My mother, Daisie Noreen Magee, and father, James Wallwork, met near Manchester in the late 1930s and married at the beginning of World War II in Bramhall, Cheshire, at Bramhall Hall, I believe. They were both born at separate eventful times in each of their country’s histories. My father was born on July 18, 1914, in Salford, Lancashire, England. 1914 was the year that World War I broke out and Britain and the world were never to be the same again. I remember Dad describing going into a field around Salford with his aunt as a tiny child and seeing a dirigible passing overhead. This year, 2014, my father would be 100 years old if he were still alive.
Daisie was born in Ireland on her parent’s little farm in
County Cavan, Ireland on August 24, 1919, almost a year after World War I
ended. At this time, Ireland was
ruled by Great Britain but trouble was brewing. Within a few years, Ireland was in rebellion, and was to be divided
into north and south. Eventually,
my grandparent’s farm would end up in the south to be governed by a new
Ireland, called Eire. If
Daisie were still alive, she’d be 95 years old, in 2014.
Daisie was the third of seven children. Their birth order was Lyndon, Violet, Daisie, Noel, Charlie, Dickie, and Lorraine. Daisie’s mother lost 4 young infants to scarlet fever. My grandfather Robert Magee married Margaret Huggins in 19 . Daisie grew up on the farm. She helped her parents and siblings do chores, the endless chores during seemingly endless days particularily during the planting, harvesting and making the hay, on a farm, such as lighting and fueling the turf fire in the big hearth of my grandparent’s kitchen, carrying water from the distant well for drinking, cooking, and personal hygiene, washing and drying clothes on a clothesline, feeding the chickens, pigs, calves; gathering the eggs; bringing in the cows for milking and milking said cows; helping slaughter the chickens, pigs; cutting and curing the bacon or meat; help with planting potatoes, cabbages, wheat; making bread and churning butter, to list a few of the notable ones. Plus no doubt, helping take care of her younger siblings. One of my early memories of my grandmother was taking an axe and rounding up a chicken for the family dinner. It was dispatched with a swing of the axe using the chopping block. The feathers would then be plucked after dipping the bird in boiling water. As with many people in the world at this time life must have a struggle.
No running water, no flush toilets, not even an outhouse. Bringing up a large family under these circumstances could not have been easy. In addition, being a protestant family in a border county during the Irish rebellion must have been pretty scary.
My grandfather’s family were Orangemen, meaning they were Protestants. The predominant religion in Ireland as a whole was and is Roman Catholic. Originally many generations earlier, the family came from Scotland and settled in this region of Ireland, known as Ulster which then included county Cavan. Ulster contained a majority of of the Irish Protestant population who were loyal to England. After the rebellion in1920, the Ireland Act of Great Britain, divided Ireland into Northern Ireland and southern Ireland, which became the Irish Free State. At that time Cavan and two other counties (Monaghan and Donegal) that had been part of Ulster were transferred to the Irish Free State. This was quite a change because these three countries that had been ruled by the British Parliament now fell under the Catholic majority of the Free State
The Irish rebellion of the early 1920s led to a lot of sectarian strife in Ireland. A turbulent time indeed for the Magee family and their infant baby, my mother. It must have been a frightening to be Protestant in Cavan at that time, a border county during the Irish rebellion against British rule by the Catholic majority in the south of Ireland, which had great antipathy toward anything English, specially Protestantism.
Life on the Magee farm was undoubtedly hard yet there were fun times as well. For example, not as much work was generally done on a Sunday and people would dress in their best clothes and go off to church. The Magees went to Kilegare church near Killeshandra generally in a horse-drawn vehicle, such as a pony and trap. Sunday afternoon is the perfect time for visiting friends and relatives and having a ceilidh or get together. It might or might not involve music and dancing. Ceilidh is a Gaelic word pronounced kalee. I remember my grandmother having friends over on Sunday afternoons and they would use the parlor or back room, which was normally rarely used. They would eat and chat and wile away the afternoon. My grandmother would bring out the best china and lay out all sorts of good food. Younger people would migrate to the outside especially if the weather was fine. One of the games I can remember playing was rather like tenpin bowling only with rough cut pieces of wood. As I remember the game was played at the back of the woodshed. One stood ten of the pieces of foot long pieces of wood like tenpins. Then from about twenty yards one had to throw a similar piece of wood and try to knock down as many as possible. It was quite fun.
When my mother found out I was on the way she went back to live with her parents in county Cavan, Eire, the new name for the Irish Free State. Most British children were evacuated from industrial cities during the war because of the bombing. My mother lived with her parents and siblings on a small farm in the rolling hills and lakes country of County Cavan, near a little village called Killeshandra. My father joined the British army--the Lancashire Fusiliers. He did not talk much about his army service. I do know that he manned the anti-aircraft guns around the docks in Liverpool for some time, which was bombed heavily by the Luftwaffe because of its strategic importance as one of England’s major ports. He was also stationed in the Orkney Islands in northern Scotland. He was in Scapa Flow where there was a vital British Naval base that needed to be heavily fortified. In October, 1939, a German U-boat managed to get through the defenses and sank the British battleship HMS Royal Oak, with the loss of 833 lives.
