“Members of the Holy Trinity Badminton Club, Portrush, pictured with trophies won in a very successful season.”
The Kelly Hall was used too for bowling and the Church Lads Brigade and other activities under the auspices of Holy Trinity church, Of the Holy Trinity Badminton Club, Cyril Davison started it up in about 1970, and I started playing there when I was still primary school age. It met first in Dunluce St hall – I guess that site became the Gold Rush arcade. The club was amazingly popular, so much so that Cyril had to arrange us in pairs, lined up either side of the hall, hitting the shuttlecock across to each other – as he said, it was the only way to ensure that everyone got a chance to play and practice.
The club then moved to the Kelly Hall when it was refurbished. The club developed really well and there were a few of the teams at various levels in local leagues, with awards like in the photograph above.
League match nights, and regular club nights – and some mucking about nights. One evening we were warming up before a game, knocking the shuttle around. One comes over and I swish at it. Unfortunately my partner Kathleen Diamond reaches to catch it, to start serving to start the match. But both her hand and my badminton racquet suffered in the collision. But at least me delivering the ‘Tele meant that I had pocket money to buy the replacement.
Jonny Dobbin & Cyril Davison, 1991; Cyril & Margaret Davison, 30 June 2022
Cyril & Margaret Davison were really marvellous, set up badminton at Portrush when I was a kid, working to get the Kelly Hall refurbished and courts marked up to play there, and got the badminton club up and running and doing rather well in the area leagues. Jonny Dobbin says about the 1991 photo, “That was the year that I won the most improved player in the Ballymoney and District league. Cyril coached me – and he was the reason that me and others from the club achieved local, district and country honours.”
I look for photographs of the badminton club but do you remember the 1970s, the days before mobile phones and not a million photographs of everything? I had only found the one photograph of the club, and then Clive Shorter produced a few more, of 1977. But David Downs says, “If only we had camera phones back then, knock knees Martin wouldn’t want any images around a badminton court even if he was OK at it.”
That photo, below right, of me practicing in our house, about 1974. My knock knees pose must have been good enough to earn those little medals and prizes, encouragement for improvement over the year.
My regular playing group was that under-16 team shown on the left (and all the lads were golfing buddies too – though I have no idea why Andy H has a shuttlecock on his nose). It was great tragedies that Sandra C and Janette K, school classmates, were taken away too early from us.
George Shorter remembers Cyril’s great humour. “I always remember Cyril walking into the Kelly Hall and asking ‘Can anyone ride a bike?’ If you replied Yes enthusiastically, he replied, ‘Well come and help me get this stuff out of the car.’
League matches meant traipsing around to badminton clubs at back-of-the-end-of-the-earth places – Hoescht social club, the Strand club in Portstewart, Aghadowey, …. One hall out in the country somewhere, so narrow there was just room for the badminton court, with about 1mm separation to the wall. Cyril and Margaret willingly going with the teams when required.
About 1977, and into the dizzy heights of the Minor C league, and photos include Tom Hentry, George Harkness, Tommy Peters, Eva O’Neill, Sandra and Heather Crawford, Thelma, and Cyril & Margaret, Sammy & Sadie and ‘the splendid array of trophies’ (all badminton newspaper cuttings courtesy Clive Shorter. But oh dear I can’t remember all the names, let me know of any blanks !!
An annual feature of the club was the 24 hour badminton marathon, for fund-raising. They were great fun, and especially the lovely cooked breakfast on the Saturday morning. We really appreciated the effort everyone put in to support the activities. Badminton marathon, early hours of the Saturday morning, I always remember, Mr Sam McGuinness come along, just sitting quietly watching, but just such as encouragement that he took the time to come out and support the event.
A story from me? It is Easter holidays from school. One afternoon, me and Kyle and George and Mark McC get the Kelly Hall door key to go in to play for a few hours. Oh, nuisance! the bowling mats are spread out. We push them over to one side and set up the badminton net so that we can play.
Later, the caretaker tells us: she had spent hours doing the laying out the mats and vacuuming them, to perfecto bowling green flatness for the match that evening. And we had just pushed them over to one side against the wall, and then pulled them back after our games. She had to do the preparation all over again. And we got the rollicking.
Ken Mcallister: “We used to watch the caretaker lock up after setting up the net for the evening, and Denny Mcaleese and I watched him putting the key under the mat. Two hours playing badminton – pure luxury.”
About 1977: Sammy & Sadie Kane, Clive Shorter, Cyril & Margaret, Tommy Peters, Thelma, Elaine Adjey, and oh dear but I can’t remember all the names – well it is 45 years ago !!
As well as at the Kelly Hall, Cyril also did badminton coaching at the primary school, including to Jonny Dobbin in the mid-80s. The badminton strip and the football strip are surprisingly similar! (“Those horrible sports strips for all sports. Absolute nipple wreckers!” , says Jonny.)
Photos, 1986. Sports strip, similar between badminton and football teams? Cyril also taught badminton at the primary school, teaching Jonny in the mid-80s. Badminton. Starting back row left. Jonny Dobbin, Miss Steele, Richard Hassan. Front row from left. Shane McDonald, Richard Kettyle, Peter Smyth, Stephen Mckenzie Football. Starting back row left. Richard Hassan, Jonny Dobbin, Edwin Burgess, Rowland Robinson, Nigel Smyth, Miss Boyd. Front row from left. Peter Elliott, Shane McDonald, Peter Smyth, Jason Quigley, Richard (Archie) Kettyle, Stephen Mckenzie, James Allen
Cyril was heading towards retirement in the late 1990s, with some months back and forth to Spain, continuing to coach badminton to kids in Spain. Jonny Dobbin, back in Portrush after uni, stepped up to take the club forward in the late 1990s.
Raymond Mcneill: “Well done Cyril & Margaret! An account of badminton days gone by. When the Saturday night at the was brilliant, ending with fish & chips and Match of the Day! it!!” David: yup, agreed! Battered sausage and chips at the Dolphin, on the way home!
On the left: winners of the Ballymena & District League & Cup, 1999: Clive Shorter, Jonny Dobbin, Cyril Davison, Steven Hastings; front: Sharon Kennedy, Margaret Davison, Margaret Weir Right, back row: ladies Sharon Kennedy, Margaret Davison, Margaret, Pamela Smyth Front row: William Snelling, Stephen Hastings, Clive Shorter, Jonny Dobbin, Tommy McCarroll
Left: the junior members who represented Ballymoney and District at the Jack Wilson Trophy (all Ulster under-17 years old badminton districts) – Andrew Harte, Johnny Dobbin, Anne Hopkins, William Snelling, Aslan Bucukoglu Anne Hopkins. “Yes me in centre. I was only around 13 at the time and don’t remember much about it but I remember going to Donegal and playing badminton in the tournament.” Right: the Junior badminton club in 1991. Back row left to right: Alan Stewart, Steven McMinn, Jonny Dobbin, Cyril Davison, William Snelling, Chris Graham, Richard Weir. Front row: Rosemary Payne, Katherine Snelling, Claire Mclain, Anne Hopkins, Andrea Weir
Jonny records, “Cyril & Margaret were so awesome, they coached at the badminton club from about 1970, and they taught me at primary school sports as well, in the mid 80s. So appreciative of Cyril’s coaching, and that Cyril was the reason that me and others from the club achieved local, district and country honours.”
Aslan Bucukoglu: “Thanks for this article. I play 3 times a week during the season in Edinburgh and I remember Cyril every time I step on the court.”
Karen McQuilkin: “I have so many wonderful memories of playing badminton at Trinity Hall. Cyril was the heartbeat of the club, and I am very grateful to have been coached by him. “
Geoffrey McKillop: “Cyril was a real gentleman, a unique character, someone I knew very well back in the late 70s early 80’s … A great badminton player in these times, very involved in Holy Trinity in Portrush at that time along with Margaret his lovely wife. Both of them were very giving of their time & gave so much back to their community..… “
When I played in the 1970s, badminton club nights were Wednesdays and Saturdays. The Church Lads Brigade, CLB, with folks like buddy Kyle Miller, met in the hall as well, on Fridays. And George Shorter in Hamilton Place says he was in those two organisations and also in the Bowling club – he was in the Kelly Hall every evening of the week. At least as important as badminton skills, I’m sure that tact and diplomacy are important parts of any town or church activity, like with the Kelly Hall where so many different groups and users were vying for the hall. But I think Cyril and Margaret, and Sammy and Sadie Kane, were really great at just ensuring everything went smoothly. I think it was Sammy that pulled together a few bowling evenings, where the badminton folks would play the bowling club. As you would expect the bowling club won, but at least my rink managed one draw, our best result. I remember at that evening that Sammy spoke about the value of church togetherness and of the younger and older folks being together. Sammy was also a leader in the CLBs as well and the lads appreciated his leadership, with courtesy and respect.
And the example of contribution to the community too: sometimes with Cyril’s coaching would be interrupted as he heard the fire station siren and dashed off to serve the community. And the club played variously in Coleraine and Ballymoney and Ballymena district leagues. Jonny says of lots of late nights through the week and lots of inter-district events at the weekends, and really appreciated that senior members gave up a lot of their time to ship the younger players around the church halls of Ulster and then up to Belfast for the ‘majors’ games.
Steve McMinn: “Great article David. I played for Cyril and Holy Trinity for years and extremely honored to have been mentioned in the article. Since then I have played badminton all round the world. I recently moved home, where I still play and set up the local kids club at UUC, now called ‘Smashers’. I’m pleased to know that Cyril had recently found out that I was coaching the kids club and I was hoping to re-connect. I hope that gave him great satisfaction, as it would not have been possible without him. Thank you for sharing his story as I talk about him all the time, and I am glad he gets that recognition for all his work. With thanks, Steve.”
So, years of playing and coaching badminton at the Kelly Hall in Portrush and of supporting the Coleraine and Ballymoney and other leagues and clubs in the area, and their work and service in the community. So much respect for Cyril and Margaret Davison, for the parts they played in training up youngsters in badminton skills with others following on in coaching in various places based on their example, and all with the life lessons from their example too. ——— Newspaper cuttings & photos, courtesy Clive Shorter, Jonny Dobbin, Andy Herron, David Martin
15th September 2023: now, milestone of 100,000 views, 115 episodes, 62,000 viewers in 95 countries – thank you, and thank you for your contributions to this enjoyable social history story of Portrush people !
Portrush Tales – me & my family’s & your stories ; the history of the town and the peninsula, going back to the year dot – Vikings, Normans, Strongbow, Dunluce castle and the two Portrush castles, the O’Cahans, the McQuillans, the MacDonnells ; the ‘Great Institutions’ like the lifeboat, Barry’s, CSSM, the Northern Counties, the Metropole, the Girona, … ; the music scene, from ballrooms to the Kiln-an-oge to the Arcadia ; growing up, & school days at Portrush and Dunluce ; golf, badminton, tennis ; cinemas and Portrush Panto ; Jimmy Molloy and the Harbour Bar; ……. Enjoy!
Readership – almost 100 countries with Portrush connections / interest !
