Postcards from Portrush: Climbing the stone bins, spear guns, & other harbour adventures

This Portrush series, walking from Croc-na-mac on a lap of the town, looking at Postcards from the Sumptious Selection from Sheila Brown’s Exquisite Emporium as we walk along.

Me, I played golf and badminton and tennis at the recreation grounds. I ask around for some harbour stories, and Garry McIlwaine replied, “Hi, David! You got me at a good time…….    I’ll jot down a few memories and hopefully the others will add their stories too, to pack around those class postcards.”

Reading of the tales of Garry McIlwaine and his buddies as they played and swimmed and climbed at the harbour, a reviewer writes, “Oh! It is a delight!! It is like reading a chapter of the Famous Five or the Secret Seven! I love their adventures. Typical boy stuff I suppose, but Wow!! I can imagine it all in my head. Such wonderful descriptions xxx”

Remembering their times as lads playing around the harbour, Garry writes, “It seems like us group of lads knew every stone in and around the harbour and Ramore Head, particularly the ones that combined to provide stairways (rock-steps) to something exciting, new, or even better, ‘Forbidden!’ One of the biggest voodoos in our family was to ‘Go within a hundred miles of the Black Rocks or Ramore Head, or the Stone Bins’. Punishable of course, but only if you were found out!

Left, Portrush poster; and Right, Maureen Kane tells me that she jumped over the wall at the back of the Yacht Club, grazed her hands on the glass-shards, in pursuit of this photo.

“At 10 or 12 years of age, my lads’ group visit to the harbour invariably ended up in some sort of a ‘test’. Peer pressure sent common sense packing, freeing opportunity for our risk-taking to be exercised. We dodged big waves on the harbour back wall. No matter what state the tide presented, we rock-stepped (or rock-laddered) onto the wee beach at the Ramore Bar. From there, after skimming the best flat stones in Portrush or the best weathered glass bottle bottoms, we would see who could climb farthest horizontally along the old harbour wall. The right approach would have been to start at the deep end near the rickety bridge and scramble towards the shallow. Not us. The test always resulted in stinging finger tips, grazed knees and damp socks but never ever with a dry winner.

“The ultimate test was to scale The Bins: not as high as the Black Rocks or parts of Ramore Head, those stone bins at the harbour looked so much more manageable. There was even an iron ladder going from the roof of the little control bunker – where we could still gain entry and flick the big elevator switch – all the way to the topmost metal shutes which directed the stones into particular bins.

“Me, I NEVER got more than half way… no matter how hard Stephen Leslie, Derek Finlay or my brother John tried  to coax or cajole me, I never did. At just about half way, that ladder would take on a life of its own – shaking, wobbling, even bouncing! All I could do was freeze and cling on for dear life. Neither up nor down would I / could I go.

The saving grace was that, me being last to try to go up, the others would need me to go down so that they could!

Those moments always remain vivid in my worst nightmares or when in class, I would heve read ‘The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler’ to my P6 and P7 youngsters.

“Rocksteps weren’t always about height. 

“At the harbour, Crawford Rankin’s little clinker rowing boat was accessed via one set of rock-steps close to the lifeboat. They led down to a large flat rock – Crawford had a man’s name for it – from where we would set sail on our voyages of discovery.

Postcards – 1956, & 1960s

“On foot, the harbour area had its attractions. By water it was so different. Crawford, Haslett Knox and I would usually end up being a boarding party on to one of the RAF boats. (That always puzzled me as a boy: ‘RAF boats??’) Ending up on the raft by not swimming was always exciting, even if you knew that if things played out to script, one of you would be abandoned there for a laugh!

“Crawford’s boat gave us access to two great spaces not reachable on foot when the tide was in: under the lifeboat house and under the harbour wall (the part past the bins was held up in these days by wooden posts). In there we would gaze at winking anemones, grazing limits, clouds of darting sand eels, silvery mullet and spider crabs (velvet) which disguised themselves on the dimly lit boulders. There was even  the chance of spotting a lobster. Seeing these creatures alive in the water rather than  in a creel, at the bottom of a boat or on a menu – we were a real, living Jacques Cousteau expedition!

“Rocky mearn (wrasse), which introduced me to float fishing, were always an interesting catch, with their magnificent coppery scales flashing and glinting ‘on their way up’.

David Martin, with Crawford Rankin, on a Causeway cruise, a handful of years back

And an even better way to see the marine life……: “Whilst shivering ourselves back from numbness after a swim day at The Raft, I was totally awe-struck at the sight of a rubber clad snorkler surfacing.
With a spear gun.
A spear gun with a good-sized flapping  ‘Lithe’ attached!”

(David: one time I signed up to do a First Aid course at work. It is really not my thing, but I was Brave and went.
The first session started gently with how to deal with choking, asphyxiation, food trapped in your throat, artificial respiration. Then the video showed a beach scene, with the scuba diver with his big spear gun, it accidentally firing and the guy lying on the beach harpooned in the chest, blood spurting.
Luckily someone else in the room fainted and the video was stopped before I passed out. The spear gun story here has too many memories of that scene!!)

“Anyway, back to the story: soon after, a summer money visit to Joe Mullan’s (‘No worms or mackerel today, Garry?’) saw me kitted out with the trendiest sky blue and fizzy yellow snorkel, mask and flippers.  At home I snapped off the floaty water stopping clunky thing from the top of the snorkle and set to work making my own spear.

An advantage of poor 1970s Portrush TV signals and ferocious seaside storms was that there was quite an endless supply of 4 or 5 foot metal fallen TV aerial rods to be had. We did our best to fashion them to form swords or nettle bashers. Even a blow pipe! The aerial metal was light but pliable. A flattened end was easily filed into a perfect barbed spear head. Being lightweight and hollow, a little snag of roof lead (another story?) beaten into the end helped with one-handed control during the hunt.

At the harbour beach, I was dressed and ready: my short little flippers were easily managed going forwards but I just had to roll back into the water… that’s the way real frogmen with real full lenght flippers did it.
When in the water, face down and breathing settled – a world like no other awaited. 
Those crystal waters. 
Sand sparkling jewel-like. The swaying weed-clad ropes of moored boats. No sound other than a distant Seagul outboard or your own breathing through a rattly plastic tube.
You were always sure to spot a crab or two, scavenging far too far away from safety. A gentle  poke would be met with a display of raised open nippers and a threatening spring up towards you. Quite a statement from those wee green rascals!
I was after flatties. 
Snorkeling was sense-heightening, making it difficult to breathe steadily. Beautifully camouflaged in the sand, the dabs were elusive. Once your focus was in, however, they cheated themselves with  tiny, tiny little plumes of sand from their gill slits or their barely discernable bulges around the eyes.
The act of ‘spearing’ turned out to be just a bit more tricky, with one timely tail flick propelling my prey safely from the target area. A great deal of poke, miss, flick, follow would take place.

Although I can never underestimate the initial elation, pure joy or sense of victory at my first ‘kill’, there were three sobering realities.
First, I had strayed well out of my depth: at that age I  would never normally have risked swimming from the harbour beach to the Queen Elizabeth on my own.
Second, when back in my depth and with flippers grounded, I surveyed my prize. All I can say is that I was totally underwhelmed.
I had patiently selected my kill, aiming for something take-homeable, something plate-sized to be proud of.
Unfortunately I  hadn’t factored the magnifying effect of my mask and the clear harbour water. What I had at the end of my spear was a 5 or 6 inch tiddler, not the monster I’d thought I’d stalked and cornered near a concrete mooring stone.
Third,  ‘victory’ was graphically tactile: every minute sensory aspect of  that moment of domination was transmitted along that spear and into my soul. It was intensly  personal. There was no rod-line-reel in buffer between me and the act. No time to adjust mindset from hunter to victor. 
That connection was instant and brutal.
At the dead end of the spear life had gone: glistening skin was  parched  and wrinkling. 
At the living end, a confused boy was weighing things up in more ways than one.

1959 postcard, to Master Lawrence Brown in Magherafelt, “You should be here to fish!”

“There were two main sets of rock-steps we would use to access the bottom of Ramore Head. By far the more exciting was the set to the back of the harbour office, up the lane past the Harbour Bar. Up-and-over brought us to a calmer-than-most place at the base of the cliff.
But being right beside the outlet for untreated sewage at the big round harbour ‘chimney’ had its downside, however!!!

“On the other hand, that area was a great place to rescue lost buoys and mussel-clad flotsam but it was primarily THE plumb fishing spot with scavenging glashen, flatties and doggies gathered in the briny soup. (On calm days, Crawford would row round there giving us the certainty of a good catch without having to take on the seaweed with a good cast.)

Another brilliant childhood friend who always loved going spinning off the rocks behind the head was Johnny Millar. He and I fished there with our home made spinners, once  even, bagging a two and a half pound white sea trout. Johnny’s dad was a man of few words, but not that evening when our cstch was paraded. And his lovely mum … as usual, she wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t head home  feasted to the gunwales!

Fishing boat entering the harbour – painting by David Patton, based on 1968 photo by his brother Torney

“Hanging around with David McAuley (Jelly) always had potential for ‘fun’. I’ll leave it to him to tell you about his exploits in his dad’s very fancy Rover 2600.

“When two groups of friends had a common member, there were times when the groups combined. One fabulous day we played tig on top of, over, around the walls and buildings of the old RAF huts, just before they became the yatch club. We definitely took our lives in our hands but we survived.

“The really interesting thing was that we returned the following weekend for another session of roof top tig but it wasn’t quite the same, and it petered out in no time. Strange.

“Jelly was always edgy: you could rely on him to lead you into some sort of ‘trouble with a small ‘t’. His house, with that space station designer interior, faced directly over the recreation grounds. Walkers over Ramore Head and white-washed bowlers on the recreation ground greens sometimes saw (or heard) their worlds collide with ours: you see, Jelly had the biggest set of record player speakers that I had, and still have, ever seen in somebody’s house. 

“All I’ll say is that with expert timing, superb volume control, an open window and a glint in the eye,… neither  “Smoke on the Water” or “Radar Love” proved to be of any benefit to the delivery of that vital end-saving wood!

“So, happy days around the harbour. And yes, and we also did with the Brittannia, collect fossils, race our bikes around these paths at break-neck speeds. We did watch the fireworks, pipe bands, tennis competitions etc.etc., but I guess you will get lots of stuff like that! Best, Garry”

And Karen M, reviewing this blog says, “Oh it does remind me of those tales, Secret Seven or Famous Five, of childhood adventures, danger, climbing, swimming, stone steps and caves, skullduggery around every corner – and adults oblivious to it all!“

Portrush Tales – ‘Postcards from Portrush’ series:
(I) the Story of Eglinton St.
(II) the West Strand & Harbour
(III) Harbour Tales
(IV) the Recreation Grounds, renewed
(V) Landsdowne & Lower Main St.
(VI) Diving at the Blue Pool
(VII & VIII): East Strand, to the Causeway

90 blogs of ‘Portrush Tales’, Index is here.

Postcards from Portrush: the Recreation Grounds, renewed

Looking at the Cornucopia of Postcards from the Exquisite Collection of Sheila Brown, we walk up from the harbour to the Recreation Grounds, on our lap of the town.

I had written before of the story of 100 years of the recreation grounds (and of our family mess-ups there!) – here, we are gathering up stories and memories like pebbles on the beach as we walk along, and spinning them out across for you and everyone to see and enjoy.