I was born prematurely in a hospital in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. I believe my mother had crossed the border into Northern Ireland just before I was born so that I would be a British citizen. In addition, I was named James Charles Ernest Bryson Pakenham Wallwork, James for my father and the other names for the doctors involved in delivering me. Apparently, I was lucky to survive especially at that time. My father told me that soon after my birth he managed to get leave. He hitched a ride on a ship from the Orkney’s to Belfast and then by train to see my mother and his new baby on my grandparent’s farm. My mother and I stayed on the farm until the end of the war in 1945.
It was a 30-acre farm in an area known as Tonaloy (Doogary) just outside the small village (less than 500 people) of Killeshandra, in the hilly, southern section of County Cavan, Eire. The farm supported 10 dairy cows, a few pigs, some chickens, ducks and sometimes turkeys and geese. The Magees also raised some crops such as potatoes, wheat, and hay.
The farm cottage was a pretty little stucco dwelling with a small entryway that led to a big kitchen and a back parlor, used mainly for Sunday visitors; and three bedrooms upstairs. The stucco was whitewashed with everlasting sweet pea plants climbing up the walls. In front of the house there was a large garden with a big apple tree, many different flowers, and fruit and vegetables growing. My grandmother was quite a gardener. The garden was fenced with a metal gate. Late in the year when most of the apples had been picked the family would drive a couple of the pigs into the garden to clean up the fallen apples.
The kitchen was the most used room in the home, with a big open-hearth fireplace that was heated with turf. This fire served as the only heat source in the house. There were a couple of benches on either side of the fireplace. On cold nights these seats were the most popular spots in the house. A large Welsh dresser stood against the back wall and was loaded down with dishes, plates, cups and saucers, etc. There was a wooden table and chairs where the Magees had all their meals. There was no electricity or gas. Lighting was by paraffin lamps. The family used to go to bed early and get up at the crack of dawn to start the milking and other chores. Cooking was done over the turf fire using a caldron that served as an oven that swung over the fire. My grandmother used to make wonderful meals over the fire. She baked large loaves of Irish soda bread that was delicious when served with their own creamery butter and slathered with homemade strawberry jam all washed down with large cups of buttermilk or strong Irish tea. Breakfast usually included thick rashers of their bacon, fried, with their own fresh eggs. The bacon had a great taste even if a little salty because of their method preservation it was stored in dried salt in barrels. Baked chicken was a frequent meal on the farm. My grandmother would dispatch the bird using a chopping block and axe. Boiled or baked potatoes were also served frequently, fresh from their large garden.
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My grandparents did not have a car or tractor so the farm work was carried out either by manual labor or with real horse power. My grandparents had one horse that I can remember, a big brown workhorse named Dan. He was used to pull the plough to break the soil for planting, to pull the big hay rake and the cart for moving the hay during haymaking in the autumn plus numerous other tasks around the farm. Dan was also the primary transportation for the family as well. If anyone needed to go to nearby towns such as Killashandra, Belturbet, Ballyconnel or a larger place like Cavan for business or pleasure they would hitch Dan to a trap, which was a light-weight two-wheel cart, the classic “pony and trap” which could carry about three-four people. I can well remember my grandfather driving Dan and the trap with a couple of us, going to Killashandra for market day. If one needed to transport more weight they would use a horse and cart which was a heavy-duty four-wheel vehicle. Dan would again be used for horse-power. Dan really did earn his keep. The other main form of transportation was bicycle. There were several sturdy Raleighs on the farm that folks used to get around.
There was no running water. The toilet facilities were rather primitive, chamber pots in the house and outdoor affair behind the barn, a long way from the house. Water had to be carried in buckets from a well that was a good 500 yards from the house and not on the property. To reach the well one walked down the long driveway, through the big iron gates, turning left, down the road a ways, over the bridge and river, and partway up a little hill. This was quite a trek especially going back, carrying two full buckets of spring water. I can also remember a big rain barrel at the front of the house under a downspout that was used to collect rainwater. Water conservation was a necessity in this particular household – they were ahead of their time! I can’t remember too much about bath times but I am sure they were not quite as frequent as in present day USA. I vaguely remember taking a bath in a big copper bath in front of the fire.
There was a little pond with ducks to the right of the house. Behind the farmhouse there was a little pasture field. To the left of the house there was a large turf shed with a chopping block for cutting kindling wood. Next to this was a cluster of other buildings including a chicken coop, a grain storage area, a building for raising pigs. In front of these buildings there was a large lawn area with a massive apple tree in the centre. To the right of these buildings there was a gate leading to the cow’s pasture and a byre building for milking the cows. Also next to the byre was a smaller building for horses. Over to the right of the gate there was a hayshed in a little field.