‘Portrush Tales‘ read mostly in UK of course, but almost 99 other countries– United States, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Germany, New Zealand, Spain, France, Netherlands, Italy, South Africa, Sweden, Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Greece, Jersey, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Poland, Singapore, Switzerland, Cyprus, Qatar, Norway, Guernsey, Tunisia, Isle of Man, Hong Kong SAR China, Kuwait, Finland, Thailand, Malaysia,Bulgaria, India, Philippines, Czechia, Slovenia, Indonesia, Ecuador, Cambodia, Vietnam, South Korea, Luxembourg, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Japan, Zambia, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Sri Lanka, Romania, Uganda, Dominican Republic, American Samoa, Taiwan, Gibraltar, Somalia, European Union, Brazil, Moldova, Côte d’Ivoire, Colombia, Croatia, Argentina, St. Lucia, Hungary, Maldives, Kenya, Malta, French Polynesia, Ukraine, Algeria, Cayman Islands, Bahrain, Mauritius, Fiji, Angola, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Seychelles, Panama, Israel, Cook Islands, Serbia, Albania, Andorra, Lithuania, Saint Maarten, Iceland, ……
Barry’s – Portrush, Easter – My Day in Barry’s “It is the cacophony of noise and the flashing of neon lights and the smells of sickly popcorn and of grease that hits you when you walk in the front door of Barry’s. And the electric sparking of the Speedway. And the excitement. It is Easter Saturday, the opening day of the season…” Barry’s and the Wall of Death Barry’s and the Helter Skelter
Caroline D: ‘I remember Judd and Lucy Stephenson came to Carnalridge schol. Their mum brought in lion cubs one day in a huge cardboard box. We were allowed to look at them but not touch – just as well, as even though they were small, they had massive paws with very sharp, scratchy claws!
‘What a day that was! I remember thinking how lucky Judd and Lucy were!’
The Opening day of the Causeway Coast Safari Park was Friday May 17th 1970. Elephants were the main attraction at first, then, a couple of months later, having completed their quarantine period the pride of 22 African lions were released into their parkland on Friday 28th August, and they took their pride of place at the safari park. I wrote about those early days in the first blog, Benvarden: into the Lion’s den… worth reading if you haven’t seen it already.
From Daniel Tietze’s archive of leaflets, Benvarden featured strongly in the attractions for the north coast – it was a great success, a great crowd-puller. Kyra W writes, ‘The safari park was so popular! Every Easter Monday and Tuesday, so many visitors, the cars were grid-locked all down the Portrush line!’
And Kyra continues, ‘I worked as a zoo keeper there for ten years. Great times, and so many great stories from there! Like, one of the times that Peter the chimp escaped, he used a green plastic tray as a trampette. He sprinted from the opposite side of his enclosure onto the tray and bounced up the wall lol. He got over the fence, and then chased a young fella Mark from Coleraine across the car park. My granny Mcmullan was sitting in the kiosk said his feet never touched the ground as he was running so fast! ‘No-one was injured, and Peter was quickly darted and off to sleep he went.’
And an advert of 1972, ‘THERE IS MORE AT THE LION PARK THAN JUST LIONS’ – with a little train ride, amusements, picnic areas, cafe, like in the photos from Stuart W above, and Sean S remembers, ‘And a bounce inside “Lunar Land”! .’
Patricia G: ‘I was staying at Benvarden that summer and woke to the sound of lions roaring every morning – that was a bit bizarre, in the middle of Dervock!’
And Nan P says, ‘I remember it well! One time we were there, a lion climbed on the bonnet of our car, the ranger had to get it away – scary!’
Allison C: ‘A good read again! We used to go to lion park with Sunday school trip or with aunt for a day out I loved the train and seeing all the animals it was very exciting for us ‘I remember one trip, an ostrich put its head in through the small opening in the car window: I thought my mum was going to faint lol ‘
Between the Stephensons and Mr. Boyd, the vet, Benvarden proved to be an important breeding ground for endangered animals. The first birth, of five African lion cubs, came in 1972 – the first of many cubs from Henry the lusty lion. Henry had come to Benvarden to retire after his circus career, but who bred like a rabbit.
And the safari park developed beyond elephants and lions: other animals came in two by two hurrah hurrah: baboons in 1972, though they had the tendency to rip off your windscreen wipers in the search for peanuts. Sheila K remembers going to Benvarden ‘on a couple of bus tours – as my dad would never have taken his good car through where it might have got damaged by a curious baboon !’
A puma, though it made the headlines in 1973 by escaping.
And in 1978, Bengal tigers are introduced, although at first they were cagey and cowered up close to the fence, being unused to such open space!
And in 1981, the park made history with the first baby llama to be bred in captivity in Ireland.
Benvarden was a great wildlife reserve, and timely in an era of consciousness of the worldwide loss of natural habitats. The park was world-class, but it opened to the background of the troubles and the world didn’t come to N. Ireland any more. Bombs and troubles and protests, and people avoiding crowds and nervousness of the chance of an explosion at the park that would release all the animals into the Antrim countryide. Power cuts in 1972 did result in the monkey cages opening, as in the newspaper article above. But other news that same day were of the troubles – bombs, IRA, burnt out factories, a russian submarine surfacing and calling for the end of internment – and the monkeys thought it safer to stay within their cages in Dervock.
Left, Gareth R: ‘Photo of me and my brothers with a lion cub at Benvarden, about 1974’; Right, Stuart Walker: Benvarden 1982
Left, Lisa A: ‘This photo was at the safari park, 1980s – great hair! I look about 9 there, I vaguely remember that we met up with the others that day, and we went on a ride that really didn’t feel very safe! ‘ Centre, Gareth R: ‘Photo of me and my brothers with a lion cub at Benvarden, about 1974’ Right, Stuart W, Benvarden, 1982;
Kyra W: ‘I remember, a big fella full of confidence went in to fix the electric fence of the 17-strong crab-eating Macaque monkeys. Well, we warned him not to look at the monkeys or provoke them – but he went on in and acted inappropriately, strutting his stuff. ‘It wasn’t very long before we heard him screaming, Get me out of here! lol. They had chased him into the moat and pinned him up against the electric fence. ‘He came out very embarrassed and soaked to the skin. ‘That put the big strong man out of him ‘
Kyra I started 1988 aged 17 or 18, just out of Tech.’ Left, photo, 1994; and right, ‘That was me holding the cub, I was 22 lol’
Benvarden was privately-owned by Pat and Louise and they built it up to have 102 animals, of which 52 were lions, many Henry-ettas. But with the collapse of tourists from overseas, in 1982 it is up for sale. The Stephensons were pleased to announce a new responsible buyer, reportedly with big development plans, but I don’t think the ideas of shark pool with dolphins came to anything.
Me, I visited the lion park during the 1970s; I went off to uni in the 1980s. I had scottish buddies come to visit but Benvarden didn’t feature on my places-to-see list. I guess I was never too keen on zoos, even spacious ones like at Benvarden, and like all visitor attractions they needs ongoing big investment to renew and refresh their attractivenes; my feeling was that the park was declining, conditions deteriorating, maybe better suited for kiddies, and I didn’t visit there again.
Lion cubs, photos courtesy Kyra. ‘He was a heavy weight boxer. Can’t remember his name for the life of me lol. Oh found him – Ray Close. He went up against Chris Eubanks.’
It was up for sale again in 1986. The number of animals had been reduced to 34, but financial difficulties and surviving reportedly only with donations of food from Crazy Prices supermarket. There are tax payment troubles and bankruptcy.
A decline, those last days at Benvarden. Visitors amused themselves by throwing in packets of cigarettes or sweets into the monkey enclosure, and Peter the chimp’s party tricks were to open the packet and chain-smoke the cigarettes, and to unwrap and eat the sweets.
Caroline D says above that when the Stephensons brought the lion cubs to school, they were warned of sharp claws and not to touch; the camel that broke the lion’s back for Benvarden was the girl inside the tiger’s cage, taking selfies. It was too much for the USPCA and in 1997 they intervened to take over the site, converting it to a cats shelter.
The smoking chimp Pete and his companion Freddie had just been re-housed to a Welsh zoo. Re-housing the other animals was challenging but a success was one of the pride of lions, 19 of them, moved to a zoo at sunny Marbella, by the end of that year, 1997.
Photos courtesy Kyra. Chimps, with Peter celebrating his 25th birthday. ‘Yes, Peter the smoking chimp, and Freddie the ejit, oh he always tried to copy Peter.’
Mixed years, under USPCA stewardship. There were lurid tabloid stories of animal husbandry, of headless corpses being found: putting elderly animals to sleep may or may not have been appropriate but sentiment had turned against the park, and 2006 seems like the complete end of the nature reserve. ==============
Looking back over the years, I am dead impressed that the Stephensons really seem to have a tremendous animal husbandry program, with Benvarden established as a world-class breeding reserve for African lions, and under the supervision of curator-vet James Boyd. The 1970s seem to me to be its heydey, with not so good years at the end.
Kyra thinks over her ten years there too, from 1986 with the Duncans from Kells and through to the first year with the USPCA, and thinks about the end of each day:
‘Closing time was at 6pm, and the crowds left and the gates were closed. The animals enjoyed the quiet at the end of the day, as their keeper-friends came into their runs for supper time feed and clean up.
‘Dusk, and the lights were dimmed, and the animals settled down into their houses or favourite sleeping places.
‘Me, I worked there for ten years. It was exciting, exhilirating, moving, precious, such fun being there. It was the best job that I ever had.’
============================== Other info – With thanks to Roger McCallum, for Benvarden brochures of 1970 and letter from the family attic, and Daniel Tietze with his wonderful archive of Portrush photos and leaflets from his years here. Overview of latter years of Benvarden – !!warning – not so nice!! Other Facebook site, Remembering the Causeway Safari Park
About 1974. My eldest brother spends his weekends sanding and tackling rust holes and painting his first car, a purple-y Ford Anglia estate, out on the back lane. It is a grey, miserable, damp Sunday afternoon. ‘Who wants to go to the Lion Park?’ he says. ‘Rain? It is only a sun-shower!’, he says. ‘Let’s go!’ Where’s the sun? I said.
So, outing to Benvarden, with 3 or 4 of us in the back of the estate. Sunshine, after the shower? No, it was grey and rainy all afternoon.
The damp weather affecting the car electrics. A lasting memory of that trip? Car, broken down in the lion enclosure, with the monkeys leaping on the car bonnet pulling the windscreen wipers off in their search for peanuts, and of lions sitting quietly, watchfully, looking at us, drooling, licking their lips hungrily, waiting to pounce if you thought to get out or even to open the car window to shout for assistance….
Stepping back…… 18th November 1969. It is coming soon! The Belfast Telegraph announces that the Stephensons / Trufellis are setting up a 50-acre reserve at Benvarden. Those great circus families, top animal trainers, and their sister Lucy will join after her tour with the Barnum circus.
Excitement is building, looking forward to the new lion park…..
