Days when we returned lemonade bottles to raise money for Cork hospital ward

Michael Ryan has been musing on this new idea of returning plastic bottles and drinks cans to the store where you bought them, to get a refund.

“My wife was saying, isn’t it strange the way things come around again, like when she heard the staff of the CUH hospital were collecting all the plastic bottles, for the kids’ ward there, she thinks.

“When she worked in the North Infirmary, each ward used to collect the glass lemonade bottles. Lucozade, supposed to be a health-giving drink, was very popular. They would soak the bottles in a bath of water, and remove the labels of them. Then they would bring them across the road to the shop and get money back on them. This was given to the ward sister,who would save it up and buy something for the ward when it was needed.

“I took my wife to the supermarket last week. While I was waiting in the car I heard a rattling of some sort. I looked out and saw a can (Red Bull) rolling along. It had clearly been blown away. When, all of a sudden I saw this person chasing the can and catching it, I had to laugh. My first thoughts were, did the can fly out of her bag and escape? You know what they say, you get wings when you drink that stuff!

“What a change though in just a year. Normally, you wouldn’t bother picking it up, it would be squashed, end up in the gutter. But cash is king .

“All I can say is fair play to the RETURN scheme, the idea took off. I personally did not give it a chance, but it’s working. You see crowds bringing bottles and cans back.

“Now, you will always have the moaners of course, the waste and recycling crowd are down 20% in revenue. So what? Sure, you can’t please everyone!”

Oddly enough, Michael, this writer had a similar experience recently on a windy day in a supermarket car park. A woman was tottering by with a piled-high carton of drinks cans and plastic bottles, destined for the return machine. A gust of wind caught one of the cans and blew it away. I, helpfully, went to intercept it, only to be interrupted by a frantic shriek from the carton-toting woman.

“Don’t squash it! Don’t stand on it!”

I can tell you, it’s difficult to stop a runaway can any other way, but isn’t that an example of how our attitudes have changed?

Once, we were told to ‘wash and squash’ before taking such items to the recycling centre. Now they have to stay whole and in shape, or else that darned machine won’t accept them! Which means a lot more bulk in your bag, if anybody hasn’t noticed. Plus, of course, the difficulty of ing exactly which can or bottle should go to which shop, as nine times out of ten they won’t accept each other’s.

“The big news in the 1980s, of course,” continues Michael, “was the moving statues in Ballinspittle. I tell you, there was some buzz around the place at the time.

“I’m no Holy Joe, but I did go up to that grotto to have a look for myself. Up the embankment to have a gawk, as they say. You would be so far away from it that you would be gooseyed. So I saw nothing, I leave it at that...”

Regarding summer holiday memories we have been recalling of late, Stephen Twohig re Ballybunion as he gradually grew older, and his family would stay there for a night or two.

“Up the street were two arcades. We would spend every penny we had saved or borrowed on the bumper cars or many video garnes. There was one driving game called Superbug and the brother and I would challenge anyone to beat us, such was our dedication and devotion to it. On those occasions when we were staying over, we would go to the bingo at night with mother. If you won, the lady calling the numbers would have you choose from a number of balloons tied above on a string.

“Having chosen, she would pop the balloon and, as dramatically as she could, unravel the winnings. Therein would be a brown fiver or, if lucky, a big red twenty pound note. On the way home we would buy a burger and bag of chips from the caravan across the street and head home.

“If left alone in our room, we would hang out at the window and watch people go by outside. There was an alley between the Central and The Ambassador and at the back was a dance hall. All night long there would be a stream of people coming and going and in the distance the rhythm and boom of the muffled music.

“It was near impossible to sleep with all the excitement, the shouts, the loud motorbikes, scuffles, the odd smashing bottle, but much laughter in the streets outside. Outside was the grown-up world we longed for and would through, way too soon. Yes, if you had to choose, these were the good old days. And you had better them as you would have to write about it every first week back at school in ‘La Cois Farraige’ (A Day by the Sea).”

In that same school back in Kanturk, Stephen re, he moved through Low Infants, High Infants, First through to Sixth at the Boys’ National School, then First Year through to Leaving at the Convent, Scoil Mhuire.

