Harry Browne

The compilation of the information and the construction of the family tree has been what one might call a labour of love. I have discovered things about my family which I had never known before and I consider myself as a small part of a much larger stream travelling through time, sometimes in gentle currents and in other times in rather more rough ones. In my mind the notion that was expressed to me long ago when I commented on someone's age “We are all on the same bus, some of us just got on earlier” is very strong.

I am struck whilst writing this missive by how unbelievably the world has changed in my lifetime. Daily life in the 1940s in unimaginable to my children and grandchildren. Milk was delivered, loose and unpasteurised, to the front door. Central heating was a distant dream, my mother washed all our clothes with a wash board and basin of water, cooking was done on a range, which had to be fed with coal if it could be got or turf  if coal was scarce. At that time we had an economic war with England and the slogan was “Burn everything British bar their coal”. Children died of things like pleurisy, emphysema, coughs and unnamed diseases which would in modern times be totally curable.

Working life if one was fortunate enough to have a job was nasty, brutish and very likely to be short. For the fortunate ones who had secure employment life was vastly better than the average. My mother related to us a story of how she was accosted in the street by a neighbour’s child who said “May Hunter, you must be very rich” My mother replied “Why do you say that?” “Because I saw you and your mother walking down Bridgefoot Street eating bananas”

Traffic was composed of pedestrians, horse drawn vehicles of various descriptions, bicycles and very few motor vehicles. Buses and trams were the main mode of transport for common people in Dublin city and its nearer environs. The tram tracks were a snare and a trap for unwary cyclists, if one was unlucky enough to get stuck in the tracks it was difficult to free it. You would also be soundly berated by the tram driver and if time was pressing the passengers might also hurl abuse at the misfortunate cyclist. Trams were powered by electricity and on reaching the end of their journey, the driver dismounted and using a long rod disconnected the apparatus on top of the tram from the lines, dragged it to the other end of the carriage and reconnected it so the tram could retrace its journey. He then remounted to his driving position at the opposite end of the carriage. The driver was dressed in grand uniform with shiny brass buttons.

Entertainment was as described earlier, cinemas, dance halls, music halls like the Royal and self-made diversions like walking and playing games. In the later years we had radio and television but absolutely none of the modern forms of pastimes such as electronic devices.

Pawn shops were to be found in every neighbourhood. Many people made a persistent habit of “Popping the stuff” every weekend to scrounge together enough money to pay the gas or electricity bill and when times improved the items could be redeemed, at a cost, needless to say.

When we think of the current recession, life in those days was carried on in a constant state of recession to a degree which does not bear thinking of now. Many shops ran a tab for customers and one could buy groceries etc “on tick” to be paid at the weekend when wages were paid. Biscuits were displayed in large tins in the shop and sold by weight which was determined in a brass weighing scales with weights in ounce denominations for quarter, half and one pound, on the shop counter. The ends of the biscuits remaining in the tins were sold as broken biscuits at one penny per quarter pound; much prized in these broken biscuits were the cream filled ones which were scarce and rare.

Fleas were common, often picked up in the cinemas, to the extent that particularly bad cinemas were called “flea pits”. Also a common affliction were boils, particularly on men and boys necks, presumably from poor nutrition and tight shirt collars. There were no buggies or push chairs, one pram was bought for the first child and all the succeeding children had to make do with that pram in their turn. There was a practice in our family that a new baby was put to sleep in a drawer, pulled out of the dresser, instead of a cot or moses basket until they were a few weeks old.

My uncle Jack had, as alluded to earlier, had a business and in support of that business he had a Commer van. Consequently our family had the use of this van from my earliest memory. My father was an enthusiastic driver and would go anywhere at the least excuse for a drive. I too am an enthusiastic driver and every time I go driving I wonder what he would have made of the motorways and well made roads to be found everywhere today. I well remember the main road from Dublin to Cork, which was the old Naas road, and the hours of travel it required for a short trip to Baltinglass in Co Wicklow on bank holiday weekends in that Commer van. The same trip today takes less than one hour.

The contrast between those “good old days” and today almost defies description. We have a reasonably good road infrastructure, instant telephone communication (sometimes too instant!), internet connections to the entire world and all the social media which is at our fingertips. I addressed the telephone issue earlier and I note that I now have a Skype connection and I can talk to friends and relatives all over the world for effectively no charge.

Infant mortality is almost wiped out. The various ailments I described earlier have all but disappeared, medical treatment is available to all, albeit there is a waiting period in A&E and the conditions from which people die nowadays are largely brought on by over eating, excessive drinking, smoking substance abuse of one sort or another.

I am currently living on the state pension and a small pension from the Construction Industry Federation and, whilst I fiercely resent the proposed raid by the government on this meagre stipend, I cheerfully admit that I am in fairly good circumstances financially, in that I have a much as I need to live a fairly comfortable lifestyle and I am not overly concerned about my fiscal future.

I am trying to say, in a long drawn out manner, that we are vastly better off now than we were in those far off, rosy tinted days. And that’s in spite of recessions, depressions, IMF, ECB old uncle cobbley and all.