Sheila Kane writes, “My first inkling of what was going to be set up was one summer’s day when I was out for a run with my grandparents. We were having a picnic, sitting against the estate wall along Benvarden Rd. and my grandfather said, ‘This time next year there will be lions right behind us.’ Well! you can imagine how my imagination went wild after that! Thinking about safaris and jungle adventures that I loved reading about in my dad’s old Boys’ Own annuals … oh the adventures I was going to have at this Safari Park! “
23rd February 1970, and Sgt. Fulton writes a birthday thank you letter to his grandchildren, written on ‘Wild Game Reserve’ -headed notepaper – Sgt. Fulton was good friends with the Stephensons and the Trufellis – and he says, ‘I am sending you a brochure of the wild life [Benvarden park] which will be open at Easter ….. you will be able to see it, if you are all good runners when the lions get going.’
His grandson Roger finds that letter in the attic while searching for memorabilia of him, and laughs that The Sergeant signs off as ‘Man’ – Roger’s name for him, his first words as a toddler, pet name used here even in Roger’s teenage years.
April 1970 and the Belfast Telegraph announces that an Indian elephant has packed his trunk and arrives at Portrush’s Causeway Coast Safari park, in time for the Opening day, Friday May 17th 1970
The elephants were the main attraction at first as the pride of lions are still in quarantine. Karen Monteith writes, ‘I remember going there with my dad. He had sweets in his pocket and the elephant snuffled his big long trunk in and stole all the sweets! ‘
Other features and adventures developed in the play park alongside the animals. Daniel Tietze’s memorabilia of the early 1970s includes photos of his family trips, including being on the little train at Benvarden.
Sheila K, “The wee train was great fun … and the African hut style shops… I remember one selling plants and another ‘African’ souvenirs. Most of all, I remember the smell… the earthy, animal (probably dung??) smell on warm sunny day trips there.”
And then, a few months later, the lions big release day. On Friday 28th August 1970, 11am, the 22 African lions, ranging from yearlings to fully-maned seven-year olds, were released to roam on the range, and take their pride of place at the safari park.
Daniel’s carefuly archived Portrush folders are a treasure trove of tourist leaflets and information of the sizzling 1970s. It shows the big tourism push by the council and Tourist Board, with the lion park featuring strongly, up there alongside Royal Portrush golf course – Benvarden was a great crowd-puller.
Me at Dunluce School, Mr Binnie English class in Form 3, about 1976. Every year he took that group to the film studio at the university for an afternoon, I guess it was for practice of team work, script-writing and things. My celebrity moment was as guest interviewee, talking about animal security at Benvarden – I guess I had just visited there, but otherwise I have no idea why thattopic. My breakthrough to fame and stardom? Well, almost fifty years later – I still shrivel up in my chair thinking of it, it was so unforgettable, embarassing.
Barbara S remembers, “My dad was the vet at the Safari park in the 70’s. We were living in a caravan at the park while our new house was being built. Barry’s helter skelter was wintering at the park beside our caravan. During a storm one night, the helter skelter blew down on top of the caravan! We got a shock, but no injuries.”
George Lavery; “Ah yes I knew Barbara then as Boyd. She was a gorgeous looking young woman, as I remember! She may remember me with this story:
“It was my first day reporting to Benvarden Lion Park: I worked in Barry’s Amusements and they loaned me out as the Lion Park needed more staff. On arrival Mr Boyd informed me that before gates open to the public, all litter in the car park to be lifted and binned! Easy enough job I thought; what they didn’t tell me was that before the doors opened to the public, the ostriches are allowed to roam around the car park freely.
“Now I’m standing picking up litter in the middle of a large area when out of the corner of my eye I noticed this rather large bird making it’s way towards me, slowly at first. It looked quite comical, the way it walked, the head nodding back and forward as it seemed to pick up pace. At this point I realized that things in the distance seem small, but were now getting much much bigger and very quickly. Dropping everything and getting a head start on this overgrown turkey I began to run at full pelt. Mr Boyd saw what was happening and jumped on what could only be described as a motorbike for a dwarf, and give chase after the ostrich, with one hand steering and the other with a brush shaft.
“I’m sorry that I don’t have a video of this Benny Hill type frolic but your imagination should suffice!”
I will do the second part of this story next week, do you have memories of Benvarden and photos and stories that you would like to share, that I can include?
George Lavery tells me, “One story right off the top of my head is about the photo, above! Many years after Benvarden closed, when I was much older, I was staying at a B&B just outside Banbridge. One evening there I was sitting in the lounge talking to the owners and the lion park came up in conversation, and that I had worked there. The owner showed me a photo album, with the photo below of his young daughter in the cart – and it is me with the donkey!!
Sheila: “PS …. I’m a little envious of your trip and the excitement of breaking down under the watchful eyes of the lions and the terror of the monkey attack …. What a chance for David the Intrepid Explorer to save the day and lead his tribe to safety. “
============================== Other info – With thanks to Roger McCallum, for Benvarden brochures of 1970 and letter from the family attic, and Daniel Tietze with his wonderful archive of Portrush photos and leaflets from his years here. Overview of latter years of Benvarden – !!warning – not so nice!! Other Facebook site, Remembering the Causeway Safari Park
When you walk around Ramore Head, you may remember the coastguard station, now just with benches to enjoy the superb outlook, and a shelter and a notice board of its history.
Amazing though: a guy sorting through his dad’s photograph album and memories, writes to tell me of his dad serving in the navy, arriving at Portrush in June 1941 and of his team setting up a navy listening station in the coastguard lookout hut, and of being based there until June 1943.
Left, ‘Portrush radio station, the hut shared with coastguard station, where my dad Bill was based’; and, right, for comparison, 35 years later, the site as coastguard station at time of Queen’s silver jubilee, 1977
1941. Wartime. It is the era of the north Atlantic convoys, of vessels to and fro Glasgow and Liverpool and Murmansk, of the Battle of the Atlantic. Jack Murray, green keeper at the Recreation Grounds, would tell my brother of his years in the merchant navy, of ships around him in their convoy being torpodoed and sunk and lives lost.
Mark Williams grew up in the naval city of Plymouth and wrote me: ‘Hi David, very interesting to read your blogs which I stumbled across while trying to chronicle photographs from the wartime scrapbook of my late father, Bill Williams. He was from a Cornish family of fisherman and served in the Royal Navy as a telegraphist. His first posting was to Portrush where he worked at the Ramore Head signal station from 1941 to 1943, and he had many fond memories from that time. His scrapbook contains a number of photos from there, including one of him with a William Gregg, whom I suspect is the same person mentioned in your posts, and another with a group of girls. I will be happy to send them to you.’
Mark’s family photo album, with caption, “My dad Bill, with friend William Gregg”
Kerry G gasps, ‘That’s my Grandpa Willie! He always wore his suit on a Sunday! Him and his brother Robert were both in the cliff rescue and rocket line team’ and the coastguard will have worked closely with the naval group to establish the listening station in the same hut.
Mark writes that his father Bill (William Henry Williams) grew up in Porthleven, that is Britain’s most southerly port, down towards Penzance and Land’s End in Cornwall, and was from a family of fisherman dating back generations. Wartime, Bill worked in the signals area and in early 1941 he was stationed in Belfast. One of his tasks was the first use of a magnetic sweep method to search for mines in the lough, as photo below.
May 1941 was the massive naval activity, the hunt for the German battleship, the Bismarck. A friend Karen Monteith, reviewing this blog, today discovers the story of Catalina seaplanes flying from Castle Archdale and finding the Bismarck’s location, in the museum there.
Vessels were hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic and the navy needed to upgrade its listening capability. In an interview with Bill, recorded in 2010 when he was 91, Bill talks about setting up the radio station at Portrush. The interview is posted on YouTube, at runtime 10.50 to 13.50, and I quote here:
‘The Flag Officer in Belfast was in a bit of a bind, because with the surrounding hills he was in a bad radio pocket, and couldn’t receive messages like from vessels away out in the Atlantic. He wanted a new wireless station set up. A few sites had been suggested and investigated: one was Rathlin Island, and the other was at Portrush, where there was enough space inside a coastguard hut, on a beauty spot, right on the end of a headland – and that proved to be perfect.’
I think the location of Portrush proved to be a perfect fit for Bill too – I see photos of his hometown, Porthleven, in that Youtube recording, and it looks rather like Portrush!
Views of Portleven. Hauling the lugger fishing boats in the harbour, and centre, pilchard fishing boats. And Bill, “Our house on the harbour-side there – winter-times so rough that waves sometimes came right over the roof!”
And Mark writes, ‘Porthleven also had a world renown boat-building yard and I think my father probably spent a great deal of time down at Portrush harbour looking at the boats and the boatyard.’ I imagine that he had a lot of interest in Willie Gregg’s boatyard, and I guess Willie had lots of good information as they established the signals station there.
Left photo: Bill, with Petty Officer Collins, & friend John Jones; Right photo: there were four naval men at the station – Bil taking the photo and here are the other three: John Jones, Phil Sergeant, & another
Me (David speaking), about 6 years old, started primary school. School work, realising my short-sightedness, I guess I was minus-20 minus-20 vision. I had just got my first pair of specs – good ol’ NHS, wire frames, the cheapest and nastiest, before Harry Potter made them cool and trendy and kids wanted to wear them just to be stylish. Walking up the path to Ramore Head, my new specs transformed the fuzzy hazy blur of street lamps into clear sharp images.
I think, so it was with Bill’s work at the station: to convert the fuzzy buzzy radio signals from ships out in the Atlantic into messages. Bill’s voice, ‘There were four of us on the station and we set it up, and did all the technical things that we could think of, to get a good earth for best reception. I remember being lowered down a big cliff, 60 feet high, with a big copper plate, to put it in one of the pools, and then I got hauled up again.’
The photo of Bill with Willie Gregg, good friends. Kerry says, ‘Grandpa Willie and his brother Robert were both in the cliff rescue and rocket line team, which was a part of the volunteer arm of the coastguard. The gear was stored in the coastguard hut at the base of ramore head. They both served over 25 years, and received long service medals.’ I imagine that it was Willie and Robert who, with the coastguard tackle, lowered Bill down to the bottom of the cliffs.
In the photo with the Officer, they look very pleased with the signal station that they had created. Portrush station was part of a network of stations like with Lerwick in Orkney, used together for triangulation and direction-finding. And there was time for leisure too, as Mark reports: ‘His wartime scrap book contains several photos of his time in Portrush, mostly of him with colleagues or visits like to the White Rocks. I attach the two photos I mentioned plus another he took of his friend John Jones rowing a boat in Portrush harbour with a girl in the background. I hope they are of interest!’
With friends and girls, Bill is second from left; right photo, rowing boat in the harbour with friend John Jones & girl (the same girl as nearest in the photo on the left?)
Bill’s voice: ‘There were four of us at the station, and every few months my comrades would get sent back to barracks, because – I didn’t know at the time but I learned that no-one should have been ashore for more than six months. The Signals Officer knew though that I had an acute sense of hearing, and that I could pick up signals even when there was radio intereference, or even the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, that upset normal radio traffic. I was able to pick up messages from ships, even in areas where no-one thought that a little station like Portrush could receive them.’
