There’s a Hole in my
Bucket, dear Lisa…..
Or so the Sonny and Cher song
used to tell us, but my story is – well
– not exactly a hole in it so much, but more of, let us just say, a
catastrophe……
The year I speak of was about
1947. My Mum’s family, the Gormans came from a little village in the centre of Ireland. They were small farmers – not in stature – merely in the amount of
land they had. They lived in a small cottage that was actually thatched,
whitewashed, no toilet and no running water. I might also mention, no
electricity and no gas. All the cooking was done on a large fire and the fire
area actually had a seat almost inside the chimney breast. It was my favourite spot in the evenings. I loved it.
They kept some pigs and chickens and the main crop cultivated was beet (for sugar refining). The family also
contracted themselves out during harvest time gathering in other larger
farmers’ crops. There were three boys and three girls in the family along with
Granny and Granddad.
Because they had no running water, it was necessary to go to the village
pump some distance away with one of the large stainless steel buckets that were
kept for the purpose. Even empty they
weighed a ton to a small boy of seven or eight.
The fun and games used to start when there was heavy rain and the race
began between Granny Gorman and Mrs. Doyle her next door neighbour. The
Prize – I hear you ask. Well, it was the use of the school drainpipe opposite
to fill the buckets with precious soft rain water, thereby saving several trips
to the water pump.
Just after the war, my two brothers and I would be sent off on the train
and bus to be collected by Granny at the nearby main town, with the donkey and
cart. She loved having us visit and stay
for a week or so.
In that part of Ireland, in high summer, it is still bright almost until
midnight and it was the only time when we could stay up really late. They would
take us to an abandoned orchard where we gathered gooseberries and as many
apples as we could carry. I won’t mention the rabbits, as they were part of the
staple diet of all country people in those days.
So….. On one of my dad’s return home trips on leave from the RAF in England, he brought with him a new invention.
He probably nicked them from the RAF stores knowing him. ‘They’ were two plastic buckets which quite honestly we had never
seen anything like them before in our lives. We were to take them with us on
our next visit to Granny Gorman. We
were very happy to do so as they weighed less than one tenth of the stainless
steel buckets.
Not long after they arrived, away we went on the train, the bus, the
donkey and cart and arrived at Grannies. We presented her with the buckets and
other small presents from home.
Now if you think that we were
surprised when we saw the buckets in the first place, you should have seen her face. She looked at the buckets from
all angles; raised them above her head; pushed the sides in to see them spring
out again. Whilst doing all this she never spoke. Eventually she exclaimed ‘Mother of God, will you look at
that. Sure what will them Yanks invent next’. To her it was some sort of magic…………….
Much to our surprise, she insisted on going with us to the water pump to show
off her new presents to her neighbours. She must have filled both buckets at
least six times and emptied them again. I
can still see the look of pure pleasure and joy on her face.
All went well for a couple of days until – and we never had any idea that
this was part of Grannies ritual she half-filled one of the new buckets. You
see, normally on Thursdays she used
to boil up her underwear and small items in one of the steel buckets. So, in
went the water, in went the soap and in went the clothing. Onto the hook over
the roaring fire went the bucket. Not the
stainless steel one a plastic one.
Within minutes, a loud hissing sound and steam everywhere caught our
attention. We ran to the fire and saw the bucket melting, the water escape onto
the fire and Grannies drawers and such now congealed with melted plastic. ‘Mother of God’ she cried ‘the blinking
bucket is melting. That’s impossible…………’.
She stood there transfixed and utterly amazed.
You know something? I now reckon that
was Grannie’s introduction to modern inventions. God only knows what she would
have made of the latest mobile phones, computers and such.
----------------Mike---------------
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