!!!! Oh and all these blogs develop and morph as you add in your own personal memories to contribute to the story – do come back another time as it will have been updated the next time you look !
And please do add in your story / memory, a few paragraphs, be it as a Comment in Facebook or this Blog or PM me to tell a story of the scenes. Oh and gathering the stories and images is really quite a lot of work – appreciate it, if you indicate if it is worth it and what you enjoyed. !!!!!

Recreation grounds, 1960s postcards

Allison Cooke: “Just having a wee look at the recreation grounds blog. Here’s my memories!! We grew up in Ramore Street in the 1970s, with the Recreation Grounds and Ramore Head was our playground. The Ramore St. gang kids all played together all day every day of the summer months. The recs as we called them. Dicky Beckett the caretaker chased us out after closing time when we snuck in, we built huts from old pallets in the corner near his house!! And hid quietly hoping he wouldn’t see us (well when you’re a wee kid you think that lol). Giant draught board which was free to play, 10p for a game of crazy golf, 10p ice cream cone from Gloria in the pavilion, playing on the swings until dark, with two or three of us on a swing! Tennis lessons from Mrs Lord as we all thought we’d be fit for Wimbledon one day. Being a proud member of a Tennis Club which my wee mum paid a hefty £5 for . Sliding down Ramore Head on cardboard boxes from Lily Graham or Joe Knox. Picking primroses from the Ramore Head; friends and laughter even when we went home covered in mud and grass .”

Recreation grounds, renovations, reconstruction, renewal! Photo courtesy Maureen Kane, 2022

Allison: “We had a secret imaginary house on the cliff edge – omg the nerves now thinking it – but we literally played on the cliff edge where there was a dip and a little pathway . Crab fishing at the rocks by the wee beach, Charlie’s rock (a flat rock near life boat house, I think was called after a Labrador (was that a figment Of my imagination. Can another harbour local confirm?) The recs and harbour area were the best places to grow up xxx”

1952: “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“

Sheila Kane writes, “Loved the recreation grounds when I was young … the 70s and 80s, fancy dress parades (my friend and I going as Alice in Wonderland and the White Rabbit), playing tennis, crazy golf, putting, sitting on a rug on the hill at fireworks displays and the entertainment that went beforehand, Gloria’s café with the best chips after a cold sit on the hill, live bands, the big slide that appeared for maybe one summer, cycling round Ramore Head … freewheeling on the curves and bends without even a thought that we could fly off over the edge onto the rocks below….”

Lower putting green, 1938 postcard; below, Shutt / Hunt / Rigby family photos (Courtesy Pauline Rigby)

Pauline Rigby: “(right photo) Frank Hunt (my Dad) Grandad Tiny (Captain Shutt), Mum (Gerry Hunt) and Granny (Mrs. Shutt), at the Recreation grounds around 1954/5. My grandad there was Captain Shutt, he organised the entertainment at the recreation grounds from 1929. I remember Davy was the name off the green keeper at the recreation grounds in the 1950s and 60s. One of the things I remember about Davy is that he had a big brass button in the middle off his dungarees. When I was asked my grandad, he told me that the button was the correct height for the tennis nets to be – and that was how he managed it.”

Looks like 1910s, before the recreation grounds. Old maps show the area as being a quarry, in those early 1900s of stone production. I guess that excavation became the contours of the sunken, lower putting green.

Fancy dress at the Recreation Grounds! Photographs courtesy of Hunt, McNally, O’Neill, Frankie & Josie, Minihan families
Stephen O’Neill: “Hi David this is a picture of my older brother Mac taken by Billy Lee, L’Atelier, mid-60s for the fancy dress at the recreation grounds. Not sure if it would be very PC nowadays!”
Nuala Mcallister: “Well, that jogged the memory a bit, David! Here’s the ‘Indian Chief and Squaw’ from 1964… lol”
Pauline Rigby: “Me at fancy dress parade, 1957”

George Lavery: “My one big memory of the Recreation grounds at Ramore Head was the fancy dress parade. I was about 8 years old and had a large red sit-on three-wheeled tractor which had pedals and a chain just like a bicycle, it also had a small crane-like feature at the front. The day before the parade, which started at the Station and ended in the recreation grounds, I had been walking on the East Strand and noticed something that looked like a rocket, washed up on the beach. It was about 18 inches long with a diameter of 4 inches and I thought that this would be great attached to my crane device on my tractor and pretend it to be a rocket launcher. This I did the following day and paraded all the way through town and on to the recreation grounds to be judged and hopefully win! Actually what I had found was known as a Jezebel, used for hunting submarines and would have been launched by a low flying Shackleton belonging to the RAF.
I guess a few years later post 1969 I could have caused such panic in Portrush, it really did look more like a suspect device.“

David Thomas: “The Fancy Dress display was a laugh too. If you were in a hurry, you would rush with your mum’s bed sheet, cut some holes in it,and go as The Holy Ghost. The only thing was, apart from your Mum not too happy, was you discovered another 5 or 6 Holy ghosts had turned up too, by the time you got to the starting point at the train station.”

The stories have the Fancy Dress parading around the town, like in the image of the Glasgow comedians Frankie & Josie. I guess crowds of people and parades became un-cool in the early 70s, and thinking of her star-dom in the mid-70s, Allison writes: “David, sadly we don’t have any photos but I remember wearing my mums wedding dress to one. We didn’t parade the town it was a few laps round the tennis courts and line up in your age range. Mr Alexander was the judge. I didn’t win anything but it was great fun and lots of kids took part. There used to be dog shows too, but we were just spectators of those – no dogs allowed in our upstairs maisonettes.“

Janice Finlay: “My memories of the recreation grounds is the wee dance they used to have for us kids in the evenings in the summer. They always played “Simple Simon says…” . I always remember the boards we danced on, I loved the noise they made! also the fancy dress parade. My two brothers and I went as Bill and Ben and Little Weed – I was Little Weed – and we won 3rd prize.“

Lower putting green / play area, and ‘Maureen’s Folly’

Caroline Dorsett: “Hi David, my memories of Ramore Head and the recreation grounds are of tennis lessons with Hadassah Lord. I was never any good (like at badminton) but I loved her lessons. Portrush didn’t produce a forerunner to Serena Williams from me! I have fond memories of the fireworks and show on Ramore Head on a Saturday night. The head was packed as we all watched the show on the courts and the fireworks after. Getting up from the grass with only a damp bottom if you we’re lucky. If not it could be wet or worse with all the dogs that exercised there …..“

David Matthew Patton: “Hi David, I’m not much of a story teller, Portrush was busy during the summer but was very quite in winter. July was when the Belfast folks came for their holidays and August was when the Derry folks came, and Princess Street was always very busy with the boarders. Us young people spend our summer evening diving and swimming either in the harbour or the Blue Pool. In winter we dived and swarm in the indoor swimming pool in the Northern Counties (that was where I learned to swim and dive). I remember it cost about 3 pence a session which lasted 3/4 of a hour, and if they weren’t busy they let you stay in for another session. Happy days.“

George Lavery: “I came to Portrush in 1959, my mum owned “Ramona” in Ramore Ave, that arched entrance, overlooking the Recreation grounds. One day this show and booked in and we’re performing in the Arcadia. During their stay the leader of the showband and his colleagues were having a bit of a carry on in our lounge before heading out to their gig. During the carry on the leaders hat was knocked off his head, fell on the floor and was accidentally stepped upon. It was a black bowler hat and the gentleman who owned it was called Acker Bilk. Seemingly this hat was a very important part of his act and he was unable to reshape it to its original state! My father told him that he had a bowler hat which he wore but once a year, on the 12th July, he fetched it, Mr Bilk tried it on and it fitted perfectly! Two days later they left Portrush and my father never got his hat back! Many times since I watched him on TV with his clarinet and bowler thinking, “that’s my Dad’s hat “.

Wow, smart sedan vehicles! Recreation ground opened 1920s, as desscribed in blog, the Recreation grounds – 100 years.

The beginning of sailings for Liverpool were announced on 31st December 1836.
An 1882 newspaper writer says, “Visitors to Portrush have also the pleasure of seeing the Transatlantic fleet pass by in full sail, once or twice each way per day” – that would have been some spectacle! The steamer image here, Ardrossan ferry, early 1900s, described in blog, Portrush – the Harbour story.

David Thomas writes: “The Firework men travelled over from Huddersfield and stayed at our house each year, as we lived nearby at the top of Princess Street. We used to watch them making the large Battleships or Tanks for the main display, in their little firework hut. One year they let me walk around with them to light the big ones. The long rockets were fired from a long rack.. Seven, then a Bigger one, etc. I always remember them playing ‘Walking back to Happiness’ by Helen Shapiro, as they shot in to the sky.“

The fireworks at the recreation grounds ended woth the finale of an illiminated ship or train or catherine wheel that said, That’s all folks! and Captain Shutt finished with his catchline, “And goodnight to all on the hill!” and we must continue our walk on home, and to bed, at The End of a Perfect Day.

Humour postcards
Centre: to Mrs. Robinson in Belfast: “Having a jolly time here. Have been over the sandhills a few times. I fell the other night (but not in love). Camera has taken some fine snaps. W.G.“
Right, 1926, to Misses Farrell in Belfast: “Having a lovely time here. Hope you are being good girls. Will bring some toys.“
_________________

Postcards from Portrush’ series: – many are work in progress, please do send your contributions!
(I) the Story of Eglinton St.
(II) the West Strand & Harbour
(III) Harbour Tales
(IV) the Recreation Grounds, renewed
(V) Landsdowne & Lower Main St.
(VI) Diving at the Blue Pool
(VII & VIII): East Strand, to the Causeway

Postcards from Portrush: the Story of Eglinton St.

Old postcards: super, emotive. The image captures the scene, that period in time; and the writing, the greeting, captures the moment, that day.
I am at the shops down Eglinton St, with my Uncle Joe visiting from England. An August day but the weather was miserable. Uncle Joe buys one of the Edwardian-style postcards, like the style below, that says, “A bracing day in Portrush’ – Uncle Joe is wrapped up in winter coat with the rain lashing down, trying to keep the postcard dry. He writes the greeting for back home, he triple-underscores ‘bracing‘ in the postcard message.

It is Portrush, 1855. You are on the first trains arriving from Coleraine. Cheers, yippee’s! as you see the sea, and then the train puffs and chuffs to a stop. You come out of the railway terminus – you are in a wasteland of sand dunes.

Portrush life is mostly clustered around the harbour, the quayside – there is the steam packet office, a ballast house, an ice house, a harbour bar, the big customs house, the coastguard house. Walking back from the harbour, there is a police barracks, there is the Main Street, the Antrim Arms hotel, the Church of Ireland, some shops and houses, a school, and then the Presbyterian church. And then it stops. It is The End Of Civilisation As We Know It.

There are a few clusters of houses to the left down Causeway Street to Spring Hill. But Eglinton Street, Kerr Street, Mark Street – no houses, no roads, no names – no exist. You keep walking over that OS map of dark-coloured scrubby land that warns, Don’t be here – you hurry over that Desolation of Smaug and there is the railway terminus – the wild frontier, the outpost, out on its own. (Map: PRONI)

Portrush in the 1850s: things happen rapidly. The town development surges towards the new train station. A terrace is added on Main St. next to the Presbyterian church, towards the war memorial and town hall which aren’t there yet.