Left photo: Portrush, with friends John Jones, Phil Sergeant, Bill. Curiously, always in uniform, even in leisure time? (I see public notices in August 1941 banning the photography of naval activity, so Bill’s photos must be during his first month or two in Portrush, June / July 1941.)
Bill’s voice continues, ‘But because I was no longer attached to Plymouth or Chatham or Portsmouth naval sites – I assume that everybody at Lowestoft would not stay ashore for more than a week or two before getting a new ship – but I got lost in the system, I think. I ended up staying at Portrush for two years, June 1941 to June 1943. When they found me, I was sent back to the base at Lowestoft, with the recommendation that I applied for officer training.’
Portrush radio station where Bill, Royal Navy telegraphist, was based
Hugh McGratton: ‘Hi David, John McN told me about the Ramore Head material which sounds extremely interesting. I used to play around there as a seven year old at the end of the war! And I remember those little naval launches which used to come in all the time (photo below, courtesy Raymond McConaghy, photo by Jack). I was shown on board once when I was about five! The sailor who took me by the hand was most impressed because my daddy was a chief petty officer!‘
Mark continues, ‘After leaving Portrush my dad spent the rest of the war on minesweepers, including at one time being on the Queen Mary, with Churchill en route to a wartime conference with Roosevelt as one of the passangers. After he was discharged, my dad joined the Ministry of Fisheries and spent most of his career in Plymouth as Chief Inspector for the South West.’
It is another great connection as my own first job after uni was a dozen years in Plymouth, living near wjhere Mark and his family lived!
left: photo of Bill, which appeared in Fishing News, 1970s, when he was in his 50s; after Bill retired he spent much of his time fishing in Plymouth Sound – photo of him in his boat around 1980, leaving Plymouth harbour for a fishing trip; Bill & Mark Williams, in Plymouth in 2014, one of Mark’s last photos with him, And right, David’s Plymouth years – me at the offical opening of the Plessey silicon chip fabrication site, 1986
Mark continues, ‘He didn’t talk about the war much but I do remember him saying on more than one occasion how much he enjoyed serving in Portrush and how welcoming the residents were. …..Yes, he felt very much at home in Portrush. He mentioned to me more than once that the rugged coastline and cliffs reminded him of Porthleven.’
======== With my thanks to Mark Williams for sharing this story and the family photographs. It is a privilege an an honour to write it up here and to bring it to you, dear Portrush Tales reader.
With all due respects to William (‘Bill’) Henry Williams, MBE 1919-2015 Photos courtesy Mark Williams, photos taken by Bill Williams at Portrush, 1941-1943
“Noday trip to Portrush would be complete without a ride on Rose, Jack, Billy or Benny, the donkeys on the beach owned by Jesse Edgar.”
The ponies and donkeys, on the East or West strand. A timeless, summer at the seaside activity!
The yards at the back of the Edgar’s house, down the terrace on Croc na mac, were their base for breakfast and for saddling up, after their overnight grazing at Parker Avenue field. Then they trooped off down the back lane to the Portrush beaches, with their daughter Fern and a giggle of youngsters earning summer job pocket money.
I remember Fern’s daughter Joanne as just a toddler, helping out as toddlers do. Joanne writes, ‘The beach donkeys and ponies were a big part of my life growing up. It was up early and over to my Granny and Papa’s house at 36 Croc-na-mac to pick up bridles and then over to the donkey field to get our charges. Vicki K remembers them, that ‘Jessie Edgar’s pony field was across from my granny’s in Parker Avenue’ – and then a swift canter with the donkeys and ponies back over the football pitch and in to Mrs McConaghy’s back garden, a few houses along, to give the animals a spruce up while they enjoyed their breakfast nosebags…’
Its a timeless activity! There’s a postcard of donkeys on the beach, 1920s, and there they are again, in glorious multicolour, in the 1980s!
After their breakfast would be the parade of a dozen donkeys and ponies, each with teir leader, out along the back lane, on their way to the beaches. And Sheila K: ‘Oh David, I remember the donkeys and ponies down the back lane and of always having a sugar lump or two to feed them if we knew we were going that way… or pulling up handfuls of grass from the verge if we had no other offerings.
‘And I remember too, two elderly spinster sisters, the Misses Cochrane, who lived in Rodney Street and who swore that Edgars’ animals’ manure was the reason that their roses and their rhubarb did so well. The smaller sister used to gather up any droppings left as the donkeys and ponies went to and from the beach with a short-handled coal shovel, put them in a galvanised bucket and head home as if she had just been panning for gold and had bagged a bucketful of nuggets!’
Out onto the lane and then, Joanne, ‘We split up to either the ‘Big Beach’ or the ‘Wee Beach’ – the East or West strands. I see Council adverts of the 1950s of licence for eight ponies or donkeys on the East strand and four on the West strand.
Joanne continues, ‘If it was the big beach then Shimo, Ken Bolton’s beautiful wee collie, was waiting to spend the day with us. We scaled the gate of the Bolton’s big Strandmore house, overlooking the East strand – it seemed an insurmountable height when I was small – to get buckets of water for them, while someone ran to the grocers to collect the carrot tops that the grocer kept for the donkeys, something they loved.’
‘If it was the wee beach, the West strand, then the tap outside the Teas and Ices cafe was much handier! And there was Maggie and Linda at the deckchairs to say hello to and the craic was good.’
Speaking of deck chairs: I don’t think I have mentioned Mrs. Frizelle anywhere elsewhere in my series, but here she is, one of the stalwarts of Portrush, promoting tourism, dancing lessons, choreographer at pantomime, deckchairs, Blue Pool diving displays, RNLI and British Legion, ….. – she herself was a ‘Great Institution’ of Portrush,
There’s images of the West strand above. Caroline D says, ‘I remember them well and loved them. I was always pea green watching the lucky ones who worked with them. ‘ – to be honest though I find only a few photos, no postcards, of the donkeys or ponies on the wee beach – do let me know, if you have pics of the animals, on either of the beaches!
The animals processed along through the dry arch along the west strand promenade and then down the slope at te Teas n Ices down onto the beach. Katy Diamond writes, ‘I always remembered the West Strand donkeys run by Claire and Ann MacIntyre ‘, and I see pride of place in the August 1974 Belfast Telegraph seaside article below is Claire wth two donkeys – and there too is Ray Mason of Portrush Pottery, and Joy May of May’s Fashions, if you remember those shops.
Allison C: ‘This such a great read and photos! I remember going to the donkey field as a child when visiting my grandparents on Croc na Mac. Was there a donkey called Joey or Bobby at the east strand? Not sure what his name was, anyway he bit my sister’s finger when we were at CSSM one morning. I will never forget me trying to run home with her terrified that it would fall off. OK I was only about 8 and she was about 5 – imagination was my strong point! ‘
Vicki K writes about her family, ‘I definitely think horsey-ness runs in family blood. Claire’s daughter Olivia had a pony and now I also have a horse, and Tracey has 2 donkeys.’ And Joanne’s family too, with a long love for the animals. The photo below – so historic! – just received from Joanne’s family album, image has never been seen before! ‘My grandfather’s riding school – where the Maxol station is now. He ran the riding school, and as well my great-grandfather also did beach donkeys.”
I guess that every kid visiting Portrush got a ride on the donkey, and I guess dozens of youngsters earned a little pocket money helping the Edgar’s with the animals. Brian S: ‘I remember it well. I used to lead one of the donkeys – they would stand on your foot if you were not careful!’ The pay was not a path to riches though. Vicki K: ‘I used to love the stories that my aunt Claire and Ann told about working with the beach ponies, of a horse called Tara, and how little they got paid a shilling, an amount equivalent to like 50p a week!’
Left, photo courtesy Alice R, about 1930: ‘This is Albert Rohdich with his mum on the beach. Albert would have been 95 yesterday!’ and Right, donkey photo courtesy Pauline Rigby (Hunt), though not of Portrush: ‘I love the Portrush story, David! And the photo here is of Dana, her with lots of connections to Portrush, here with impressario Joe Longthorne during one of her summer seasons at Scarborough, before she went to America. And we still have donkeys on the beach in Scarborough, where I live now x’
Sheila K: I remember as a child wanting to work with the donkeys at the beach because you got to ride them there and back … until I realised that in-between, the work involved an awful lot of just standing about holding reins all day ‘. George Davies: ”I used to lead the donkeys up and down to the marker flag all week for half-a-crown. Well, we did this more for the joy of riding the donkeys down to the beach and home again at night! I still remember riding a pony home and going past the gas works when a loud whistle scared the pony and he took off! The guy on a bike managed to stop it before the crossroads, going on to the Ballywillan road!’
Joanne continues, ‘I can’t remember much about our customers because, like all the leaders, all we cared about was our animals. I can remember Rosie, Clancy, Mitzi, Meg and Duchess the donkeys, and Tara, Candy, Goldie, Tanya, Sandy, Jet, Dusty and Rue the ponies. There were others, but those are the ones that stood out for me, and I could tell you about each of them to this day: Tara’s patience, Jet’s cheekiness, about the wonders of my first ever canter on Dusty, about how Rosie loved her ears scratched inside and how she refused to go to the wee beach because it wasn’t ‘her’ beach, about how Sandy was a nightmare to catch …… I could go on and on. To this day, many of the leaders I meet out and about, like the Una in the photo above, say it was the best job they ever had!!’
Mr. and Mrs. Edgar were the same generation as my mum and dad, getting married the same year and living in Croc na mac, ‘Honeymooners Row’. From the Edgar’s family album, the beautiful photo above. Joanne: ‘Oh this is one of my favourite photographs! Papa and Granny on Trixie and Jock, taken in 1948, the year they got married.’
Thirty or forty years later, years of donkeys and ponies, and I guess they were heading towards their retirement in the 1980s, and I guess also animal poo on the beach became considered un-cool and a health risk. I think donkey rides as an attraction at Portrush faded away in the early 1980s. The last newspaper photo of donkeys that I see, below, is of August 1981 (with some familiar names in the article), and Joanne reckons that her Papa had them until mid 1980s. If you have photos & info of the donkeys and ponies, that you’d like to share, please do send, to add to the social record.
So, donkeys on the Portrush beaches – really, a timeless activuity. The postcard, below left, is of donkeys on the East Strand, about 1910s. In the centre is, ‘Sixteen- year old Kathlen Tosh, of Coleraine, photographed in 1959.’ She is sitting very gracefully, but looks quite a lot older than 16 to me.
And right, from Belfast Telegraph, August 1978, ‘A day trip to Portrush would not be complete without a ride on Rose, Jack, Billy or Benny, the donkeys on the East Strand owned by Jesse Edgar. The two assistants are Louise Quinn and Linda Kelly, both from Portrush.’