Behind the cattle and horse buildings the Magee’s property included several large fields on gentle rolling land. This area was mainly used as cow pasture. The cows would need to be milked twice a day, early morning and mid-afternoon. As a young kid I can remember going up into the pasture many times to help drive the cows to the byre for their afternoon milking. One time I can remember going to the upper pasture with my Aunt Lorraine who would have been a girl in her late teens with the farm’s collie dog, dog to herd the cows and on of them turned to charge. My aunt had the presence of mind to quickly put me out of danger up in thick hedgerow in between fields before she and the dog persuaded the irate cow to get on its way to milking.
The farmhouse, garden and big lawn area were bordered by a thick hedgerow and then the narrow little blacktop road. Occasional motor or horse drawn vehicles passed the farm on this road. About 200 yards down this road from the farm gate there was a bridge to the right over a beautiful little river in which speckled trout could be seen. The family used to tell stories of my uncle Charlie, as a young boy, caught good size trout in this little brook using a bucket. This reminds me of a poem by John Montague, an Irish writer, entitled “The Trout.”
Flat on the bank I parted
Rushes to ease my hands
In the water without a ripple
And tilt them slowly downstream
To where he lay, tendril light,
In his fluid sensual dream.
Bodiless lord of creation
I hung briefly above him
Savouring my own presence
Senses expanding in the slow
Motion, the photographic calm
That grows before action.
As the curve of my hands
Swung under his body
He surged, with visible pleasure.
I was so preternaturally close
I could count every stipple
But still cast no shadow, until
The two palms crossed in cage
Under the lightly pulsing gills.
Then (entering my ow enlarged
Shape, which rode on the water)
I gripped. To this day I can
Taste his terror on my hands.
The bridge led to a little hill and about 200 yards up this hill there was a spring-fed well that represented the farm’s only fresh water supply. It was quite a core to have to haul buckets full of water such a distance. The river also bordered two more fields that belonged to my grandparents on this side of the road these were primarily used for crops such as potatoes, wheat, or hay.
The war ended in 1945 and my mother and I returned to England around that time. In the meantime was demobbed from the army and returned to civilian life with a new demob suit like everyone else. One of the first places my family rented was a small flat on Sandy Grove near Manchester. One of my first memories here was of my father throwing me in the air and almost bringing down the overhead ceiling light fixture. Another vivid memory here was going over to a bomb site with my dad, crawling through a hole in a fence and picking up firewood to burn in an open fireplace in our flat to keep warm. At this time in Britain there was still a tremendous amount of obvious destruction from the German bombs. This damage would still be obvious because of the many empty building sites one could see in large cities such as Manchester and Liverpool until well into the 1960s. In addition, there were many underground air raid shelters in various areas for quite some time. I can remember exploring one with a school mate when I was about 9 years old.
We lived in a couple of rented places. The last rented place was a terraced house at 1 Green St. in Radcliffe. By that time my dad was working as the manager for a small cotton mill not far away in Radcliffe. The building on Green St was quite old probably mid to late 19th century. There was a cobbled street in front of the house and there was a grocery store a couple of doors away. We lived there for about 2 years. It is interesting that during this period soon after the end of WW2 rationing was being imposed on most foods in Britain. Ration books were assigned to people and rationing continued for several years. In fact the rationing of sweets in Britain lasted until February, 1953 and sugar rationing only ended in September of that year. Bread, which was not rationed during the war was rationed during the war, was rationed beginning in 1946 and potato rationing began in 1947. This was largely due to the necessity of feeding the population of European areas coming under British control, whose economies had been devastated by the fighting. The final end to all rationing did not come until 1954 with the end of it on meat and bacon. Rationing stopped on 4th July, 1954.
My mother took me to Sunday school at the Bridge Methodist Church in Ratcliffe. I went there for several years even after my family had relocated to Whitefield, which was several miles away. I remember being involved in a Whit walk, a parade through the town, for the church. I held corner of the Whit Princess’s gown. I think that there were four little boys with this task. We were all neatly dressed in white shirts, tie and dark shorts and looked quite cute. Many Christians in the UK observe Whit Monday, also known as Pentacost Monday, on the day after Pentacost, which is known as Whitsunday or Whit Sunday. This period commemorates the Holy Spirit’s
descent on Jesus’s disciples and events that followed which are told in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Whit Monday, 2014 falls on June 9, 2014. Back in the 1940s Whit Monday was a bank holiday in Britain.
We lived in the Green Street rental property for several years. Then in 1948 when I was about seven years old my parents bought a house in the next small town, Whitefield, near the town center. The property, 1 Egerton Road, was also built in the late 19th century. It was a large 3-bedroom brick semi-detached house with a small backyard that was surrounded by a large seven foot brick wall and in between the semi-detached houses there was wooden fence. At the front of the house there was a four foot brick wall. There had been an iron gate to the house when it was built but it had been sacrificed for the war effort. At the opposing end of Egerton Road there was a school for 5 to 7 year-olds. It was at the junction of Higher Lane and Egerton Road. I went to this school for a short time after we moved. There was a large grass playing field that attached to the school. It was surrounded by an iron fence and one of sides faced Egerton Road. The next road to Egerton was Wilton Street and next to that was Sefton Road. All these streets intersected at different points to Higher Lane. At the other end of these streets they intersected at different points with a very busy road known as Bury New Road. This road
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