Across the road, there is a small Methodist school – the church doesn’t exist yet – and in 1858 workers are busy building a memorial obelisk on a mound to Dr. Adam Clarke, for his centenary the next year. A nice residential terrace with nice front gardens is built, as in the postcard below, from the Methodist corner to ‘Morelli’s corner’.

The Lord Eglinton, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, comes to town. People are heady with the success of Portrush harbour and they propose extending it, to enclose out to the Skerries as a big new harbour for super-yachts and luxury cruise ships and cross-Atlantic steamers. To smooch up to the Lord they name those rather smart residential terraces, ‘Eglinton Terrace’.

The development continues and the Eglinton Hotel, on the corner and opposite the train station, opens about 1861. That block known as ‘Railway Terrace’ continues on down towards ‘the fire station’ which doesn’t exist yet. You aren’t familiar with the name ‘Railway Terrace’? Actually even in 1883, the landlord licence application has to describe “my House, situate at Railway Terrace, on the left hand side of the road leading from Portrush to Coleraine“. Anyway, that street becomes Golf Terrace with the opening of the Triangle Golf Course in 1888.

This postcard is about 1900. There are no developments yet on Morelli’s corner. Portrush is a very healthy place for the great outdoors, and the postcard writer James has had four wild swims already; well it is sort of healthy place, but the kids are coming down with colds.

The postcard messages are a bit bland but I love the hand-written, fountain pen writing: you see he writes the address to ‘Mrs Watson, The Hamlet, Earlswood, ……’ but his ink is fading and then he must re-fill to continue to write ‘Belfast’.

On the opposite side, backing on to the railway line, there is Salisbury Terrace, and the posh Hotel Metropole opens at the end of that terrace, in 1907.

Oh so many piddling terraces – tell you what, let’s rename them and just call the whole street, Eglinton Street.

A few years later, this postcard marked 1905, and ‘Eglinton Terrace’ is becoming businessised. The nice front gardens of those corner houses have become the entrance-way to W. T. Wright, Grocers, with its triangle cornice, and there is a shop on the corner with Tea Rooms above. Richard Futterer is saying Guten Tag to Mr Kostelesky in London – in the days when you could write to your german friends.

Oh I should say, in my writing of ‘Portrush Tales‘, thanks to Sheila Brown, she has been a great source of memories and of photographs and of postcard images, and most of the postcards here are her’s. So, how did you collect them? ‘Well David, I was given an old postcard album and I started collecting old postcards of Portrush, about 20 years ago. A man from  Belfast started doing Antique Fairs and he had a shop where Troggs is now. He had a partner who sold postcards in the shop and I got most of the collection from him. I visited the shop quite often and he would keep me local cards. They cost 50p upwards – you can see the £5 price for the rare train station one, below – it all added up but I got a lot of pleasure with them. You can see, they go back in time to early dates of Portrush, like a time machine, and the writing on the back is interesting.
“I enjoyed getting them out for you, and hope you all enjoy! Sheila.’

The original train station had opened in 1855. A big success and swarms of folks poured in for their day excursions or holidays in Portrush. The frontier railway terminus needed upgrading. The mock-Tudor edifice – ‘the finest in Ireland’ – opened in 1893, and is shown on the postcard above, postmarked 1907.

Visitors to Portrush encompass the whole of society. The two women on the near left of the postcard above, looking out from one of the grand front gardens on Eglinton St., in their fine gowns and hats, very posh. One man and his dog can now come fror the day, from the big smoky cities. The postcard greeting, ‘We are stain in Port-rush, as you will see from the postmark.’ High-class, intelligentsia visitors to Portrush indeed.

The above photo taken from the balcony of the ‘Morelli’s corner’, looking along those front gardens of ‘Eglinton Terrace’. Out of the picture on the left is the Town Hall, opened in 1872. The tracks of the Causeway tram, opened in 1883, are on the left, and the water fountain beyond the lamp post there was added in 1890 (it morph’ed into a WW mine). (History of Portrush FB states this photo as 1911.)

Methodists had started the earliest school in the town in the 1830s. They built the Adam Clarke’s memorial obelisk for his centenary in 1859, and the church itself was built and opened in 1887.
You are alert and noticed that the obelisk is in the ‘wrong’ place, didn’t you? It was built on that mound – where the church hall is now – and moved to its current position in 1909, its 50-year anniversary.

So this postcard is about 1908. A cheapskate postcard though, only cost Sheila 60p. Greetings to Mr. Edwards, ‘To wish you many happy Christmas’s,’ says Mr Hyndes, then living in the town. But I think he was very naughty as he wrote his greeting even into the area where it says, ‘Address only to be written here.’

The August 1912 postcard above, is looking up Eglinton St to the train station and up into town, with the one causeway tram though quite a crowd there.
He writes a romantic letter back to Miss Prier in Portstewart to let her know that he has got back safely, that it was thunder and lightning today but some times of glorious weather too.

This postcard, postmarked 14th July 1916. Portrush streets are quiet. The Scotch ferries that brought thousands of holiday-makers from Scotland stopped at the start of wartime, never to re-start; the men are fighting on the Somme. All is subdued.

Portrush is perhaps a quiet place for home leave and recuperation and rest and romance. The postcard writer also records thunder and lightning yesterday and bad storms today, and that he could not get the train. The weather is glorious today though and he could not tear myself away to leave until the last train. So here’s a postcard to you Mrs Robinson, in Belfast. Forgive me, I could not help myself, he closes his letter.

After the war, Portrush folk wanted to erect an appropriate war memorial but I suspect that the fund-raising method proposed above was rather too avant garde for Portrush, a 100 years ago.

But the fund-raising was successful, and 1922 postcard: ‘Here is a picture of the War Memorial. We are very proud of it.‘ Oh and Mrs Brown of Gourock, ‘Please send word what length skirt your wear. Hug and a kiss from Aunt Cissie.’

PS In case of any shock or offence, the newspaper actually said, ‘Public meeting’ – it is transcribed incorrectly in the archive.

August 1927, and George writes to dear Elizabeth Marriot in Stoke to let her know that, ‘We have arrived in old Ireland and all is going well.’ They will have arrived at the nice bustling train station, with sedans in the station square waiting to transport you to your accomodation. There are still horse and carts too, and the causeway tram, but car travel became the fashion, and the carriage or tram became a cheapskate alternative, an un-liked form of transport. The causeway tram with its ‘toast rack’ seats fell further out of favour.

Amazing photograph above, I reckon 1920s or 30s, taken from outside the Langholm hotel, looking towards Coleraine Rd. direction. The tram line is on the right, on the left the shops next to the Langholm. There’s the portico that was Wright’s the grocer’s, and the Eglinton hotel over the junction beyond.

The lady in white, coming towards you, wearing a white kimono and carrying a parasol: a ‘Chinese Lady’ on her way to Fancy Dress at the Recreation Grounds? I see such costumes were regular winners there, in the 1930s. ,
Hazy away in the distance, is that the smart house that will become the police station in the 1970s?

Shops, ices and cafes around Morelli’s corner. This postcard addressed to Mr Heywood in sunny Bolton, postmarked 30th June 1937. The tattoo & fireworks banner ‘Thursday 8th August’ pins this photo to 1935.

Karen Mo’ comments, ‘Oh David, wonderful! I like the timeline and how you’ve deduced the dates. The cards are interesting, a brilliant visual of how the town developed over the years. And the fashion always interests me for some reason. ‘Piddling’ made me lol‘

The fashions? ‘Oh, loving just loving the lovely long skirts, the hats, the mens’ shoes – oddities that I can zoom in and really get a close look – I like that. Very early I see the ladies all wore the same long coats and skirts and hats, all the same! As time goes on you can see the hemline gets shorter, some wear hats some don’t – they become more individual, less staid, I think. All very interesting!‘

On the left, below, I think this postcard is 1930s, with the bright brickwork of the Town Hall, the war memorial, and the Causeway tram. Portrush is abuzz. There are nice shops there on Morelli’s corner; all in all, a colourful postcard, all is bright and sunny.

Sheila Brown says, ‘I came to Portrush in 1943. I only remember going in the tram to the Causeway the once but still I remember how exciting it was to go on the tram. I remember going with my brother – he had to get going on it, he is now 80 so it has to be 74 years ago. The tram depot was where the filling station is now on Causeway St. and the depot is at the Causeway.

‘Looking at the shops there, in the above right photo, Miss Charleton and her sister ran the newsagents and fancy goods shop beside Morelli’s – you see the canopy over it. We used to wait on the bus there, but it only ran every hour to Portstewart and many a long wait we had. The shops on the left are the Milk Bar – I think Rosborough’s owned it – and Buchanan’s Chemist was there, No. 43. I remember Mr Buchanan.’

I reckon the postcard (above right) as 1940s – wartime. Petrol-rationing, walking and cycling, no cars. The unloved causeway tram got a lease of life, for wartime transport and carrying military equipment, but finished at the end of 1949.

Overall though, postcards like the above through the 1940s and 1950s are rather dark and dirty, black and white, cheap ink – austerity times, compared to the colourised 1930s one on the left.

Trish Gray, of the ‘Photographer of Portrush’ Lee family at L’Atelier, tells of her dad being commissioned in the 1960s to take photographs around N. Ireland for a postcard series. ‘We had a lot of enjoyable Sundays visiting all the amazing sites in NI. I will never forget the sight of my Dad, casually wandering over the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge, big camera on tripod over his shoulder, not bothering with the ropes, while the rest of us were dithering at the edge! I don’t think it had the same safety features then! Some great places and very intrepid roads in a wee Vauxhall Viva – which didn’t have too many safety features either! – to Murlough Bay, Torr Head, Kenbane Head, etc. However, I don’t think the postcards were ever published, sadly. I think the firm went bust!’

It was a tough time for photographers and postcard printers. The Troubles ruined all the Scottish and English tourist travel. Karen Mo’ remembers working in postcard printers at Omagh and of it being a financial struggle, as maybe large scale printers came in. ‘Oh I loved working there, with the huge black iron willy wonka machine that was the full length of the print room. In it’s heyday, I’m sure whirling and swirling banging and clanging and churning out postcards, but now it was mostly silent. The smell of the ink and aged paper in this room was very distinctive and oddly comforting, and immediately took me back to the old book store at my school.’

Sheila K: ‘You know David, I have often seen old postcards of Portrush, but I never really saw in detail what you’ve just written about … the small-ness, the compactness of the town … the expansion … the high class (and not so high class, as you deduced from them ‘sta-in’ here) visitors and developers. Once again, you have looked at sources, researched further, added your own touches and postcard memories … I just knew there was more to write about
“Postcards nowadays are out of fashion – but in the 70s every local shop in town had them, priced at 3p per card.’

The postcards up to 1940s interest me the most. The photography was great and interesting, a snapshot of of the time, postcards could be colourful and quality image. The 40s and 50s then were rather low quality materials, and dark and drab images. The postcards that I remember in shops in the 1970s were the ubiquitous Hinde’s – images – years out of fashion, with lurid colours. They all featured a man or woman or both, wearing their bright red or blue shirt, standing in the lower left or lower right of the photo and gazing admiringly into the scene, in an embarassingly trite posed style.

And in the most animated images, they get someone to stand and pretend to point at something interesting, just to emphasise the significance of the image. Or they photograph the guy as he prepares to spin and do somersaults over the high beam handrail at the Arcadia.