What shines through to me is the care and affection for the donkeys and ponies. Sheila K reviews this and writes, ‘Oh David, even the ponies and donkeys get elevated to celebrity status via your memoirs and attention-grabbing writings!’ And that each one had their own character and personality – for example, Joanne: ‘The photo below is of Mum and a pony called Cheetah – Mum says that Cheetah insisted on having a snooze every day at lunchtime lol’.
There was the fantastic historic photograph of her family’s riding school, reflecting the several generations in her family, and Joanne finishes,
‘I’m proud to be my grandparents’ granddaughter and to have played a tiny part in the happy memories of so many people. Oh, and while none of the originals are around, there are still two donkeys in the family – I just can’t imagine a life without donks in it!!!’
========================== With thanks to Joanne Gibson for the story and family photographs, Sheila Brown for the postcard images, the contributuions from Vicki K and everyone. Heritage Newsletter, The Beach Donkeys and Ponies Newspaper articles from https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/
The fifth in the series, from the Cornucopia of Postcards from the Exquisite Collection of Sheila Brown, as we continue our walk from the harbour and up over Ramore Head and down Lansdowne towards the Bloe Pool.
<< this is work in progress – i haven’t found anyone new who can tell interesting stories of this area – let me know, if you have some to add in to this blog !! >>
Landsdowne. Lovely terrace, with the Tower House on the corner there. Trish Gray writes: “Tower House! my Dad was born in the room with the glass veranda!!!“
Portandhu little port, in the right photo. Trish: “We got an afternoon off school from Carnalridge when Billy Gregg opened Portandoo! Total delight!” as described in blog, Gregg’s dinghy pool, Portandhu lido.
Rosemarie Severin: “‘Billy Gregg the Boatman’, Dad used to call him..” Trish gray: “Oh, Mr. Gregg to me! otherwise Dad would have chased me!! (Though they were both good friends- boats, harbour, etc!)” Quite (very) formal in those days. I remember my Dad ‘tipping his hat’ to everyone as he walked up Main Street, stopping to chat etc.. Even people I knew very well as a child, were Mr, Mrs or Miss X. Or for very close family friends- Auntie/ Uncle… The narrow line was Mrs C, mother of my BBF, tho we didn’t use that terminology then!!
Loud music on Lansdowne green! Left, an historic photo! I dentified the image as being of Sharples circus, and newspaper archives had them as having a pitch on Lansdowne Green, in the 1920s. The posh residents thought the circus was un-cool though – noisy, busy, and that Lansdowne was the only place in the town that had a genteel promenade – but being spoilt by circus revellers.
And, Radio 1 Roadshow, 1980 & 1981 (photos courtesy Caroline Dorsett) – above right, Kid Jensen with Bruce Penhall, 1980s, and – below, left, Steve Wright, and right, Kid Jensen with Bruce Penhall
Garden for the Northern Counties? Black and white image, and colorised version, hand-painted over The postcard left, is 1915, to Mrs. Joe Halshead in Oldham: “Many thanks for the big box of flowers which arrived all right today.“
and Right, July 1904, “Having a good time here but weather not the best. Giving up, going home on Saturday.“
Oh! Nice smooth tennis courts on the ‘Counties green – but then with the band playing on it !!! Shocking. Churning up the nice tennis lawn.
Left, is 1913 postcard, from Londonderry Hotel: “Dear Aunt [May Parker, in Huddersfield], we have just arrived, and everything is fine. We are a little busy. I send you this boring postcard as my excuse for not writing a letter, love from Dora.“ (Antrim Gardens – site of the ancient abbey of Portrush, described in blog, The Night the ‘Counties Died.) Right, 1908, postcard of the band playing on Counties green, and the greeting from K. to Mrs. Hunter in Belfast, below, must surely get the award for The Most Useless Postcard Message Ever:
Weather features on a number of postcards: “Having a good time, I thought we were going to get blown away on Monday night.” “Here for the afternoon with our church choir, but it has come on very wet, just pouring.” “Having good time but weather not the best, too much rain, just pouring. Giving up and going home on Saturday, Caroline.” “Enjoying ourselves though weather not too good. Went to watch the Fireworks Display but it just poured. I hope the weather will be better for you. Marie Leonard.”
A visit to Portrush to see me mum, I stay a super few nights in the Ramada hotel, covid times. One of the team there lets me out the door to go and look at the sculpture over in the gardens opposite, and she tells me, “Myself and the rest of my primary 6 school class, from Mill Strand Integrated Primary School, helped the archaeologic team dig up all the artifacts during their investigation of Antrim gardens in 2005. For a bunch of 10 year olds it was a very fun and memorable week helping the archaeologic team, they then designed the Antrim Garden to reflect what we found, as you can see on the stature in the middle of the gardens. Hope you enjoy! Amber.”
The Northern Counties, exterior and ballroom. Richard Brown: “….the Northern Counties’ fires. We got awakened by the fire alarm for both fires, and got up and watched them in the middle of the night. I have this photo from I assume the day after the second one.”
And then, that masterpiece of Portrush, the White House, written up in several blogs, including “Leadership at The White House” showing the wonderful example from Mr. Hamilton,
If you were visiting Portrush, what would you want to do? Well, buy popcorn and ice cream and sweets and go to the beach, The White House, the amusements, ……. Pretty high up on the list would be a ride on the donkeys – a traditional activity, fare for a hundred years and more!
…..And then, we are onto the East Strand, and there is the procession of donkey and ponies. Timeless. The photos above are the 1950s and the 1960s. I think everyone will have a donkey photograph of them with visitors, and below, 1970s, is Sheila Brown’s: ‘David this photo is about 45 years ago, about 1978! The lady to the left is my brother’s wife and two daughters from Vancouver, and my son Trevor on the donkey.’
And so memorable! Scott F, responds, ‘That’s me in the photo, holding the white donkey Snowball!’ – remembering the event, of over 40 years ago! 🙂
So, donkey rides, such a big part of Portrush life and visitor attraction – and I see it features there, up alongside other wild animals in a tourism brochure of 1971:
Me, Portrush Tales, I like to write about things that I have some connection with. About the donkeys, they lived just a handful of houses down the terrace, at the Edgar’s house, such a part of Croc na mac life. There’s a photo below from Maureen, of her sister Sandra on one of the ponies, so familiar and everyday that peope like Maureen and Heather R can’t remember anything about them! ‘Unfortunately no specific memories! Jessie Edgar’s donkeys were always just there…. – part of the Croc-na-mac fixtures and fittings!’
But the donkeys were transformed in my brother Kenny’s imagination into being in the wild west, and there he is, with Ian Bellingham, up on their coal shed roof, cowboys ready with their pistols to defend the ponies and donkeys and the waggon train going past…..
You can see, in the 1960s that the backs of Croc-na-mac houses were yards, scrubby, outhouses, workshops, grassy, bird cages for the Bellinghams a few doors up, rooms where families lived for the summer while they rented out the main house. Wire fences, not many walls, few cars, no garages in those days. Our back yard was lawn where we could play football and tennis – and there was a centre ‘pillar’ in our back wall, a brick and a half wide, just right to act as cricket stumps.
And the back lane was scrabbly, rough too. Watts coal lorry deliveries to our coal shed, and the horse-and-cart of the scary rag-and-bone man that we knew as the bogeyman. The back lane was ‘adopted’ by the Council at some point, and tarmac’ed, though Ian King writes, ‘I quite miss the back lane the way it was though – big puddles and pebbles, but I suppose it had to be modernised.’ The back lane became a nice smooth tarmac and we could play tennis or football and learn to cycle on it. No garage and when we got a car, Dad rented one behind the filling station on Eglinton St. Me learning to drive, that allowed the putting-the-car-in-the-garage task to be at least a lap of the town and maybe via Portstewart prom too, as part of my driving practice. Later Dad had the garage built with up-and-over door, so the width of the back yard ‘football pitch’ for kids’ play was reduced, but not our chance to have a drive around the town.
And the back lane was for the procession of the donkeys to and fro the beach, from Mr. & Mrs. Edgar’s up the road, with their daughter Fern, with a troop of youngsters from around the area earning summer job pocket money.
I remember Fern’s daughter Joanne as just a toddler, helping out too. Joanne writes, ‘The beach donkeys and ponies were a big part of my life growing up. It was up early and over to my Granny and Papa’s house at 36 Croc-na-mac to pick up bridles and then over to the donkey field to get our charges. A swift canter back over the football pitch and in to Mrs McConaghy’s back garden to give the animals a spruce up while they enjoyed their breakfast nosebags…”
Raymond McConaghy remembers, ‘They saddled up in our back garden, number 30 Croc-na-mac Road, before their morning trip to the beach’; delightful, though Ian King, another neighbour, writes, ‘Well I really didn’t like the donkeys to be honest – their size (when I was little) and the stench.’
Joanne: ‘Me in the saddle, in Mrs McConaghys back garden, about 1980. I’m not sure who all the people are but the pony is Candy’ (on the right, Laura-lee in the great blue flares, and Cindy M)
Then, every summer morning would be the parade of a dozen or so donkeys and ponies out along the back lane, on their way to the beaches. Joanne, ‘After ther breakfast, we split up to either the ‘Big Beach’ or the ‘Wee beach’. If it was the big beach then Shimo, Ken Bolton’s beautiful wee collie, was waiting to spend the day with us. We scaled the Bolton’s gate at Strandmore – it seemed an insurmountable height when I was small – to get buckets of water while someone ran to the grocery to collect the carrot tops that the grocer kept for the donkeys, something they loved.’
Left, out the front at Croc-na-mac. Joanne: ‘Maureen Kane will recognise these boys! Jet is the pony and Rosie is the donkey’ and Nigel J writes, ‘Darren in the red, I’m in the navy coat and Neil G has the red boots on.’ and right, Joanne: ‘I know who this is but if I tell, he’ll kill me and he’s bigger than I am these days lol!!?’
My Dad’s roots were in farming, and he was always a keen gardener, green-fingered. He’s out the back garden, planting roses or something, and says to me, David go over and ask the Edgar’s for some horse manure. So off I go, and I ask Mr. Edgar, who says, Yes sure, bring a bag with you and shovel it up. Hmm – that wasn’t quite what I expected.
A reviewer writes, “Oh David!! That is so coincidental on my walk on Saturday there was horse dung on the path and I was cross I had no doggy bags to scoop it up for my shrubs Wasn’t Mr Edgar smart Yes I do remember the rides on the beach, most vaguely the excitement and fear of these huge looking beasts, how to get on and how to stay on and not scream head off. I remember I was more happy to watch them – they were really just docile and hard working little donkeys.”
I remember the donkeys on the East strand more, but Joanne reminds me that there were animals on the west strand too; the Council advert above is 1956, selling the licenes for trading, for photography, for ponies or donkies on the east strad (8 animals) and west (4).
Donkies and ponies on the beach – a great summer activity. Above left photo, Joanne says, ‘There is Jet and Sandy on the beach’. But what did the donkeys do in winter-time? Fred Ramage explained, in 1964:
That article says, ‘…donkeys… on the East strand for over 30 years’ – well I see donkeys featuring much earlier. There’s a postcard of early 1900s with the donkeys on the ‘north strand’, and donkeys in twee Irish heritage too, and with several donkey races in Portrush Regatta of 1887, that’s 135 years ago.