“It was not as traumatic as in our parents’ time, but nonetheless no walk in the park. There were some great teachers and educators among them, but also some that ruled with a heavy hand and with the psychological threat of a dictatorship. There was one particular nun that had probably trained in Libya, such were her tactics! It’s hard to imagine now, having been trained as a teacher myself, a whole class lined up around the room and each one getting a slap on each hand for some class misdemeanour or other. Another lay teacher would lift you out of the seat by your sideburns.

“There was no multi-media or classroom enhancements. Yet we knew that success at school meant a better life for you. Those in a previous generation were not so lucky as to have the importance of education instilled upon them. Many had left school early to help out at home or work at a local factory to make ends meet.

“I do wonder sometimes about the strange double standard by which our parents referred to the ‘old days’. On one hand they told us of the hardships and difficulties they endured during these tougher times, the impoverished nature of a bleak childhood. Then, on the other hand, they told yearningly of the far better, simpler way of living that they used to enjoy. Nights by the fire with the seanchai spinning yarns, evenings of cards and songs, dances at crossroads, and in general the less sophisticated uncomplicated nature of a rural childhood. As a child you could never tell whether the days of old were the bad old days or the good old days!

“Our school was only up the street and we would walk or race home for lunch. I still think that success in school is in part attributed to the friends you hang out with and play. I was lucky to have such like-minded friends in our class who knew there was nothing going to ‘be handed down’ and that we were going to have to make it for ourselves.”

“The days and years spent traipsing in those scholastic gates will stay with you forever,” comments Stephen.

“For second class, we had Peadar O Callaghan, a tall, bearded and easygoing man. He would speak to us on our level and what I most of his class is the afternoons where he would read to us. We would be rapt in attention to stories of Irish mythology: Cu Culainn, The Children of Lir, Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the likes. He would open our eyes to the wonders of books and of reading. Or there were days he would bring out the ancient record player and play us some classical music, trying to expand our little minds.

“Third class was equally rewarding. We moved out to the wooden pre-fab by the schoolyard where our teacher was Dion MacAuliffe. What a pleasant, happy and constantly smiling man he was, and is! His class was a pleasure and there were none that didn’t like third class. He would have us do varied and interesting class projects and brought out the best in each.

“The only downfall to third class was that once a week we had the Principal, Ned Hogan, come and teach us Irish poetry. He was the sixth class teacher and was ‘old school’, for want of a better word. He would line us up around the class and expect each to know the memorised lines.

‘ Bhi Mici ana bheag, bhi Seami ana mhor , Bhi ulla dearg ar an gcrann.’

“You didn’t want to falter and you dreaded Ned. It was not always he was cross with us though, and if you caught him on one of his humorous days he would toss sweets to the class where the boys would go clambering under desks to find them.

“Dion was an avid fisherman and, as I was a man of the line myself, under the guidance of my father, we got on well. But then again there were none that didn’t in Dion’s class. He later took to golf and traded the graphite rod in for the graphite clubs and the ‘good walk ruined’.

“We progressed on to fourth class with Padraig O Suilleabhain, a tall, lanky and serious teacher. He was, and is a devout and ionate historian and would instill in us the pride and importance of our rich heritage. On matters of local history, he is your man (and I hope I have my own s in correct detail!) Along with Seamus Mahony, father of my fellow guitarist, they would go on to publish a comprehensive book: Kanturk: This is our town in County Cork.

“Mr O Sullivan required nothing less than your best,” recalls Stephen. “For that I must give credit, and you dotted your ‘i’ s, crossed your t’s and capped your vowels with a fada where needed. He became Principal after Ned retired and we would again have him in sixth class.

“Not without the quick hop through the fifth class of Mr Noel O Brien. We had a lot of laughs with Noel. We also learned as he could also be serious and cross with offenders. I would in later years explain that teaching a class of children could be compared to the rev counter in a car. Though a very calm and serene person myself, there was always one little chancer driving you into the red limit zone, pushing the bounds of your tolerance. Sometimes I wonder if I could have put up with us as kids!”

What great memories of Kanturk schooldays! How about the rest of you recalling your youth in a classroom? Email [email protected]. Or leave a comment on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/echolivecork.