There is some interest in the greetings on posstcards but generally the writing is fairly bland. Me, when I went on holiday, Day 1 was spent trying to buy Carte postales and to ask at the French post office about the price of Timbres to send to Gross Brittanien, in my best schoolboy French, and wondering why they looked at me funny. Then of spending hours trying to find a pen and then to write postcards messages of Wish you were here or other blah blah, and then to search for a post box to get them sent quickly so that the postcard had a chance of being delivered before I returned.

I am pretty happy now just to take a view out my hotel room or a selfie, and send it and get on with enjoying the holiday.

Thanks for reading! Phew! we covered a lot of topics in this blog! Here’s index and references:

Index – ‘Portrush Tales’ by David Martin

Postcards from Portrush’ series:
(I) the Story of Eglinton St.
(II) the West Strand & Harbour
(III) Harbour Tales
(IV) the Recreation Grounds, renewed
(V) Landsdowne & Lower Main St.
(VI) Diving at the Blue Pool
(VII & VIII): East Strand, to the Causeway

Metropole Hotel: The Metropole (I) – Hotel: Decline and Fall
Metropole: The Metropole (II): as Ministry of Finance – Portrush’s biggest employer
The sand hills, that became the first golf course: the Sandhills and the Triangle – the start of Portrush golf
Development of Portrush
– the train staton: 1850s – The Steam Train Cometh
– the 1800s: 1800s: of Trains, Tram and Tourists
– wow it is just sand!! Portrush – Living on an Island
Recreation grounds – 100 years
The causeway tram:
– “You must see the Giant’s Causeway”
– “It was only a tram”
Jimmy Molloy and the Harbour Bar
The Photographer of Portrush (1) L’Atelier studio
Part I, on Portrush schools: Growing pains
The Town Hall (and the start of Portrush panto), Act I: Dramas at the Town Hall, 1870 to 1970

“Portrush Tales” – to The Farthest Shore – Michael White (Part II)

“I remember Pantomime performances by Rossi Duke and Rodney Byrne. One scene on the final night, the fairy called out for her magic wand, left behind unintentionally in the wings, and was instead handed a toilet seat by Rossi Duke – it was memorable.”

Michael White, now over 50 years in New Zealand, opens up his Pandora’s box of memories and of photographs and writes about his wonderful teenage years in Portrush.
Previously, Part I, Portrush Tales – from The Other Side of the World, describes his family arriving in Portrush and the friends that Michael forms. He continues the story in this episode…

February 1956. Age 13. Dad transfers from Belfast to the old Northern Bank in Portrush. Family moves to No. 2, Strandmore, Portrush…
March 1961. Age 18. Left Portrush for Surrey in England to join the Civil Service…
July 1970. Age 28. Boarded SS Australis at Southampton, bound for Auckland in New Zealand.

Michael writes, “I loved Portrush. The two very long beaches, the harbour, the summer, Dunluce Castle and the Giant’s Causeway in the distance, and time with my friends. Winter, with the wildness of the sea and the chill. And the contrast to the summer, the packed holiday atmosphere of the town, the Arcadia…..

Summer job at the Arcadia
On the outside of the Arcadia dancehall were several kiosks selling all sorts of summertime goodies. There were “American Ices” which served a sugary and creamy dollop, seaside funny hats, plastic toys and buckets and spades. Everyone was on holiday in the summer and the kiosks were all very busy! From 1958, when I was 16, I ran the popcorn and candy floss kiosks, and my friend Maureen McKillop ran the postcards one, next door.

Maureen McKillop from Bushmills who looked after the postcards kiosk at the Arcadia; Michael White at popcorn. 1960

Bert Blundell was the owner of the Arcadia and also of the amusement arcade on Main Street. He would stand on the steps of the Arcadia on summer days, wearing his grey suit and polaroid type glasses, with hand clasped around his very generous midriff, surveying his empire. His silver Rolls Royce car, number plate BB100, would be parked above the steps down to the Arcadia, sitting there no doubt as his symbol of commercial success. I think he was English, sometimes seeming distant and austere and not very approachable, yet affable enough when I got to know him.

Bert added an electric popcorn machine to his fleet of equipment and he offered me the chance to operate it and sell the popcorn. He told me to clean the machine with hot water at the end of the day and so on the first day, I filled the sink up with hot water and dumped it in, little realising the effect on the electrical parts! I did not get sacked but I learned a valuable lesson about water and electricity. Sam Bell, the Portrush electrician was called in to rewire it, and I was shown how to wash it properly and not give the electricals a bath!

Ladies’ Bathing place, on the left; the Arcadia , with my candy floss Kiosk at the top of the steps down to the beach, below the sign “Self Service Cafe”; Maureen McKillop’s postcard Kiosk was to the right of mine.

Pat Moynihan from Portumna in County Galway was the walkabout manager for the kiosks and a ‘bouncer’ for the dancehall in the evenings. He was not very tall, had a shock of curly red hair and always dressed in a checked sports jacket, cavalry twill trousers and what we called brothel creeper shoes. He was a lovely guy with a great Galway accent and when I was working in the popcorn kiosk, he used to call out to me from his position in the middle of the promenade, if he saw a pretty girl, “Michael, an opportunity for you is approaching from the port side.”

Rodney Byrne & Irwin Stewart, Mark Street 1960

I was making candy floss one day with a long queue of people at the window, when there was a bit of a fuss with someone pushing and shoving trying to get to the front, much to the irritation of others. I heard the noise and looked up from my machine to see my mother, elbowing and wrestling her way through the crowd. When she finally reached the front of the queue, she was angry, and I was instructed to get up to the house at once. I declined and carried on working and said I would come up when I was less busy, but she persisted until the people behind her told her in no uncertain terms to “Go away!” She said in front of everyone that she had found my collection of “dirty postcards” under my bed! The crowd roared with laughter, and there were a few cheers and comments from the people gathered around her. I remember being a bit embarrassed. She left when the laughter erupted. I did go up to the house about an hour later and under my bed she had found my postcards with colour cartoon drawings and printed below each drawing was a caption or saying which was usually rude, with some sort of innuendo. They were harmless in a way, and I had amassed a collection of the better ones which I wish I had now as they are worth some money.

Me on the East Strand in 2012, with my house indicated by the arrow over my left shoulder; and me on the steps of 2, Strandmore.

I went back to the candy floss, where the crowd had disappeared and told Maureen about it. She thought it very funny and offered to replace my ‘under the bed’ collection. I did not manage to rescue the postcards from my mother’s clutches though. As my parents spent all their spare and leisure moments at the Royal Portrush Golf Club where they were both good golfers, I suspect the postcards circulated there!

1950s British Railways posters, bringing the crowds to Portrush

CSSM, Sundays, & Church
Summers and the many visitors prompted the ardent preachers in Northern Ireland to come to Portrush. CSSM, Childrens’ Special Service Mission, was one of these, conducted by the large and corpulent Rev. Armstrong who preached his gospel on the East Strand, on the beach opposite our house. I joined for a while during the summer and enjoyed meeting others, helping build Armstong’s sand pulpit on the beach over which he would drape his sashes of ecclesiastical authority. Rev. Armstrong organised many sports activities which were a lot of fun.

We had to go to church on Sundays as it was expected of my father as a Bank official, and he could not take the Monday morning remarks at work about any non-attendance the previous day. Services at the Portrush Presbyterian Church were conducted by the Rev. Kyle Alexander, starting at 11am. After singing a few psalms and hymns and preaching the morning lesson to the under 5’s, they were ushered out to Sunday School. At 12:10pm, the Rev. Alexander would launch into his sermon. Occasionally my mother, much to my father’s gross embarrassment, would ‘slip out’ from the pew just before Rev. Alexander started, explaining that she had “forgotten to turn the oven on for the Sunday joint of meat”, nodding, smiling, and stopping briefly to whisper her excuse to people down the aisle on the way out. After a few Sundays she had to stop this as it was predictable every week, and I heard my father tell her that comments were coming back to him at the Bank.

I reminded my Dad of this many years later in Auckland, and he just nodded and smiled, saying that there were possibly others who wanted to do what she did, but did not have the courage! (Or the “brass neck”!)

Left: “This, I discovered tucked behind the lid of a cardboard box. The back of the photo says, ‘Brother Jeff and me, Arcadia promenade, 1959″. I was 17, Jeff was 12. It may be of interest or use. My brother might enjoy it if he sees the blog. Best, Michael”
Right, West Strand, 1960: Gerald Johnston, Brian Minihan, Brian Cunningham, Derwood Magill, Alan Rainey, Irwin Stewart, Rodney Byrne

One Sunday after church, when having been forbidden to go near the rocks and the beach before lunch, I jumped the rocks at Ladies’ Bay to beat the waves – but slipped and fell in, soaking my shoes and long trousers. I would have been 15. As a punishment when I got home, I was instructed to kneel on the floor and bend over my bed as my father gave me six strong whacks on my backside with a flat piece of wood, saying, “This is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you.” I am not sure that it did, but I was not going to let him see me brought to tears. And he did not. I stood up and stared at him as I held back the tears of pain, but fair enough, I was told not to jump the rocks and I paid the price.

Hard winters in Portrush
In contrast to the summer months, the winter months between November and March were cold and stormy, with the Atlantic roaring in all its fury, whipped up by the strong northeast winds. From the house, which faced northeast and straight out to sea, the scene was often dramatic with huge surf, or ‘Atlantic Rollers’ as we called them, tumbling around as far out as we could see.

I remember sand which had been whipped by the wind being piled up in the little porch to our front door, and my mother sweeping this regularly. Our lounge windows were continually covered with salt from the sea spray carried on the wind, as the house faced into the teeth of any North Easterly gale. Going up the Main Street in winter was a challenge sometimes, as the wind could be fierce, and if you did meet someone coming the other way, it was heads down into the gale. The wind would chill your ears and nose until they were almost numb, and it blew very hard.

the Station, February 1960

We watched television a lot during the dark evenings. ‘Sunday Night at the London Palladium’ with Bruce Forsyth, ‘Bonanza’, ‘The Cisco Kid’, ‘The Lone Ranger’, and rushing home from school to watch the cartoon show of Yogi Bear! In black and white of course – colour television did not become available until 1970, nine years after I left Northern Ireland.

In the yacht club down by the harbour we played snooker and billiards, and then would go to my friend Irwin Stewart’s house on Mark Street as his mother ran a three-storey boarding house which had a television in a large lounge. Many shops stayed open in the winter, however there were few people on the streets, and it was quiet. There were two cinemas on Main Street, one just up from Forte’s Cafe and the Majestic, further on up, and on the other side. I remember my father took us once around 1957 to see a war film, called ‘The Man Who Never Was’, recently remade into ‘Operation Mincemeat’.

Jack McConaghy at Boggs the Chemist, September 1951, with his new assistant, Sadie Douglas / Jefferson;
Tommy Kane, May 1960, with Ray McConaghy, along Croc-na-mac

Photography was a hobby that developed during those months. It fascinated me, I had read many books on it in the CAI Library, and I put my savings from the Arcadia summer job towards buying a Leica camera – still, the basic model was all I could afford in the shop in Coleraine. Whenever I was out with my friends and at school, the camera came too. It was my dearest possession.