End of Part I! The next part will discuss the animals on the West Strand too. Do send, if you have interesting photos about the donkeys and ponies at Portrush. And / or might you have a story to tell of your expereinces with the animals? ..do write a paragraph or two, and the photos & stories could go into the next blog, coming in next few days. 🙂
========================== With thanks to Joanne Gibson for the story and family photographs, Sheila Brown for the postcard images, Maureen & Ian & Raymond for photos nd stories, Daniel Tietze for the Tourist Brochure, Newspaper articles from https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/
We found the awesome photograph of our neighbour Sgt. Fulton, with the photo caption, ‘Carnival Day at Portrush, 1935’. Oh looking at newspaper archive, the Carnival was such a big event, so many really fancy costumes! And many of the familiar Portrush surnames, be it grandparents, uncludes, aunts, ……. of people that you know.
Oh, I find that there were TWO carnivals that summer, with fancy dress, and other events of fireworks, and bands, ….. there was a lot of stuff going on in 1935!
That’s Sergeant Fulton there on the left, with the three stripes on his sleeve, supervising the carnival day procession as it goes past the train station, in summer 1935.
Then, thinking about the events that happened that year…. Early in the year, the Sports Committee, the organising group, met in March to review the previous season’s activity:
But oh dear, the Committee had organised 18 events in 1934, but ALL except one were dreadful weather, washed-out, and visitors numbers were poor. And they had experimented with adding band promenades last year, quite a lot of expense, but they ‘had not received the support anticipated’ – no wonder as band promenades are pretty boring. It was a great effort by everyone, especially Capt. Shutt, but financially overall they were in deficit and disappointed. Mr Cunningham, the Town Clerk – that’s him in the photo below with Sgt. Fulton, on that Carnival day – tries to cheer everyone up, that taking the weather and everything into consideration there was no cause to be down-hearted, and with Council support there were more prosperous times lay ahead.
So, suitably encouraged, they continue with their plans for a big series of events for 1935: fancy dress carnivals, bowling tournaments, fireworks, military band entertainment, military tattoos, hard court tennis championships, and also swimming galas and yet more band concerts. Actually a program that sounds pretty familiar to me, growing up in Portrush! Plus ça change.
Excitement for the year’s activities is building…… There is a great celebration for the King’s Silver Jubilee, in May, with children’s events and a torchlight procession to a huge bonfire on Ramore Head.
And then Wednesday 17th July, is the opening event of a summer of fun in Portrush, with a parade beginning at 3pm (just like the time showing ion the train station clock):
It was the Belfast Military Band who led the July procession (and later in the summer, it was the Leicestershire Regimental Band who led the carnival in August).
And good news, the weather was ideal, the crowds thronged the streets and flocked to the natural grandstand of Ramore Head to enjoy the judging of the fancy dress. The competitors were your grandparents or uncles and aunts! There are the surnames Clarke, Ross, McGuigan, and in the centre is the family of Capt. Shutt himself, winning a prize as a basket of flowers.
Alan McF: “Brilliant David, thank you! I laughed at the pics of the young ladies in fancy dress, especially the one of a young Pat Anderson with the little ukulele. I run the local uke club here in Portrush, Ukes At The Port. “
There were about 11 categories of fancy dress, 200 participants were mentioned, and a roll call of winners as long as your golf club, the surnames that you will recognise – there’s Knox, Heron, Graham, Stewart, Lee, Chalmers, McFetridge, Diamond, Brown, Gregg, ……..
Imaginative, stunning costumes includes ‘Italian girl’, ‘Old Russia’, ‘Heading for the last round up’, ‘the Sheik’, ‘The Result of Revaluation’, ….
I’ve included photos of Carnivals for other years around 1935 where there are names that might interest you; the set above is of 1932 and has McFetridge, O’Neill, Kane, McCullach, Hepworth, ….. and the list of winners in the categories continues, you will probably find some nae that you will recognise.
Lucy S: “Another great collection of stories and photos. Loved the fancy dress of the cotton pickers – imagine the outrage today lol . Thank you David for sharing. “
The July carnival was a great success, and a bit later in July, fireworks, a Portrush tattoo, with special trains laid on:
So, summer 1935, and all is bliss. The town has successfully deflected the development plans away from Mr. Stephens of the Ministry of Fish’s plans to make Portrush an industrial-scale herring fishing port, to being holiday and health and relaxation. The Causeway tram trundles tourists out to the Giant’s Causeway, and there is increasing wealth. The photo above shows a nice array of sedans waiting around the train station and the town hall. The banner across the street advertises Fireworks 14th August – it really is this this year, 1935, with its ‘COLOSSAL DISPLAY OF FIREWORKS’ as in the advert below:
And ‘THE ORIGINAL MONTOS in Daring Aerial Acrobatics’ and ‘NOVEL AERIAL ACT’ ? Well, don’t think of Red Bull aeroplanes and parachuting onto the recreation grounds, rather instead think of tumblers, acrobats. Still, very impressive and novel I’m sure.
And hard court tennis championships? A feature in my teenage days too. (I wasn’t much good at tennis: I played in the championships just once, losing pretty rapidly in my one and only match. I think I was the Null Points, of a Eurovision Song Contest.)
The blog about the recreation grounds mentions the fancy dress competition, and of kids last-minute grabbing sheet off their bed, cutting holes in it, and going as the Holy Ghost, only to find other kids have done the same! The photos here, wow what marvellous effort went in to the fancy dress outfits! Costumes included archers, knights and their Ladyes, modern misses and Victorian dames, empire builders, fishermen, ……. – a rich and colourful variety.
The centre photo above is of two ‘Empire Builders’ – McAllister and Diamond, neighbours at Quarry Court, behind the harbour. Ken McAllister asks me, “Which is the most expensive street in Portrush? Answer: Quarry Court – because it is full of Diamonds”, he says.
I ask him if he knew Sgt. Fulton. “Yes indeed David, I knew him well. When I worked in Barry’s he used to sit in the office and have coffee. My mother was working in her house looking after Frank and Louise so I was careful not to step out of line because he would tell her. He was tough but fair.
“Oh I just remembered: I got a part time job as message boy in McCulloch’s fish shop. I was 12, and there was an older guy there called Curly. One day we got a delivery of salmon in, and Curly must have arranged to sneak one and throw it over the side wall to his mate. Sergeant Fulton must’ve saw his pal who ran off, but lo and behold, over came the salmon. Curly shouted over, Got it? He got a muffled reply, Yes. Two minutes later the sarge walked in to the shop with the salmon! Curly was sacked but not charged “
And a few days later, after the Carnival, there was fireworks and a band promenade that was broadcast on the BBC to great acclaim. And the Sports Committee had the chance to reflect and celebrate the activities’ great success – 25,000 people enjoyed the events, 8,000 to each of the big events. (Is 8,000 a big number of visitors? It sounds a bit small to me?)
Photographs above, of the carnival in 1932, with the Cunninghams (the family of the town clerk), of Misses Fairley and Butler as a Spanish couple. And below, of Portrush belles old and new, and the monstrosity of Loch Ness trundling through the streets.
Helena A writes: “Isn’t that just wonderful. 1935, and the town was buzzing. Carnival was a big thing. I was entered for them all in the 50’s. My Mother loved getting me dresses up… Rose of Tralee… Doll in a box… Queen of the North. And do you remember sitting on the hill at Recreation Grounds watching the fireworks? They which always ended with fireworks displaying, ‘Good night!’
Happiness at the seaside at Portrush. Postcards of the time from Sheila Brown’s collection are of bliss, happy, holidaymaking. There’s postcards in the 1930s, swimming in the harbour with the big diving boards used for swimming galas, the bustle of the train station and the Town Hall and of Eglinton St. and the trams…..
In the wider scheme of things though, I’d say that 1935 was the turning year, the end of bliss and happiness and holiday feeling. Times are changing. King George V celebrated his silver jubliee in 1935, the new king, Edward VII in January 1936, him with Mrs. Simpson, and the year was spent in abdication crisis. Tensions are building internationally too, with Mussolini in Italy, Hirohito in Japan, Adolf in Germany. Things are getting darker, ominous. The 1936 postcard above right, features a warship out in the bay, trying to reassure the populace.
Fancy dress costumes at Portrush carnivals continue to have mickey mices and princesses and Frozen themes but there are also a few poignant ones, of dressing up like Emperor Hirohito, of ‘Ammunitions to Italians’ (I hope they were duds, or were flowers, as Mussolini was busy invading Abyssinia), and in the 1938 carnival, there were costumes of ‘War and Peace’ and ‘Refugees from Shanghai”.
There’s a Hemphill on the left as Brittania, a John Neill as an Atlantic flyer in a wonderful aircraft, and in the centre, as Stephen O’N describes, ‘the picture in the middle is of Billy O’Neill, my uncle – he was the one with all the dogs. Sally Doherty was the sister of Tommy Doherty who was the harbour master.’
Maybe troubles bubbling in the world but for this year in Portrush, 1935, all is well, a great success.
The three big events of mid-August that year – fireworks, then the fancy dress carnival, then the military tattoo – over 25,000 people were entertained, with 8,000 people at each event.
Above Graham & Hepworth, and on the right is Billy Gregg, prize winner with the most original costume.
The processions with the penny farthing, loch ness monsters, aeroplanes, ……… snake their way to the Recreation grounds for the judging, and then process back to Dunluce St.
The caption on the photo below is ‘Portrush Carnival, 1935’ , with Sergeant Fulton on the left; on the right is “‘This way please’ – a comic policemen (was that a cariciature of Sgt. Fulton’s height?) found time to direct one of the competitors on a ‘bedstead bike’ to Ramore Head’
So, TWO big carnivals that year, in July and then in August. So, in which one is Sgt. Fulton leading the procession? I thought the time on the station clock might be a guide but both parades started at 3pm; and both started from Dunluce St.; and both had military band leading the procession.
The weather? Well it is described as ‘ideal’ for the July carnival, but August’s is described above as quite a blustery day; in the Carnival parade photo with the Sergeant they are wearing floppy hats and things, so I assume that it is nicer calmer weather one so I will plump that the photo is of Wednesday, July 17th, 1935.
And there’s the Misseys Grey on the left, and the Stewart boys as ‘Toilers of the Deep’.
Margaret McMullan says, “My late father-in-law Bobby and his brother Albert and John McMullan fished on the MVV ‘Family Friend’ – my husband Trevor worked on the oil rigs but if he was home or his work got slack then he often helped out. I remember waking up one morning to find a lobster climbing up my bed !!!! “Needless to say we had lobster for tea that night. It nearly broke my heart though putting it into boiling water.”
The rafts at the harbour, the RAF boats, the fishing trawlers – all at the edge of my memory, and I am not sure if I am remembering them or just photographs and postcards of them. So, thank you to the folks who have contributed to this social history of the fishing fleet and of the Portrush men and their families at Portrush.
