Memories #3

Gransha Parade

I've been meaning for some time to make a Blipfoto journal entry in the style of Zahrashahs Memories series where she discusses her childhood and her fond memories of her upbringing in Pakistan. It is great stuff, so please click on her name above to check out her story.

This is where I lived from 15 May 1969 until 29 June 1978. Its the first in an occasional series but is numbered #3 as it's the third house I lived in. There are therefore 7 in the series. Six more to go!

The house does not look much like it did back then as the metal fence, the car garage and both the overhanging porch and the white plastic edging have been added since then, as have double glazing window frames!

The years I spent here were from age 7 until I was 16 and therefore contribute most to my childhood memories. I remember very well the long summer evenings playing rounders in the street, using a hurling stick and a tennis ball. There seemed to be a lot of children living in Gransha Parade at that time who were of a similar age. The McConnells, the Kellys, the Murphys, the Caffollas, the Tomans, the Morelands, the Marrons, the Laverys, the Nolans, and in Gransha Avenue, the Boyles, the McKeevers, the Connollys, the McGrattans and many more. In recent years, I have met up with some of these folk who I haven't seen in many years, including my first girlfriend, Patricia Kelly (holding hands aged 9 or 10!) and local TV celebrity, Nuala McKeever. One of the Marron sisters, Marita, went on to win The 1979 Rose of Tralee competition, and my brother tells me he regularly also sees many of the folk from back then.

Some of the memories I have of that time are obviously related to the civil strife we experienced in Northern Ireland known as The Troubles. It was common for me to be sitting doing my homework in the front room and hearing machine guns firing at the Fort Monagh British Army base a few hundred yards away, and then hear the different sound of the soldiers' SLR rifles firing back. At one stage, I had a great collection of twenty or so used bullet cartridges that were very highly sought after in school. We used to swap them, like kids our age in England might have swapped football cards. On some mornings, you could pick them up like confetti in the streets on my way to school. I clearly remember the morning of 31 July 1972 when Operation Motorman took place and seeing the dozens of soldiers and vehicles driving into our street. I also remember well the "praying for peace" gatherings on street corners in Gransha where people met each night to say the Rosary. I was mainly there for the girls!

We moved out of Gransha on 29 June 1978. I remember the date clearly as I attended a party that evening and met the girl that was to be my first "official" girlfriend for the next two years. I was clever enough to let her wear my dad's watch and "forget" to get it off her, so that I'd need to see her again to retrieve it. No flies on the 16 year old me!