Those days, no instant gratification of photos on your phone, instead I would take my black and white film to Bogg’s the Chemist on Main Street. A week later, the envelope of photographs opened with expectation and trepidation to see what I had produced…. Sometimes I was really pleased, but sometimes disappointment that “it didn’t come out.” Jack would review my photos with me, pointing out where I could have taken something into account, like the sun, shadow, light and contrast. As a young boy I liked Jack very much and appreciated his help and advice, friendship, and welcoming smile and banter when I came to the shop. An affable character, he was always good for a laugh, too! He became a great friend, and later years whenever I was home I popped into see him, as I did with Jean Ross in the confectionery shop across the street.

My interest spread to developing my own films and printing of the photographs. My parents allowed me to convert the “boxroom” at the top of our staircase into my darkroom. For advice, Jack told me where he sent my films and he put me in touch with Tommy Kane.

The Harbour, 1960. Photo taken by me with hand-held Leica camera, to capture the silhouettes with the sun going down over Moville and Donegal, on a summer’s evening. Film processed and printed by me at home in my darkroom.

Daytime, Tommy was on the buses with the Ulster Transport Authority; evenings, I could meet him at his family darkroom premises behind the hotel in Eglinton Street, near the old Catering College. He was a lovely man, with a long neck and a prominent Adam’s apple. Tommy was just as helpful in explaining the development side of photography, and what I needed, what to look out for, and suddenly I was into the world of development tanks, chemicals, enlargers needed to complete the printing process, and then buying the paper on which the film and each photograph was printed. I spent many evenings in the darkroom with Tommy, watching and learning, and like Jack, Tommy too was enormously patient and helpful. Many of my photos are included in this story.

Other technical hobbies, my friend Rodney’s elder brother, Gary, showed me how to build a “crystal set” which was a tiny, primitive radio receiver. I would shop around looking for the parts in Coleraine on the way home from school, and then solder bits and pieces together and connect the wires. It was successful and I listened through an old pair of earphones which I found in a second-hand shop, but the only station I could receive was Radio Luxembourg which broadcast in English from Luxembourg. It broadcast pop music and was supported by commercials, such as:
“The time by my H. Samuel Everite watch is now 10.15 p.m.—precisely!”
I used to listen to it in bed under the bedclothes.

Robinson Crusoe, pantomime, 1961: Alex Diamond and Tony Kane; Rodney Byrne

The streets were quiet in wintertime but local drama and music and other such groups were busy. The annual pantomime was put on by the local Church of Ireland drama group, in December and into the first week or so of the new year, and was a highlight of those winter months. I couldn’t take part as I was not a member of that church but enjoyed helping where I could. I did take a few photographs, and about a year ago posted a photo of three people whose names I couldn’t remember on to a Facebook page on Portrush and replies came from two people saying they were relatives who were amazed at seeing their uncles in panto costume, some 60 years later.

I remember performances by Rossi Duke and Rodney Byrne. One scene on the final night, the fairy called out for her magic wand, left behind unintentionally in the wings, and was instead handed a….. toilet seat, by Rossi Duke – it was memorable.

1960. summer, me at the west strand; right, Christmas

We celebrated a White family Christmas, 1960, at Portrush. My parents and brother Jeff are standing there in front of the tree, a Mr and Mrs. Green, their son Denis and a friend of Jeff’s, and a Matt Gilfillan in the left corner. Me, I had finished school in June 1960, and in limbo had some months helping out in classes at Inst before and after my interview in London for the Civil Service, in November.

In that interview, me with my Senior ‘A’ Levels in languages, I asked to be considered for the the Immigration department. And just before Christmas a very official OHMS envelope arrived, confirming that I was appointed as…. a trainee Tax Inspector with the Inland Revenue! I was 18, and this would be my last carefree family Christmas at home, before I would start work in Surrey, in March 1961.

Left, Geraldine, Irwin, Angela, Pat and Derek Watson in 1960, with “props” for the occasion!;
right, February 1961,

During those winter months as teenagers, we would gather in various homes listening to the new records. A few experimented with smoking cigarettes but it did not appeal to me and I never did. There was some beer, but I cannot remember any of us getting drunk and certainly any sort of drug had not been heard of. Some of us in our group of about 10, as we got a bit older, started pairing off into couples and it was good fun to find out that “She has dropped him and is now going out with ———-.” The photo above right is February 1961, the month before I went to England, me with Sandra Quigley at the Boathouse in Coleraine.

I left Portrush in March 1961 and went to England to join the Civil Service, visiting back to see family and friends in the summer, and then for Christmas.”

David writes: The BBC has recently been celebrating with Sadie Jefferson on her 71 years, since 1951, of working at the same chemist location on Main St. in Portrush. Looking for photos of her at the chemist for the BBC articles, Jack McConaghy’s son Ray has just found this previously-unseen photo in Jack’s photo albums. Sadie of course on the right; in the centre is the pharmacist, Jack McConaghy.

The young man on the left was unknown to us.

Last week, I received the memorabilia from a Michael White, celebrating his 80th birthday in New Zealand, and writing up his teenage Portrush story. He mentions doing some photography at Bogg’s the Chemist.

Ray looks again at Jack’s photo album. It is meticulously captioned, and says,
‘Dec 1961 [Jack McConaghy] with Sadie & ……..Michael White ‘.

It is amazing!!! Michael had visited the shop to see Jack when home for his first Christmas from England. The photo was taken with Jack’s box Brownie camera, by the then owner of Boggs Chemist, George McCann (‘I seem to remember a shortish baldheaded man, also in the shop’) and it was in Jack’s possession. Now, 61 years later, Michael is seeing this photo for the very first time, and is so delighted, it representing the years of friendship with Jack.

And Sadie remembers: “I so enjoyed reading the blog! Michael worked with us on his summer school holidays. He was a lovely young man. He went to Coleraine Inst. After he left us to go to university [well, Civil Service in England] I lost touch with him. I was amazed that he ended up in NZ !!  I can’t believe he is 80 now. I knew his Dad,  he was in the old Northern bank next door to the shop. He was a gentleman.”

Michael continues: “The next year, 1962, my Dad was transferred back to Belfast and I lost contact with N. Ireland and Portrush for some years. In England in the 1960s, I met Jacqui, my future wife, at a party in her Nurses’ Home at Kingston Hospital in 1966. Her parents had just emigrated to New Zealand and she was under stern orders to follow on completion of her training in 1968. Instead, we married in 1968 and she stayed while I completed my accountancy course at Night School.

Then, after 6 years with the Inland Revenue, after some consideration we set off in pursuit of a huge adventure and the challenge of a new life in a new country. We boarded the SS Australis at Southampton on 3rd July 1970.

Six weeks later, Jacqui and I sailed into Auckland in 1970. I was greeted with some reserve by my new parents in law, who were miffed that I had not asked them for their daughter’s hand in marriage!
Well, I replied, You weren’t there.

Michael White, today, and with six of my 12 grandchildren at “Hobbiton” from ‘Lord of the Rings’, in the northern half of the North Island, about under 2 hours drive south of Auckland; 80th birthday celebrations

There followed for me an interesting and successful career in finance and financial management. Our family grew, four children, until sadly my lovely Jacqui died in 2006 at the age of 59.

“This is “Takapuna Beach,” 5 minutes drive from where I live, 15 minutes drive from the city centre.”
Hmm…. which is better: New Zealand, or the East Strand?

I now look after myself in a very pleasant retirement village near the beach on Auckland’s North Shore.

It may be many years and miles away from Portrush but the ties are still there. I met a couple from Bangor and mentioned that a friend from Portrush, Liz Clarke, had moved to Bangor with her family. They knew her and told me that she was married and living in New Plymouth in New Zealand. We caught up and have been good friends with her and her husband John since about 1972.

I have returned to the ‘Port’ several times over the years from my New Zealand home. Having just celebrated my 80th birthday, I have really enjoyed gathering up my memories and my photographs of teenager years in one of the best places on Earth, one of the best phases of my life, and I hope that you have enjoyed them too.”

Part I – “Portrush Tales” – from The Other Side of the World – Michael White
Part II – “Portrush Tales” – to The Farthest Shore – Michael White

Links to related “Portrush Tales” blogs –
The Swingin’ Sixties!
Portrush, Easter – My Day in Barry’s, Barry’s and the Wall of Death
1600s – a Century of Trouble (about Dunluce castle)
“You must see the Giant’s Causeway”
Sunday School Excursion to Portrush (day trips to Portrush, 1950s)

With thanks to……
Michael refers to Rodney Byrne’s “Vintage Port” with superb descriptions of characters, events, and life in general in and around the Port in the 1950’s
Photographs courtesy Michael White, Ray McConaghy, Pauline Hunt, David Martin
Postcards from Sheila Brown
Archive photographs from History of Portrush Facebook group

“Portrush Tales” – from The Other Side of the World – Michael White (Part I)

Portrush folks, as you know, are pretty canny. Be it loving the beauty of Portrush and not wanting to leave, or going off for education or work and coming back later, or going elsewhere and settling – whichever, never losing the connection with ‘Home’.
These ‘Portrush Tales’ are being read in 66 countries of the world – I guess where Portrush folks are now living or working or holidaying, but still wanting to keep in touch.

Countries (in red/pink) where folks are reading Portrush Tales (nobody in Greenland though, or Russia.)

Some Portrush people move away as far as Coleraine or Ballymoney or places like that. Me, the last handful of years I’ve been in Munich, about 1,200 miles from Portrush. More impressive is Michael White – in Auckland, New Zealand, the other side of the world – ten times further away, 12,000 miles distant. He just celebrated his 80th birthday; it is over 60 years since he left Portrush but he looks back to his teenage years there in the late 1950s, the formative years of his life, and remembers…… 

My 1956 letter to my aunts written at the age of 13  (Betsey was our Corgi dog,  and Charley, having been dug out of the furniture van, was my tortoise !! )

“February 1956. I was 13. We moved from Belfast to No. 2, Strandmore, Portrush, as my father had been transferred to the branch of the Northern Bank in the town – then, next to Bogg’s the Chemist and opposite Forte’s ice cream parlour.

Michael White – Arcadia 1960, and today

I clearly remember the journey by steam train, and the letter to my aunts talking about the trip up. Dad was waiting at the station for my mother, my brother Jeffrey, and me, and I remember our walk from the station to the house, which was in a terrace of semi-detached houses owned by a stern looking lady, Mrs. Stewart, always accompanied by her live-in friend, Miss Holbrook

The glorious view looked straight out over a low-walled front lawn to the East Strand and the Atlantic Ocean, stormy and brutal in winter, the Giant’s Causeway, with Scotland’s Mull of Kintyre and Campbeltown far away in the distance.

View of the East Strand from Strandmore, Christmas 1961

The house was accessed off Causeway Street and along Craigvara Terrace to the flight of steps leading down to the promenade. Halfway down the steps on the right is the entrance to Strandmore – a bit further and you came to the shop, a rather smelly confectionery shop run by a Miss Dick. She would remove the cat which slept on the chocolate bars. If I got my feet wet when jumping the rocks at Ladies’ Bay, she let me dry my socks in front of her electric fire before I went home! It did nothing for the chocolate!!