The previous blogs looked at the centuries of fishing in the waters around Portrush, and then of the attempt to make the harbour the base for deep-sea steam trawlers in the 1930s. But the fish shoals were elusive, the weather changeable, the markets fickle – times of gluts of fish that were unsellable and times unable to get the fish that people wanted, at the right quantities, to the right markets. The expected fifty trawlers a week just didn’t happen.
And the big deep-sea steam trawlers were stripping the sea of livelihoods. Even back in 1930, Portrush’s John Stewart’s highlighted the trawlers depleting fish stocks, and that only by fishing within the Skerries could he make a living.
Kerry Gregg writes, “The big development of the harbour never happened of course, its a pity but a fact that there is not much out there to catch now anyway – with modern fishing methods and high quality electronics, we have become too good at catching fish. “I love the old photo of the steam powered trawler alongside the quay. They were a common sight in Fleetwood and other big fishing ports around England, but I suspect they were a rarity in Portrush.”
Tourism and the seaside air took higher priority, and visitors to Portrush in the 1930s “will find hours of interest in the magic of little coasting steamers and salt-crusted deep sea trawlers.” For the townie visitor, trawlers were perhaps a curiousity, photogenic, an unusual an infrequent and unusual sight – but they were the essence, the life-blood, the heart and soul of the town.
Wartime and restrictions and I don’t see any reports of that time. The fishing fleet from ports like Portrush were one of the key food supplies for the nation, and I assume the trawlers were armed and on the lookout for submarines recce’ing the coast. The photo above by Jack McConaghy (courtesy Raymond McConaghy) is “Harbour at War”, 1939 or 1940 – before the arctic convoys started and photographing of vessels in the harbour become a traitorious thing to do.
Ken Mcallister, a bit older than me, writes, “I remember 1943, when the fishing boats arrived in and berthed under the bins. My grandfather used to ask if they had any wee dabs, and he got the nickname “Dabbler” from Spud Fleming – so that’s why I am called ‘young Dabber’.
And Ken continues, “I used to live at the bottom of Kerr St, Quarry Court. We used to wait for the horses and carts going around the harbour. Most times there was a spillage of course, and we happened to have a bucket handy to collect the coal. Butch Fleming used to spook the horse so we got quite a lot. 1944 was a good year.”
Painting courtesy Eleanor Bond, the caption reads, “MVV Family Friend, Portrush 1955, skipper Bobby McMullan, crew Albert McMullan & John McMullan” and Eleanor says, “This is a painting that a man in Portavogie did for us – where the boat originally came from.”
Sheila Brown: “Hi David, I have just looked at the blog. You have done a lot of research, its a great read. Before my time but a lot of names I know. When we came to Portrush in 1943, there were two big McMullan fishermen.
“Later on, in the 1950s, the clammers came to the harbour. We used to sit and watch the boats unloading every evening, about five boats, and lorries loading up with the clams. I used hundreds of clam shells making ornaments to sell in ‘The Shell Shop’ that I had on Main Street opposite the White House. They were popular presents to take home from Portrush. Those were the days David, maybe a slow way to riches but I enjoyed it. “My late husband loved the harbour, with Richard McKay the harbour master at that time. “Thank you for the wonderful history of Portrush, God bless Sheila”
Karen Monteith says, “Oh I’m liking this story more and more! And I think I may have bought a fair few of Sheila’s clam shells too maybe with a little disc of soap inside, I always thought they were very fancy x”
September 1957 and the newspaper article reports that the fishing fleet is now eight boat strong, and that they fish locally, in the Bann or Foyle, not further – and shush! do be quiet as at this moment the crews are sleeping, after being out all-night fishing.
The photo below left (sorry about poor quality) is news of another Portrush trawler, the ‘Aigh Vie’ – from left to right is John Colvin, John Wilson, Douglas McMullan and George Stewart, skippered by Robert Stewart and owned by R. Lynas. The photo is of them landing a record catch of almost 4 tons of grey mullet, at Portrush harbour, in March 1958.
The hard treacherous pretty scary part to me of fishing is the being out-at-sea, and then getting the fish onto the quayside. But the success of fishing as a business seems to depend on logistics – keeping the catch fresh / frozen, and getting the catch to markets. In the 1958 article below, the harbour-master John Doherty moans of the lack of freezing facilities at Portrush that would enable the catch to go to Scotland. I guess that shows the failure of the 1930s hopes of local catches, local port and processing facilities, and of getting the fish to local markets.
The Portrush fishing fleet is described then in 1958 as 20-odd fishermen, that’s sounds like about five trawlers, but the harbour looks pretty quiet in the photo below.
1950s, Portrush harbour
Ray McConaghy: “Great post David . Another name I remember was a youngster – well, same age as me – called Billy McLelland. I think his family were fishermen in the 50’s and 60’s?”
I see the name of another Portrush trawler, ‘Confide’, above, with ownership the same as for the big record catch sailing, with Robert Lynas of Coleraine with skipper John Wilson. It was October, late in the season, and this boat was the only one that ventured out that day – with the alarm raised and the lifeboat called out for its overdue return.
Wow all these newspaper reports and photos happened in 1958! It was a busy year. The photos above, courtesy Pete Doherty, with a newspaper caption, “Mr Doherty, his two sons and two brothers own between them the £1,500 Queen Elizabeth, which carries nearly 60 passengers a time round the Skerries and along the north Antrim coast.”
Eleanor Bond: “I’m sure you know Willie Gregg (left) was a great boat builder,” and Kerry Gregg adds: “My grandfather Willie Gregg beside dad’s boat, in 1965, at Quarry Court. And the photo with the three generations of Gregg is my brother Willie, my dad Billy, and my grandfather Willie, in June 1958.”
Janis B: “Thank you for this. We lived in Quarry Court at the harbour until we all were re-housed. So far from theharbour, it was very difficult for fishermen who’d been around the harbour all their lives. One retired man – Tommy M or was it McM – walked down to the harbour every day after breakfast, up for lunch, back down, up for tea. I used to watch him back and forth across the football pitch and to the harbour, no matter the weather.”
Trawlers in the harbour – 1960s? The painting of the McMullan ‘Fisherman’s Friend’ identifies it as ‘B79’, that’s registered in Belfast at that time, and the ones here registered as ‘CE’ is Coleraine.
Ian King: “Interesting to see John McMullan in the picture. There were (at least) two John McMullans in Portrush in the 60s. One was married to Rose so was called Rose’s John, to avoid confusion. As a child I often wondered why a man’s name would be mixed up with roses. It was much later I realised the more prosaic truth. I never did find out which was which (in person). “He was good for me: my Dad arranged with Rose’s John to let me borrow his tender for the fishing boat when he wasn’t using it. I used to spend hours and days rowing around the harbour and yes, ferrying RAF sailors ashore for a shilling. Happy days. Truly happy. Cheers, Ian.”
And photo below left, smaller fishing boats, for closer to shore fishing. Left, from Pete D: “The big mullet haul” – I asssume this is the March 1958 bounty, as described above? And John McN comments: “You can tell by the smile on the face of the man looking at the camera that this is a very good day’s fishing! I think he is Old Tommy Doherty and the man immediately to his left is young Tommy Doherty.” and from Stephen O’N, “That’s my dad at the back, Mack O’Neil, he’s the one wearing a wee hat” Pete D: “All the local fishermen were involved. In that pic is Dad, my great uncle Tommy (‘Snowball’), my Uncle Jimmy, & looks like Jimmy Stewart.”
And, above right, photo passed on from George Lavery, who writes, “Salmon fisheries boat landing their catch – they averaged a catch of over 90 a day, in the 1960s / 70s,” and John adds, “I think the man is Spud Fleming – though don’t know who the young boy is.” Lucy S: “I have a copy of the photo of my granda Jimmy ‘Spud’ Fleming and that young boy – I never found out who he was. I remember when we lived in Hamilton Place, the crabs would have got out of the sacks and walked up the tiled floor in the long scullery. I remember that noise vividly lol. Thank you for sharing these stories David. L.“ Stephen O’N adds, “….the boy with Spud is my cousin from Australia, his name is Shaun O’Neill, and that photo was taken in 1970.” Kerry G: “It was 13th July 1970, and that photo is of my father Billy Gregg’s boat with 155 head of salmon in it, caught in the Ramore hill salmon bag net, that dad leased from Lord Antrim at the salmon fisheries, from 1968 to 1981. The boat was one of many that Billy built over the years, and yes indeed it is wee Spud who was helping dad to box up the catch, and then they were pulled up the quayside wall and into our shed – No.3, before the council saw fit to knock them all down. The fish would be collected by Sean Morton from Ballycastle who would call in his lorry on his rounds around all the salmon fishermen on the north coast, then those same fish would be iced down and be for sale in Billingsgate Fish Market the next day.” and the power of the internet, “I love these pics, I’m the 8 year old Shaun O’Neill from Australia with Spud Fleming (an absolute legend) – such great memories “
And George Lavery shows his painting skills too: “I am working on this painting of the lifeboat being towed back up the slipway.” 1960s? David Patton writes: “Another great history David that you have dug up! and nice to see other paintings too of boats. And tell George to get that painting finish, it is too good not to. !! Well done to you too, for your hard work. “
Kellie M: “Thank you, I really enjoyed reading it. So many names synonymous with the Port…. names from my childhood too as my dad was a marine engineer and we spent many long days in the harbour (and harbours all around ireland) while he worked on boats.”
Margaret: “Hi David, I hope you can use this painting of our boat, with Albert McMullan at the wheel, Bobby McMullan standing against the wheelhouse, and Rose’s John with his hands in his pockets,…. Sorry there are not many photos of them – they were all very modest men.”
Margaret McMullan: “I remember when Trevor was helping out fishing salmon, we weren’t long married and uncle Albert used to knock us up for we always slept in . Later when I took a walk down the harbour he’d be sitting mending a fishing net in the huts. There was always someone around the harbour that you knew. I can still remember the smell of the bait barrel! So many happy memories of living at the harbour!
“I remember waking up one morning to find a lobster climbing up my bed !!!! Needless to say we had lobster for tea that night. It nearly broke my heart putting it into boiling water.”
Brian S: “I used to meet the McMullan trawler every morning to get the small flukes to use as bait for our lobster pots. My means of transport was a message bike with a carrier over the front wheel. The trawler was normally crewed by Albert operating the engine throttle at the bow and Bobby steering and John throwing the rope ashore.”
Caroline Dorsett writes, “Brilliant David, I got totally lost in it! Photos are fantastic. I remember dad filling some of the boats with fuel and being given huge (well they seemed huge to a child) bags of lobster. We wondered why the dog was acting strangely one night and wouldn’t come in. He had found one of the lobsters making its way down the garden, having escaped from the bag and ultimately the pot. Dad then took it down to the rocks and released it, saying it had earned its freedom after its encounter with the dog! “And I remember the fishing competitions later with massive conger eels being hung up to view. Is it any wonder that I’m not a fan of swimming in the sea – its got bits in. Sometimes big bits! Great stuff David.”
