I had a small group of friends when I was a kid. My best friend, Ollie, lived a five minute walk from my house. My second best friend, Iain, lived further away, but he was as football mad as I was, so we got on. I used to go round both their houses regularly. I’d watch movies at Ollies and we’d ride our BMXs in the woods between our homes. I’d play computer games at Iain’s, and explore the back streets of Pinner. That’s Iain in the photo.
I didn’t really keep in touch with anyone from school once I left. I found Ollie on Facebook a decade or more ago and said hello. He’s doing very well, by the looks of it. Alas, one of his recent-ish Facebook posts tells me that one of our group of friends recently died. As for Iain, I already knew his post-school story. He went in a different direction to Ollie. He attached himself to a very different tribe and he continued roaming the backstreets of Pinner. He wasn’t on Facebook, but a bit of his life story is in an online magazine article. I came across it again this week, when reorganising my browser bookmarks.
A couple of years after that article, in about 1995, I got a job as a postman and found myself walking up Iain’s drive, less than a decade since I had last gone round to visit. I dropped the mail through the letter box and walked away. I never knocked to say hello. It felt a bit weird. Some of the mail was from Iain to his mum. I could tell from the official HMP postage franking. It was a slightly surreal experience. I wonder where he is now. I had a quick look, but he’s still not on Facebook. Never mind.
Here’s the funny thing though. A story should always have a funny thing, right? I can’t quite remember what I had for dinner last night, but I can still remember Ollie’s and Iain’s phone numbers. Even though I haven’t called either number in nearly forty years. I think that counts as a funny thing.
The Mexile 
Not necessarily funny, but very curious
you should remember that. I remember our phone number while I was growing up in Cuba but that’s a no-brainer: 27-26.
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The way our memories work is curious indeed. But 27-26? Yeah….if you forget that then there’s a problem.
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Wow! That news article was an eye opener! Great story by the way.
Most of my friends lived on the street we grew up on. We moved there when I was about ten or eleven so 1964 or 65, I can see you checking out my age now. My brother Séan Dasún was five years younger and a holy terror, these days we would consider him to be a founding member of the autism spectrum, a mad fella altogether who not only thought outside the box but lived there as well! Colm he’d say “you know we live on the left hand side of the street” and I’d say well only if you come down from the shops that way but if you come from the other direction our house would be on the other side. But he never got that and we just left it there, that’s the way he came home from work and he didn’t go the other way ever even after he got his Honda 50.
Most of the boys on our street were of a similar age, Phil in #28 was older than me by a month he had four sisters, Paul was a year younger than us I believe, he was eldest of seven lived in #22, Johnnie was eldest of seven too he lived in #18, Peter was eldest of four he lived in #14 and I was in #4. There was another Peter across the road. My Mum was a teacher and we had a retired teacher and his nurse wife living next door, when they moved out we had new neighbours in the divine form in a pair of stunning young women and their equally lovely mum and a younger brother. But that’s another story.
Generally speaking we lived in each others ears, I don’t remember phoning any of them probably because we had the only phone in the street. Our number was easy to remember as well 98 two thousand! Almost all my friends went to public schools alas I went to private school in Dublin City, never really fitted in there as I was a blow in ie not local . I would have preferred to go with my pals as they went to a technical school with carpentry and mechanics being taught there but my parents wanted me to go to university.. different strokes for different folks.
Apart from all the usual things, such as boxing the fox, playing conkers, kick the can, football tennis, marbles and bangers in season we didn’t really get into any problems. Other than the odd broken window we played football or tennis on the street. There were very few skirmishes with the law, later on we graduated to motorcycling, initially in the form of dilapidated non runners which we bought for ridiculous amounts from five shillings and up. I bought a running moped for £3 for instance, hilarious to think of it now! That was where Paul and I excelled and eventually another pal Edmund and Peter from #5 across the road caught the bug too! We got to the point of buying viable non runners and rebuilding them and making a handsome profit. I made the mistake of quitting my real job to repair stuff full time. It was very lucrative for a while but got lame after a few years. Don’t get me wrong I loved working for myself but..
Fortunately none of my pals joined the criminal fraternity although some did get into the habit of hot wiring cars and joy riding in them and then leaving them at a crossroads with the lights on hazard lights flashing and a honking horn. I believe that it was more about discovering the ability to bypass a lock and key. Luckily the habit got out of their system before they did any permanent damage to themselves, other people or car/bikes.
Of course in the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s most of our mischievous antics were pretty harmless. Although we may have trespassed on private land occasionally we didn’t do damage or set fire to stuff although we did experiment with rocket propulsion ingredients, luckily didn’t lose any fingers in those escapades. Most of my friends married girls who lived locally, I bucked the trend by marrying a girl from Portmarnock on the other side of the Liffey however I didn’t actually marry her until she emigrated to Canada. My mother couldn’t get past that, what was wrong with local girls? There were lots of them too but you know the heart can be fickle, for instance I dated a girl from Australia, a real firebrand, Mer K where are you now? I believe I inherited a wandering star!
My next door neighbours were humdingers but were eight to ten years younger than me, which would have been ok if I had been looking for crumpet in my mid 20’s but jail bait any younger. Ger the fair haired gal married a millionaire bar owner in Noo Yolk but divorced him within a few years too hot to handle I suspect and Jacqui hooked up with a sugar daddy until the wrinkles came and the interest waned. Both girls were absolutely stunning, one blond and the other a brunette.
So there you have it, life in the fast lane and fun in the city Irish style! We really lived through the best times, great music, few tattoos and superb girls from all over.
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Nice stories Colm….you have enough for your own blog!
There’s a bit in that article that isn’t quite the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The chap who called the police in – I actually went to the same school as him before the prep school I met Ian and Ollie. As the story has been told to me, he actually went in the flat, and was shown the dead body between the mattresses by Tommy. He wasn’t sure he was going to get out of the flat alive himself.
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I’m sure that would have been a nerve wracking moment for him! Great story all the same.
I suppose I have enough junk in the grey cells to plunk down on a digital page before it goes missing..
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I married one of my sister’s friends. The two friends had the same first name, my sister changed her first name’s spelling to keep the confusion down with the bureaucracy. I was good friends with my wife’s Dad long before I married his daughter-I was his go to guy when he needed a competent helper in his projects. A relationship that is still ongoing; I put up new security lights for his compound last week. The old ones that I put up three years ago had failed. ( those LEDs are not as good as advertised) I spent last weekend with the men, football games, gluttony and time in the big trees one of my high school friends owns. We are a scattered crew, the far west, the east coast, the deep south, even Europe have all taken a few of our members but we still get on the airplane a few times a year. Work is coming to an end for us all, we’ll have more time for each other soon. I’ve been lucky, I’ve picked up gems over the years, pretty pennies from grade school, the high school lot, my work life yielded some real keepers, collage and then the friends of friends. Full gatherings can run to a hundred people with their spouses and children and their children. It is an interesting lot. And yes, I still remember my first phone number. Our first phone was a crank job-I was too young to fiddle with that thing. (I tried to post on your blog but it was not being kind to my level of internet skill.) So sorry…
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I’ve seen from your photos that you have a very extended family and friend network. Mine circle of friends is definitely more modest. But then, I’m just not a hugely social person.
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