Our house was narrow, two storeys. Downstairs was the kitchen, a small separate dining room and the small separate “front room” or lounge, all with fireplaces. There was a small, enclosed back yard with the washing line, and coal house to store coal which was delivered in black sacks which the coalman would hoist on to his back from the back of the truck on the street, stagger down the alleyway from Causeway Street and back pathway to the yard, and with a swing off his back, would empty the sack. He might have had two or three sacks to deliver to us and then on to the next house. He was covered in coal dust, black from head to toe, and I distinctly remember that before lorries, a large Clydesdale horse would pull the coal cart along Causeway Street. One of my jobs was to chop sticks or kindling for the fire from old wooden orange boxes, and I would do this in the yard. To keep meat or other food fresh, the food was kept outside in the yard in a cabinet with a perforated door, and this was called the “meat safe.”

Our house was the first of the 2 storey semi detached; with my brother Jeff, taken in May this year

Upstairs there were three bedrooms – a double and single at the front and a single at the back. Next to the bathroom and toilet at the top of the staircase was a “box room” or storeroom, which in later years I used as a dark room for my photography hobby.

The house at Portrush in the mid 1950s had neither fridge nor freezer nor washing machine. My mother did all the washing by hand, then put the clothes through the mangle in the yard by inserting the clothes between two large wooden rollers mounted on an iron frame and turning a side handle to rotate the rollers, squeezing out the water. We changed clothes and had a bath once a week. Hot water for a bath came from a wetback behind the kitchen range which was an enclosed fire on which pot and pans could be heated, instead of the gas stove. If the fire in the stove wasn’t lit, we had no running hot water and my mother had to boil a kettle of water for my father to shave each morning. This would be left for him at the foot of the stairs. The fire was lit once a week, so that we could have our weekly bath! Showers? We had never heard of showers.

Left: early 1900s photo – Boggs the Chemist on the left, then the Northern Bank (before mergers and its re-location up Main St). Right: my Dad, Louis White, Cashier at the Northern Bank in Portrush, from 1956 to his transfer back to Belfast in October 1962 (photo 1970, visiting us in New Zealand).

School & good friends
The afternoon of the day that I arrived, I made friends with a boy of my age who lived next door, Gerald Johnston, and Rodney Byrne who lived in the last house in our terrace. They both went to Coleraine Inst and I was due to start there the day after we arrived in Portrush. My other close friends were Irwin Stewart and his future wife, Penny Trench, now living in Denver, Colorado, and Alan Rainey, who sadly died at far too young an age.

At one time, and I cannot remember the reason, Gerald and I fell out. He sometimes took a delight in practical jokes which often were not funny and seemed always to be to his advantage. Somehow, we had to sort out our disagreement, whatever it was, and Rodney and Irwin arranged that Gerald and I settle it in the flat area in the sand dunes off the East Strand, by fighting it out. We did so, I won the scrap, and friendship was reinstated.

Upper Sixth, Inst – Irwin Stewart, Alan Rainey, Michael White, Rodney Byrne

My long grey school trousers were made of a rough serge type material which was very itchy, and so uncomfortable that in the end I wore my long pyjama pants underneath to make it a bit easier. When we changed for PE (or “Gym” as it was known), some guys used to laugh that I wore my pyjamas to school, but a few others thought it was a good idea as they had the same problem of itchiness. Soon, several boys wore their “jammies” underneath their school trousers.

My school shirts for Coleraine Inst had separate detachable collars which were sent away to the laundry and came back starched. These collars were extremely stiff, uncomfortable to wear, and were attached to the shirt by a stud which went through a hole in the back of the collar and the shirt at the back of my neck. If a collar was a bit worn and starting to fray on the top edge, being starched so stiff it would chafe and rub my neck, hurting all week, as I had to wear the same one. I hated them.

I would borrow a lot of books from the library in the Town Hall but homework dominated the evenings during the week. , as I had work to do on at least five subjects, plus occasionally I had to learn a four or five verse poem by perhaps either Wordsworth or Keats, or a piece from one of Shakespeare’s plays, and be able to recite it in class the next day. Failure to do so, would incur a detention after school. I remember learning the item during the half hour journey on the bus to school in the mornings.

Summers at the Port
Portrush earned its business from visitors from Scotland and England and other parts of Ireland during the summer months of June to August. In the 1950s it was the mecca of the North of Ireland, and the population of the town would swell to such large numbers that the streets were crowded, families and kids with buckets and spades crammed the two beaches, the amusement arcades were packed, the bingo halls were busy, the boarding houses and hotels were full. The seas were calm, the sun shone, and we had all the fun of a popular seaside town in the 1950s.

Arcadia 1950s

Our house was built into the side of a hill, and down a long flight of steps to the seafront was the Arcadia Ballroom. There were dances every night in the summer between June and September from 8pm to midnight, to the music of Dave Glover and his Showband. Couples would waltz around under the mirrored rotating ball hanging from the ceiling, or jive to all the latest pop tunes of the 1950s. Sometimes summer afternoon dances were put on if it was wet, and I would sneak in and watch the drummer in the band with admiration. He was Ernie Hicks, known as “Ernie Hicks behind the Sticks,” and occasionally during the interval, or when the place was a bit quiet, he gave me lessons on the drums.

Frank Moore, from the local photographers, dressed in his white coat with “Grimason’s” written on the back in red and his cheesecutter cap, would pace up and down the East Strand promenade below our house with his Leica camera in its brown leather case hanging around his neck, mingling with crowds on the promenade and calling out very importantly, “Holiday snaps, get your holiday snaps, ready tomorrow at Grimason’s at the Blue Pool.”

The Blue Pool was a local attraction with a large inlet from the sea in the rocks, with mounted diving boards and spectator areas where perhaps once a week in the summer evenings, local teenagers would give public diving displays to the great enjoyment of the crowd. My friend Derwood Magill was a great performer and very good off the high board, and for a few years he was always introduced over the public address system as ’13-year-old Derwood Magill’. His speciality was a twist with a pike and a tuck, entering the water with barely a splash.

Rodney Byrne, Irwin Stewart and Michael White, Portrush 1961
Right, diving display at the Blue Pool

A permanent attraction in the town was Barry’s, the funfair run by the Trufelli family. I had a summer job on the dodgems when I was sixteen, collecting the money and freeing up ‘traffic jams’. Barry’s was full of attractions like the Waltzer, the Big Wheel, and the Wall of Death, where motor cyclists rode their machines round and around from the floor to the top of a very high circular wooden wall, going so fast around the walls that they maintained their position at the top by centrifugal force, almost at right angles to the floor.

Barry’s was packed in the summer and on entering the place, the noise of everything was incredible, together with the smell of electricity from the overhead electric contacts of the bumper cars. These contacts were on long poles attached to the back of the cars and would spark and fizzle with blue and white flashes of electricity from the metal ceiling when it was in full swing. The noise from all the machines was deafening.

West Strand, 1960, From left, Michael White, Gerald Johnston and Irwin Stewart

Summers were a lot of fun for us as we grew up to be teenagers and discovered music. Bill Haley and the Comets with ‘Rock around the Clock’ had just come on the scene around 1955, then followed Cliff Richard and the Shadows with ‘Living Doll’, Elvis Presley with ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, Buddy Holly with ‘Peggy Sue’ and ‘Rave On’, Roy Orbison with ‘Only the Lonely’, and Connie Francis, the Everly Brothers, Ricky Nelson, and many others. Barry’s had a myriad of slot machines and several juke boxes, and we would gather around, put a threepenny coin in the slot, the mechanism would come to life, select the 45 rpm record from the stack, drop it on to the turntable, and as teenagers we would have 2 minutes 30 seconds of listening to our favourite tune.

‘Skiffle’ was a popular form of music in the 1950s with Lonnie Donegan as the most popular English recording star of that genre. Five of us formed our own skiffle group in the 1959 summer, with my friend Derwood Magill (of Magill’s Grocery Shop just off Main Street at the northern end of the town) who was very good on the guitar and as vocalist, but we had to make some other instruments. We played on the promenade just below Rock Ryan, above Ladies’ Bay. I was on the double bass, which was an old large square plywood box called a ‘tea chest’ (in which tea was imported and the empty boxes were available from the grocer on Main Street). I drilled a hole in the top, inserted a long thin iron bar to which was attached some fishing line with the other end of the line pulled tight to a nail on the outside of the chest, and this was my double bass. We had another tea chest acting as the drum kit.

Derwood went on to become a very well-known singer and entertainer in the Sydney, Australia, nightclub scene and I did catch up with him in the 1980s in Sydney, though he died about 1990 when quite young.

West Strand, 1960, L-R: Gerald Johnston, Brian Minihan, Brian Cunningham, Derwood Magill, Alan Rainey, Irwin Stewart, Rodney Byrne

Another favourite summer pastime as late teenagers was to sit in the Lido Cafe on Main Street listening to the records played over the speakers by the owner, Mrs. Trufelli, who also owned Barry’s. She knew my father quite well and may have banked with the Northern Bank in the town. The cafe was the place to gather, and we drank Coke or coffee.

A major feature in the late summer was the Fireworks Display which was held on the tennis courts at the north end of the town. Captain “Tiny” Shutt was known to us all and he organised the display. The best vantage point was from Ramore Head above the courts, and we would go as a group of young teenage boys and girls. Sometimes with a bit of romancing, a girl would go with you to the ‘Fireworks’ as a special date! I remember one Fireworks night asking Jenny Hill of Hill’s in Coleraine if she would go out as a regular date, and joy of joys when she said, “Yes”!

The Harbour, 1960 (Photo taken by Michael with hand-held Leica camera. Film processed and printed by me at home in my darkroom.) Right: fireworks display advert, Portrush 1958, as organised by Capt Shutt

‘Portrush Rock’ was a big seller in the confectionery shops. This was a solid stick – it was not called ‘rock’ for nothing – of hard, sweet, pink, confectionery with a peppermint taste, about 300mm long and 50mm in diameter, wrapped in cellophane, but imprinted in the centre right through it in pink, were the words, ‘Portrush Rock’. It was a big souvenir to take home to grandparents, but who after trying to eat it had to book a trip to the dentist, it was so hard and solid. The only way to eat was to break it with a hammer and even munching the little bits of ‘rock’ was hazardous.

The East and West Strands were packed during those days. We enjoyed the summers: they were warm, we played soccer in the sand dunes or on the beach, and we would spend a while in the sea. We swam in the harbour, jumping or diving off the high diving board or sunbathing by the red changing boxes on the harbour wall. We went snorkelling and spearing plaice, we hired dinghies in the harbour, fished for mackerel in the harbour or from the rocks, and occasionally would land an Atlantic salmon. The water never seemed to be cold, there were no wetsuits, and we just accepted it for what it was.

In 2008, my old school friend Rodney Byrne gave me a copy of his excellent book on the history of Portrush, “Vintage Port”, and part of it does give a good flavour of life there in the 1950s. He writes about an incident when four of us – Rod, Irwin, Alan, and me – decided to take a dinghy outside the harbour, even though a storm was brewing, and we had to be rescued when the weather turned very ugly! It makes good reading, but we were so lucky that day.

Michael White and Irwin Stewart at Portrush 1960

We went to some large limestone caves in the White Rocks at the end of the East Strand, and would go on out to Dunluce Castle, which was in ruins but quite spooky in the dark evenings, and we have some parties there. Across the road from Dunluce was an old graveyard but the inscriptions on the tombstones had been beaten out by the weather, even in the 1950s.