Eleanor Bond: “David, this is my dad, John McMullan, with the cap, and Kenneth McMullan, sitting on the big stone at the side of the shed that used to be near the bridge many years ago.” And Margaret continues, “It was sad day though when they took the huts away – it was the meeting place, the talking place, where the fishermen met and watched the weather to decide if it was suitable to set sail.”
The photograph above of the harbour in 1960s shows a smaller fleet, now, only four trawlers. David Patton writes, “The photograph and the painting of the four fishing boats is the harbour as I remember it. Looking back at the Dock Head wall with the big billboard, Minihan’s shop and of course part of the old Ramore street. The Harbour Bar, the old wooden shed at the railway crossing bridge that always smelled of tar. Across the bridge there was a pub that belonged to a Kitty Quinn. I can remember as a wee boy looking for my father: I would look in the pub to see if he was there and if he was, he would put me up on a stool and treated me to a glass of Club orange.”
And below, “My brother Torney took a photo of the fishing boat as it arrived at the harbour, in 1968, and that was the inspiration for my painting it. Torney knew two of the men on that boat, Richard McKay and Jimmy Stewart.”
And Margaret McMullan continues: “We used to get quite a lot of prawns when the boats called in – we were eating like royals and never appreciated it at the time! Lovely salmon in the salmon season, and now I have to buy it and it never tastes as good as it did then. Monkfish boiled in milk and onions and some times made into scampi .
“I remember you had to hang the monkfish to bleed it; Trevor hung it out at the bottom of the clothes line, but a neighbour came to my door and said, ‘I don’t want you to get a fright but someone has hung a nasty thing on your line.’
David Patton writes, “Again, all credit to you David, I love reading your writing, you have captured a time in history that could have been long lost.”
Fishing, always peaceful and happy? Rather a valuable and scarce resource, and stocks and fishing rights have been managed for centuries. to be managed, and poachers and over-fishers dealt with. Above left is 1950 and the Fleetwood trawler has been fishing off Portrush and Portstwart for 9 days, then sails over to Donegal but is attacked by three motor boats, with 20 irate Irish fishermen in each, with the cabin sprayed with bullets! Centre right, 1970, a Donegal trawler caught by a Royal Navy, fisheries protection boat, for illegal fishing off Portrush, withpunishmens of fines and nets confiscated. And right, salmon wars of early 1980s, with a couple of fisheries protection vessels against an armada of Donegal trawlers, fishing just off the Portrush coast. From early June, three months of the salmon running to the rivers, with some successes of trhe protection vessels like with impounding a drift net that was an enormous 4 miles long, but puny against the increasing size and commercial aggression of the larger trawlers being used.
In the 1960s there were royal air force boats stationed in the harbour, as support vessels for RAF Ballykelly as described in the blog ‘Leander House girls and RAF lads‘, informally helping the fishing fleet in rescues though not as protection vessels.
As we have seen, the big plan for Portrush harbour as headquarters of a fishing fleet back in the 1930s came to naught. Another innovation for harbour commercial activity in the 1960s though, was as a container depot, with the quayside developed with big cranes for hoisting containers onto ships:
Above left, photo courtesy Pete Doherty: ‘The photo says on the back ‘Jimmy Doherty, harbour-master, with Captain Jones of the MV Wirral Coast. The container service commenced on 13th September 1963. Closed down 15th June 1968. Jimmy Doherty died on 3rd May 1968.’ He was harbour master before my dad, but tragically died at the age of 47 I think.” The activity traded for 5 years, but I guess the size of and access into the harbour went against the location.
Arthur D: “My grandfather Arthur Dunlop was the foreman docker at the harbour in the ‘sixties when the container ships came in. He came hone every night with a bag of fish. He loved the job and the fishermen who he became friends with. I remember him mentioning the Doherty’s.”
Complementing the trawlers out at sea, Joe Mullan was promoting sea angling. The photo caption above reads, “Fisherman Joe Mullan, Chairman of the Ulster Federation of Sea Anglers, who travels far and wide for the sport. He is a Master Angler and an Irish Boat and Shore International.”
Garry McI:lwaine: “I was a regular at Joe Mullan’s fishing tackle shop on Main St. As a youngster, any walk “down the street” would include a diversion to Joe’s. “Outside I’d drool over the line of rods and reels in his window. (I’d seen them many times but the sin of coveting is deep-set!) “Inside, there was always a welcome from Joe. When three or four of us wandered into other shops like Graham’s or The White House, we always got that feeling that eyes were on us! Not with Joe. He was always engaging. He loved telling us about his black and white photos and stories behind them. He said that he’d love one of us to earn a species specimen badge. We always tried to find out where the best place to dig for rag worms was. He’d have two answers: it was a secret he’d never tell anyone, or he dug them at night so nobody would would find his place! That was Joe… especially as we’d often see him collecting his “fresh worms” from the platform at the railway station!”
The Belfast Telegraph’s Peter McMullan, writing about his day of plentiful fishing in July 1968. The trip was prompted by Joe Mullan and hosted by Jimmy Stewart (left in the photo) on the Girl Phyllis, Jimmy taking a break from sleeping after his day job of night shift of drift-netting for salmon. Mr Mullan’s efforts led to investment by Coleraine Council on the slipway and facilities. The article writes about 30 boats exclusively for sea angling, with over 300 sea anglers a week visiting Portrush.
Going back to the trawlers, Margaret continues, “My late father-in-law Bobby and his brother Albert McMullan and John McMullan known as Roses John fished the Family Friend – my husband Trevor worked on the oil rigs, but if he was home or his work got slack then he often helped out. The fished local waters but it depended what they were fishing as to what time they fished.
Er, why Roses John? Eleanor Bond replies, “My father’s mother was called Rose, so he was referred to as Rose’s John – that’s how they referred to the different McMullans.”
Margaret, I ask, what happened when the boat arrved back at Portrush with their catch? “Well, there would have a buyer for their fish waiting on them at the quayside. Then, the boat was cleaned and nets were sorted for their next trip. During salmon season their nets, drift nets, could be seen spread out on poles to dry, at the harbour. There were nets, they were fixed nets, that were hung at the salmon fishery as well.”
David Patton: “My brother Terry, with nets spread out on the old railway crossing at the harbour, 1960s, with the fishing boats, four, in the harbour.”
Kerry Gregg writes: “I was lucky enough to get out fishing on the “Family Friend “ with Bobby, Albert and John. I was about 10 at the time, I was out many times and always on a Saturday morning or on the school holidays. We lived at the bottom of Kerr Street so it was just a short walk over the bridge to the quayside I would ask Albert the day before and set an alarm for 4am and away we would go, usually over to the area around the temple at Downhill and they would “shoot” the nets and ropes – the method was called seine netting. I would sit behind the wheel house and watch for the net to be brought up and the catch sorted into size and then into wooden fish boxes, that was repeated a few times then they would steam home and land the catch.
“I still remember after 55 years the tea that was served! Loose tea, sugar, milk all in the same pot and heated up – little washing up to do! Looking back on it now I was more of a hindrance than help but Bobby, Albert and John were the best of people, all very decent and they put up with me and my thousand questions about fishing.Such wonderful people and times.”
Time moves on though. Margaret tells me of the retirement of the McMullan family and then that the Family Friend boat was sold in 1974. “I never had a run out on it myself”, she says, but I used to get out on the lifeboat when they had a special day for flag sellers. My late father-in-law Bobby McMullan was cox’n.”
Interviewed in 1975, below, Tommy Doherty comments, “..out of a fine fleet of fishing vessels only one remains, because there isn’t much left in that part of the coastline to fish for”, and the too-quiet harbour is put up for sale:
“The present owners, Anglo-Irish Transport, a subsidiary of P&O, want to get rid of something that isn’t making any money….. For the present harbour-master, Tommy Doherty, it may mean the end of a job that he has held for 6 years. In fact, Tommy’s family have been connected with the harbour since the ‘Forties. His father was harbour-master and when he died, his son Jimmy took over. He died suddenly in 1968 and Tommy was given the job.”
Three big men of the harbour: Louie Craig, Tommy Doherty (Harbour-master) with Billy Gregg (boatbuilder / Willie Gregg’s father), about 1997.
Trish Gray: “David I remember so many of the names in this post. Bobby McMullan was such a lovely person, kind and gentle. Jimmy Stewart (coxswain of the lifeboat after Bobby, I think) had a small fishing boat – The Lady Phyllis, I think! Jimmy used to allow us ‘Lifeboat kids’ access to his rowing boat – Ian King, Dorma & Alan Cunningham, my brother Martin, myself and I suspect many others. I seem to recall Ian saying he used to ferry some of the RAF crew to the other side of the harbour!
“I laughed about Butch spooking the horses during the war and collecting the dropped coal! I remember coming home from high school, to a black bin bag on the kitchen floor, making strange noises – lobsters! Like Margaret McMullan says, we were living like lords and didn’t realise it!
“I remember huge conger eels being landed near the high diving board! I was very glad though, that no-one suggested we should have it for dinner!
“One year when I was heading back to Edinburgh, 1980, my Dad got up at 5am to meet Jimmy Stewart coming in to the harbour, and got a salmon. That salmon got well packed in ice, wrapped in a black bag, and put in my suitcase. You can imagine the face of the airport security guard, searching my case. They let me through with it – with hindsight, I’m surprised it wasn’t confiscated… I haven’t tasted salmon like it since!”
Evening glow, Portrush harbour and west strand (photo: author)
Pauline Rigby: “Oh David, you have brought tears to my eyes! FYI My side note: my dentist here in Scarborough remembers the likes of Butch Fleming and Dessie, and his brother has a yacht in Portrush harbour now! Its a small world! His assistant laughs at the pair off us when I go for treatment and a check up (a catch up!) 😂😂xx
And finally, the photo below, one of my Portrush summer holidays, 2013, 10pm at the harbour, seeing the unloading of the catch of cod and the higher-value scallops, and the chinese restaurant up lower main st buying the bucket of scallops. Dessie Stewart there told me, they’ll get a few hours sleep then 4am sailing back across to Scotland.
Time moves on, things change, morph, transform, renewed – hopefully I can do one more blog of today’s geeration of fishing. And as I’ve said before, I don’t go for the Good Ol’ Days view of history myself – after all, in 30 years the kids today will be remembering these days as being the Good Ol’ Days – but rather, the life lessons, the example that these folks gave us, of hard work, modesty, humility, respect – and of hilarious fun and stories.
was brilliant, ending with fish & chips and Match of the Day! 
it!!”
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‘ – to be honest though I find only a few photos, no postcards, of the donkeys or ponies on the wee beach – do let me know, if you have pics of the animals, on either of the beaches!
‘, and I see pride of place in the August 1974 Belfast Telegraph seaside article below is Claire wth two donkeys – and there too is Ray Mason of Portrush Pottery, and Joy May of May’s Fashions, if you remember those shops. 
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. Another name I remember was a youngster – well, same age as me – called Billy McLelland. I think his family were fishermen in the 50’s and 60’s?”
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Portrush Tales 