.'
"On one level, it is quite sad that somebody had to put an ad in a paper for a DVD. It means he doesn't have a social circle and doesn't have the wherewithal to go online. These are the people I really wanted to meet." The man's garden was unkempt and his cluttered sitting room included seats piled high with newspapers. The walls were full of newspaper cuttings, mainly about George Best and Pelé. There were lots of Diet Coke bottles on the floor. The day O'Connell met this man, a well preserved second-hand copy of 'The Remains of the Day' had arrived. The man already had it on VHS and had worn it out because he had watched the film so often. His fascination with the Hollywood actor started when he saw him in 'The Elephant Man' in 1980. The man lives with his brother in what was the family house. He knows all the lines and character names of the thirty-five films Hopkins was in from 1968 to 2005. Going to Mass is this man's only social outlet. He says 'hello' to people, 'but it stops there.' Once a year, he drinks a can of Guinness - on Christmas day.
Intrigued, O'Connell met Mike Fleming, the man behind the ad, in Boherbue on the Cork/Kerry border. Fleming turned out to be a collector and a trawler of the small ads. O'Connell writes: "Dotted around his property were many items of historical interest, from old labouring tools to a collection of vintage tractors and ploughs, to old bar signs, vintage cars and old bottles. There was even a museum scene depicting an Irish Famine wake in one corner of an outhouse, complete with life-size figures and a realistic-looking dead body in a bed. I mean, go figure."
Echo (now the Echo) during Christmas 2014, O'Connell had to satisfy his curiosity. When he phoned the contact number, a man with a rural accent said the monkeys were gone. He put O'Connell in touch with the buyer, Ivan Rumley, who has a pet farm outside Cork city. Rumley said the male monkey was sold but he would introduce O'Connell to the female. It turned out to be a marmoset monkey, one of the smallest breeds in the world. She was three years old at the time. The seller of the monkeys had bought them as pets from a dealer in Northern Ireland. When the owner of the monkeys fell ill, he needed to offload them quickly and turned to the small ads. Ivan Rumley bought the pair for more than €1,000. 'To be honest, I was only looking in the Echo for a pony,' he told O'Connell. All in a day's work for a journalist who describes himself as nosey and curious. He certainly has a nose for a story. And the headline above the monkey story in the book reads: 'A Monkey is for Life - Not Just For Christmas.'
Where did the hearse come from? Fleming thinks it's from north Cork, perhaps Doneraile. He fell for it and received a lot of calls about it, including from undertakers who wanted it as a showpiece. He had trouble trying to sell it. He said that he'd like to see a buyer completely refurbish it. 'But the most important thing is someone with the €2,000. After that, we wish them good luck and hopefully they won't need it for personal use for a long time to come.' As for the pair of breeding monkeys, advertised in the pet pages of the then Evening
52 Senior Times l January - February 2020 l www.seniortimes.ie
The Personals by Brian O'Connell is published by Harper Collins at £12.99.