Entrance fees to Dunluce Castle and the Giant’s Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge were non-existent in our teenage days. The rope bridge was not a tourist attraction as it is today, it was for fishermen to get across the gorge between the mainland and a small island, and was functional and not built with much health and safety in mind. At that time, the floor of the bridge was a set of narrow width boards spaced about 300mm apart, some 30 metres above the sea, and these were looped through two holes either side of each board on to ropes underneath, the ends of which were tied to rusty iron hooks at either side of the gorge. There was a rope handrail either side of the bridge, but the ropes were only attached to a hook either side of the gorge and not to the bridge itself. It was good fun, especially when we started to make it swing! Health and Safety was not a requirement!

Summer at the Port, and hard winters too. I loved Portrush, the two very long beaches, the harbour, the summer, the packed holiday atmosphere of the town, the wildness of the sea and the chill in winter, the contrast in seasons, the Giant’s Causeway in the distance, Dunluce Castle, and my friends. I remember distinctly walking our corgi dog, Betsy, along the East Strand beach in front of our house, vowing that I would never leave Portrush.

But of course I did.

=============
END OF PART I .

Part I – “Portrush Tales” – from The Other Side of the World – Michael White
Part II – “Portrush Tales” – to The Farthest Shore – Michael White

With thanks to……
Michael refers to Rodney Byrne’s “Vintage Port” with superb descriptions of characters, events, and life in general in and around the Port in the 1950’s
Photographs courtesy Michael White, Ray McConaghy, Pauline Hunt, David Martin
Postcards from Sheila Brown
Archive photographs from History of Portrush Facebook group

Links to related “Portrush Tales” blogs –
The Swingin’ Sixties!
Portrush, Easter – My Day in Barry’s, Barry’s and the Wall of Death
1600s – a Century of Trouble (about Dunluce castle)
“You must see the Giant’s Causeway”
Sunday School Excursion to Portrush (day trips to Portrush, 1950s)

Portrush Ballrooms: the Palladium & Arcadia

Kevin McFadden in Donegal, a promoter, writes: “Around 1964 while working in Portrush I saw Rosemary Brown and her sister, aka “The Brown Sisters”, in the Edwin Heath show. It was in the Palladium on Causeway St. for the summer.”

Mention of the Palladium, a ballroom, grabs my interest – it is not somewhere that I have heard of. So, to step back a bit….

It is April 1939. It is the Gala Opening of the Palladium Cafe and Ballroom in Portrush, on Causeway St. The owner was James Menary, who also had the Palladium cinemas in Coleraine and (right) Portstewart

Wartime, many US servicemen stationed in Portrush, and the spring-y floor of the Palladium reverberated to the big band sounds and dances, and there were acts like Marvelle in 1942, able to read your thoughts……

Right: US servicemen stationed at Portrush, on their way to the Palladium to dance to the Troubadours and to get their minds read by Marvelle

I reckon that the Palladium was premier, no competition, the only ballroom in Portrush during wartime – the Northern Counties and Fawcetts having been requisitioned, and remembering that the Arcadia was still only a cafe.

The businessman F. G. (‘Bertie’) Blundell had some amusement arcades in the town, but the article below describes him itching to expand into ballroom. He heard the razzamatazz of the Dave Glover band playing at the Palladium in 1949 and he wanted that sound, and he extended the Arcadia to have a ballroom, a purpose-built venue for Dave for the summer seasons, from the early 1950s.

The next years, the Arcadia with the Dave Glover band was the place to be. Conversely I find no photos of the Palladium, maybe reflecting its tiredness, and in 1958 the Palladium Ballroom is put up For Sale. Adverts plead for dance bands to come, and that the venue is open to consider other offers too – whist drives, socials, bingo, cinema, whatever to use the hall. It is a venue for ‘Old Tyme dancing’ – quite low-key, with the advert squeezed in at the bottom of the Arcadia advert, where ‘Dancing by the sea’ is going from strength to strength, lots of photos and publicity, and with the Dave Glover showband in their seventh fabulous season there.

The hypnotist Edwin Heath became a regular slot in the summer season from about 1958 to 1964. Syd Watson remembers the show in 1963: “Late on a Sunday there was a midnight show at the Palladium, much to the annoyance of a number of folks. The star of the show was a fancy guy who was a famous hypnotist.”

1963, and Sunday was Sabbath – no fun, no frivolity. A risky venture was to allow a ‘Sunday Matinee’ – Palladium doors opened at five past Sunday midnight for a 00:20 show. And big crowds attended, with 200 left outside, unable to get in. But there were marches up to Ramore Head in protest, and calls on Edwin to give all proceeds to charity.
(Me, I’m in Germany, where shops are pretty universally closed and Sunday is a quiet family day, quiet actiivities, a special day, different from the other days – I like it.)

That hassle over the Sunday midnight matinee in 1963, but Edwin did one more season at Portrush, 1964, as described below.

Summer 1964. In the centre, there’s the advert (Belfast Telegraph, July) for the Edwin Heath show. But the advert for the Edwin Heath show is rather low-key, compared to on the **very same newspaper page** about the Rolling Stones coming to Belfast, August 1st, 1964 -teenage screaming, hysterics, people fainting at a rate of one every minute..

Amazing now to see posters for the Rolling Stones coming to Munich, 60 sixty years on, in June 2022!!

So that was the 1964 summer season at the Palladium. For the 1965 season, the venue is re-branded as ‘The New Theatre’ and there is a big ‘Palladium show’ with stars like Frank Carson; but Edwin has moved on to Bangor.

Bertie Blundell bought up the Picture House on Main St (became Sportsland) and the Palladium / New Theatre venue on Causeway St. fades away. There were ‘To Let’ adverts in ‘The Stage’ newspaper in spring 1964 – “550 seats. Electronic organ if required” – with Bertie Blundell in Bournemouth as the contact. The next year, 1965, ‘Would Sell Lease.’ (Did the electronic organ go to Ken Gibbons at the Playhouse?)

I think that ‘Palladium show’ season in 1965 was the end of that venue.

Development of the Arcadia: as cafe, 1920s; 1956, ballroom added by Bertie Blundell; 1970s (Photos: source History of Portrush Facebook)
Nevin W says about “a friend who worked at the Arcadia during the day selling candy floss. To stop any cheating, Bertie Blundell would hand out a certain number of sticks at the beginning of shift, and you handed back any that were left at the end of shift. Great idea, yes? But the guys would gather spent sticks from the pavement, wash them, and use them again. Portrush kids are not a sam bit daft!”

Alan McFadden writes about the building, “Hi David, the Palladium: a ballroom, with its unique bouncy floor. I can’t explain that in any great detail but it must have been the way the wood was laid that gave it a great “bouncy” feel when dancing.” And my brother Jim tells me, “Mum remembers it as a ballroom, later a cinema, and they used to play cards in it like Whist or Bingo every Tuesday night. I remember it for Edwin Heath’s hypnosis show every summer – especially him picking dad as the bald man in the audience.“

Alan continues, “Later, it was a printing works owned by Jack Fawcett who you know owned the Counties and Fawcett’s Royal Hotel.” And a George Shorter discovery, “Hi David, I remember it being empty for years. I have a vague recollection of finding the back door smashed open and going in. It was just being used to store loads of stationery, things like duplicate invoice pads etc.“

1980, it is up for sale and is bought and converted into St Patrick’s church hall. “Saturday mornings were dancing classes & activities, and it was a roller disco for the kids.” Garth Law remembers, “A roller disco in the early eighties – the hall had a sprung floor, which my head can attest to!“

When the town hall closed about the year 2000, summer theatre was held in St. Patrick’s hall for a good few years, like as in the poster on the bottom left photo.

St.Patrick’s chruch hall, 2006 (venue for performances before the Town Hall re-opened), & 2014; and interior, 2019, St. Patrick’s night, showing hall with stage

===================
Dana / The Brown Sisters series:
(I) Dana -Coming to Portrush
(II) Dana – Summer job at Minihan’s, Portrush
(III) The Brown Sisters at the Portrush Palladium !!
(IV): from Portrush Palladium to Eurovision and beyond

Podcasts – Dana / Rosemary & Susan Brown
Dana – Part 1 – Coming to Portrush
Dana – Part II – Summer jobs at Minihan’s
Dana – Part III – the Brown family
Susan – Part I – from the Palladium to Decca Records and 5-year contract
Susan – Part II – Fun at Portrush
Susan – Part III – Music & The Big Nights in Derry

(IIa) Ramore St. development, 1960s
(IIIa) Portrush Ballrooms: the Palladium & Arcadia

With thanks to….
Helena Alcorn Espie, who first told me of Dana being at Portrush;
Kevin McFadden for his great write-up of seeing the Brown sisters at the Palladium;
you, for your contributions and photos and memories, especially to Eleanor Bond, David Thomas, George Shorter, Pauline Rigby, Lawrence & the Minihan family, Syd Watson, David Matthew Patton, George Lavery, Ken Mcallister, Jennifer Jaggers, my brothers and mum, Simon Bates….. and oh so many others that have added comments that have been included in the blog;
the great encouraging review feedback from Alan McFadden, Sheila’s Brown & Kane, Karen Monteith.

And Dana herself – she so kindly replied to my out-of-the-blue message on her FB page and she was so lovely and charming in a 20 minute conversation about her Portrush days.
And her sister Susan too, such a great friendly Zoom call with her too.

And thank you, if you have read the blog to here! I guess some blogs would at this point ask for a donation but tell you what, if you add a comment in FB or on this blog, in sentences please (not annoying emojis or push-button responses), it is appreciated for the effort that when into this blog.

Sources:
https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/122880#Background
Kevin McFadden: https://www.facebook.com/profile/100005073183664/search/?q=dana%20killea
https://www.danaofficial.com/about
All newspaper cuttings, source: BritishNewspaperArchive.co.uk
St Patrick’s church hall photos:
https://www.geograph.ie/photo/3976528 & https://www.geograph.ie/photo/222923 ;
https://www.facebook.com/St-Patricks-Hall-Portrush-187896171791409/
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Other links to topics to read:
Portrush cinema (I) – 125 years: Pavilion, Palace, Picture, Playhouse
Portrush cinema (II) – The Playhouse, year 2000
Portrush – the Harbour story
Leander House girls & RAF Portrush lads
Portrush, 1960s – the Swinging Sixties!
Portrush music: Showbands to Stranglers, ’60s and ’70s
Portrush, Easter – My Day in Barry’s

Link to the index of blog posts – stories, family history, events, humour, landmarks, history of Portrush – the things that catch my interest

Ramore St. development, 1960s

In the early 1960s Dana worked for summers in her aunt & uncle’s shop, Minihans, at the top of harbour hill. An idyllic time as she worked in the shop, sang in Fawcett’s hotel, and in 1964 had the summer season at the Palladium, as described in these blogs Dana: Coming to Portrush and II – Dana & Minihan’s shops.

Lawrence Minihan writes, “Just a memory I have of the shop at the harbour in Lower Main St. It was always packed on fireworks night as people left to go home at 11 o’clock or later. I remember my uncle Andy, with Dad, Mum and Maureen Patton (Syd’s Watson’s cousin) serving behind the counter. We kids were more interested in gathering sky-rockets from the rocks at Landsdown. It was a real community at the harbour, with cafés and shops. Us kids would play tig, (as we called it – Scottish influence I think) at the dock head late into the evening-chain tig was a favoutite. And marbles was a favorite game for us in those days (before mobile phones)-We used to play them along street curbs. Life was simple and fun.”

