My sister’s partner had a big birthday and she arranged a mild event for him at the weekend which passed off very well until the moment I realised that I was the oldest person at the lunch table. I mean everyone else was still having a good time but I was, as the young people say, shooketh.
She also brought me more papers from my parents’ house which I have been dutifully sifting through.
Here is my father in 1946 looking very slender in a picture from his time as a college debater in UCC. More women than I would have expected (expectation – none).
I also found this menu from Jammet’s from 1946. I enjoyed the “It is illegal to serve butter with lunch or dinner”.
On the back, it’s signed by a variety of artistic luminaries and some people unknown to Wikipedia (Lady Cornelius McGillicuddy anyone?).
Where did this come from? I am not related to any of the signatories as far as I know (and I feel I would know). Did some relative of mine disturb these people at their dinner? In fairness, that seems very unlikely. It also seems pretty unlikely that any relative of mine would be running with such a lofty, arty crowd. At best, we were much more commerce than art. A mystery, probably not one which will ever be resolved at this point.
I also found my mother’s French copy book from secondary school in the late 40s/early 50s. I have no idea why she kept it, as honestly, it is a record of academic misery. It didn’t seem that bad to me – I mean super handwriting and some difficult topics covered in the text – but the marks were less than stellar. I asked Mr. Waffle to have a look and having seen the teacher’s handwriting he asked whether the teacher was French. I think she was actually, as my mother’s school was run by an order of French nuns and I have vague recollections of her talking of her ongoing struggles with the francophone nuns (some of them were definitely Irish though including the fantastically named Mother Borgia of whom my mother was very fond and who came to visit us a number of times – she taught physics, however, which was where my mother’s strengths lay). Anyway, those nuns, they set high standards and my mother’s French, imperfect though it may have been served us in good stead on holidays in France in the 70s and 80s.
More news from the archives as we get it.
