Billy Gallagher

My position on being sent to the Dublin sales office was Gopher.  I had to go for the uncle’s car and bring it to the door, I had to deliver all the Dublin sales and always have a gallon of paraffin to light the smelly paraffin stoves in the two offices.  The big item of the day was to get “the letter” off in the evening post so that it would be in the factory next morning.  This was a detailed description of the day’s trading and would consist of between one and perhaps six transactions with a total value of between £20 and £200.

The first year in Dublin I lived with Uncle Jack in his extraordinary house (Baggotrath House) beside Lansdowne Road.  He had five acres of a garden and two gate lodges, one at Dodder Bridge and the other on Herbert Road, a long way from the house.  He had two full time gardeners, a wife he doted on and a daughter.  He drove home for lunch every day.  The second year I was in Dublin he moved to 13 Bellevue Avenue in Glenageary, a modest 4 bed semi.  He sold Baggotrath for £4,200 after 18 months of prayer and bought Glenageary for £2,600.  He was delighted to get £4,200, a good price at the time when no one had money and no property could sell no matter what.  That was 1962.  He continued to drive home for lunch to Glenageary also, always had a sleep after lunch and got back to the office for 3 pm.  He had to write “the letter”.

Phone conversations to Donegal were dodgy, you had to get the operator to get you through and this was both to get a line and also to rouse the Lifford post office to rouse the factory.  The telephone number of the factory was Lifford 10.  The operator in Lifford would know if Aunt Nellie was in the factory or if she had taken “Rowdy”, her cocker spaniel, for a walk.  In the latter circumstance you would ring back in an hour.