Syd Watson writes, “They were good old times and fortunately John and Mary Minihan were part of my childhood. I was treated like part of the family and I will never forget the craic both at lower Main Street and Bath Street.” It wa sa happy home, a happy area – this blog will discuss the changes to the area.

Lawrence M writes: “From the left side of the painting is the fancy goods / ice cream shop; then the larger grocery / confectionery shop; and then you will see the Electricity showroom on the right.”

People like Syd Watson remember: “It was here that Rosie and Susie Brown spent their summer holidays working for their aunty Mary, and then of course Rosie became Dana. My grandmother, Mrs Patton, lived in No. 5 Ramore Street and to this day that is where I think of when I think of “home”. I had many friends in Garden Court – the McMullens, McGonagles, McKyes and Stuarts – happy days for us Dockhead Rats. We didn’t have much but it was a happy place to grow up.”

Photograph of the shops, prior to Minihans – 1930s? (photo courtesy History of Portrush FB pages). The great bay window of Ramore House, the biggest house in Protrush where celebs like Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Carlyle stayed on their Ireland travels.

Simon Bates: “Nice to see a glimpse of the old bay window of Ramore House. I lived there briefly as child in the early 60’s when my dad was serving in the RAF at Ballykelly. It was either rented privately by my parents or was possibly an RAF ‘hiring’.
I was only about 4 or 5 years old at the time but I remember the rooms in Ramore House had very high windows and it had a courtyard garden. I can certainly remember riding my three wheel bike around the the large courtyard style garden and collecting snails. I also have vague recollections of diggers on site pulling the walls of the house down when the area was redeveloped. I remember Minihan’s having to relocate to Bath Street after the redevelopment as my parents had friends in Bath Street beside Masons jewellers.
I think after Ramore House we moved into Golf Terrace, and then my dad had a spell at Kinloss in Scotland, then Portrush for a year then Gibraltar. From about 1967 onwards we we’re back living in Golf Terrace and I attended Portrush Primary under the headship of O’Hara Logan whose daughter Beth was in the same year.
I remember your father’s name being quoted when parents threatened their children would be marched down to ‘The Barracks to see Sgt Martin.’
Although I can’t directly remember your dad patrolling the streets I recall the fearsome reputation of Louis Craig who was stationed in Portrush in the mid 70’s.”

The streets around there, the ‘Dockhead’: Ramore Street, Garden Court, Quarry Court.

1950s, extracted from Portrush harbour postcard (extracted from History of Portrush FB image)

Dana was at Portrush for 3 summers until 1964, then she was busy studying for school Junior exams. But those times were against the backdrop of plans to re-develop the area.

The dockhead area, viewed from recreation grounds, about 1944 (from source photo: J. Dinsmore)

A great place to grow up in but I see 1959 news of the council drawing up plans to re-develop the area, in those brutalist town planning days, and brutal description as ‘slum clearances’.

Ramore St (photo source: Keith McCormick); January 1967, “Old Portrush houses to go”

Dana was summers at Portrush until 1964 and was then concentrating on her Junior school exams. She missed the area around the harbour dockhead being cleared and the maisonettes built, around 1967.

And that was the end of Ramore St houses and Garden Court and the Minihan’s shops as in the painting. The Minihan family and shop re-located to Bath Street.”

The electriciy showroom shown next to the Lower Main St. shops opened in 1961. Maureen K worked there and writes, “The Electricity Board, or EBNI as it was known, in 136 Lower Main Street was a great building with a beautiful wooden floor – polished every week with a machine – and a beautiful wooden counter and glass windows. It was a great building to work in. After Mr Martin retired, Mr Joe Collins became the Chief Engineer – I really loved listening to him; he was a lovely man. My boss was Miss Nan McCaughan and she was a fantastic boss, great teacher with a lovely nature. Mrs Linda Monaghan was the Senior Clerk who was very patient with me and she also had great teaching skills.”

Sheila K says: “The electricity showroom – oh I remember it being there and the smell of the floor polish when you went in. That was where Portrush residents went to pay their quarterly bills and I’d be with my mum on occasion when she went for that very reason.”

Maureen continues, “I’m privileged to have had two of the best people to work with: Mr Billy Bellingham [our neighbour on Croc-na-mac] was the Commercial Salesman and had an office in the building; and we also had Mr Noel Dallas as a Salesman. There was never a dull moment with these two men about, such good fun. And we had electricians at the back of the building: one was Walter Johnston from Portrush; and the Meter Reader was Mr Jimmy Gough, who knew every building in the town. There were both great people to work with too. EBNI was a great ‘community’ and a great ‘learning’ time for me.”

Photo of the inner harbour, the dockhead. The Electricity shop compares with the painting of the Minihan’s shop (Photo courtesy Freddie Fleming (“Blast from the past! I shot this one in the 70’s”)), and right, today – extracted from photo by Ian Leitch

Afterwards Moran’s amusements took over the electricity showroom site and Lawrence Minihan remembers working there, before moving on to AVX.

Minihan’s corner – photo (left) and David Matthew Patton painting (right) – courtesy Syd Watson

=================
Dana / The Brown Sisters series:
(I) Dana -Coming to Portrush
(II) Dana – Summer job at Minihan’s, Portrush
(III) The Brown Sisters at the Portrush Palladium !!
(IV): from Portrush Palladium to Eurovision and beyond

Podcasts – Dana / Rosemary & Susan Brown
Dana – Part 1 – Coming to Portrush
Dana – Part II – Summer jobs at Minihan’s
Dana – Part III – the Brown family
Susan – Part I – from the Palladium to Decca Records and 5-year contract
Susan – Part II – Fun at Portrush
Susan – Part III – Music & The Big Nights in Derry

(IIa) Ramore St. development, 1960s
(IIIa) Portrush Ballrooms: the Palladium & Arcadia

With thanks to….
Helena Alcorn Espie, who first told me of Dana being at Portrush;
Kevin McFadden for his great write-up of seeing the Brown sisters at the Palladium;
you, for your contributions and photos and memories, especially to Eleanor Bond, David Thomas, George Shorter, Pauline Rigby, Lawrence & the Minihan family, Syd Watson, David Matthew Patton, George Lavery, Ken Mcallister, Jennifer Jaggers, my brothers and mum, Simon Bates….. and oh so many others that have added comments that have been included in the blog;
the great encouraging review feedback from Alan McFadden, Sheila’s Brown & Kane, Karen Monteith.

And Dana herself – she so kindly replied to my out-of-the-blue message on her FB page and she was so lovely and charming in a 20 minute conversation about her Portrush days.
And her sister Susan too, such a great friendly Zoom call with her too.

And thank you, if you have read the blog to here! I guess some blogs would at this point ask for a donation but tell you what, if you add a comment in FB or on this blog, in sentences please (not annoying emojis or push-button responses), it is appreciated for the effort that when into this blog.

Sources:
https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/122880#Background
Kevin McFadden: https://www.facebook.com/profile/100005073183664/search/?q=dana%20killea
https://www.danaofficial.com/about
All newspaper cuttings, source: BritishNewspaperArchive.co.uk
St Patrick’s church hall photos:
https://www.geograph.ie/photo/3976528 & https://www.geograph.ie/photo/222923 ;
https://www.facebook.com/St-Patricks-Hall-Portrush-187896171791409/
===================
Other links to topics to read:
Portrush cinema (I) – 125 years: Pavilion, Palace, Picture, Playhouse
Portrush cinema (II) – The Playhouse, year 2000
Portrush – the Harbour story
Leander House girls & RAF Portrush lads
Portrush, 1960s – the Swinging Sixties!
Portrush music: Showbands to Stranglers, ’60s and ’70s
Portrush, Easter – My Day in Barry’s

Link to the index of blog posts – stories, family history, events, humour, landmarks, history of Portrush – the things that catch my interest

Dana, III – at the Portrush Palladium!!

Dana says, “I was working at Minihan’s shop at the harbour during the day, and I was singing a bit at Fawcett’s hotel during breaks in the dances. And then I got a job for the season at the Portrush Palladium. I love to tell everyone that my first gig was when I was about 14 and that I had a season in the Palladium – they all go !! WOW !!  I don’t actually tell them that it was the Portrush Palladium.” 

Kevin McFadden in Donegal, a promoter, writes: “Around 1964 while working in Portrush I saw Rosemary Brown and her sister, aka “The Brown Sisters”, in the Edwin Heath show. It was in the Palladium on Causeway St. for the summer.”

Andrew Minihan: “Dana is my Dad Lawrence’s cousin. My granny and her mum were sisters, unfortunately both passed away now, Granny died in 2019. But her and Sheila (Dana’s mum) were very close and loved singing.” (Photo: Daily Mirror, March 23rd, 1970)

And Dana remembers her time there: “That time at the Palladium: I remember the first day, I had came straight from working at the shop, just wearing my shop clothes. Oh dear – not quite the appropriate glamour for a stage show! There used to be a lovely woman’s dress shop – when you were looking down the Main St from Minihan’s, on the left, it was a lovely woman’s dress shop. I got a white dress from there, that I wore from then on singing at the Palladium. 

Mention of the Palladium, a ballroom, grabs my interest. Where is that – not somewhere that I know of! Actually it was on Causeway St. I learn that it opened in 1939 and in wartime was a ballroom venue for the many US servicemen stationed in Portrush, with the spring-y floor of the Palladium reverberating to the big band sounds and dances.

1950s and the Arcadia with the Dave Glover band was the place to be, with the ‘Dancing by the sea’ going from strength to strength. I think the Palladium was now a small second rate venue, and in 1958 it is up For Sale. Adverts plead for dance bands to come, and that the venue can be used for whist drives, socials, bingo, cinema, and is a venue for ‘Old Tyme dancing’ – all quite low-key.

That same year, 1958, Rosemary Brown’s name starts to appear on the winner’s list of competitions. She is awarded a singing prize at Derry Feis, aged about 7, and was a winner in 1959 too:

Derry Feis in 1961, and Rosemary and her sister Susan score with a duet, and Rosemary is part of the 6-person team winning at Coleraine Music Festival, for “National (not Irish)” dancing:

There is a ballet award for Rosemary in 1962, and a duet award with a partner in 1963; and an award at Portstewart Festival. The headlines of ‘Eire girl scores at feis’ and Incredible triumph’ but those were somebody else: Rosemary’s name is just among 30 other winners’ names in these days. There is nothing outstanding at this time.

So, Derry, Portadown, Coleraine, Portstewart, …… and presumably any other number of places too. You know, you parents, spending your Saturdays taking your kids to places.

Dana continues about her ‘fame’ developing at Portrush: “I won a competition, a fancy dress competition, up in the recreation grounds – I was dressed as a Spanish lady. And my cousins would be in it as well – Lawrence, Paul, …  – I remember that very clearly.

“I also sang in Fawcett’s hotel. That was a big venue – of course Portrush was always beautiful, bustling, busy with visitors.“

David Thomas says, “Rosemary had a singing spot at Fawcett’s Hotel, during the supper break of dances, as the waitresses moved around the dance floor serving sandwiches and tea. I was aged 6 and played duet on the piano with her – really only beacuase me and my younger brother Peter were bored senseless, sitting under the piano all night as we often didn’t have a babysitter. My “pay” was some free sandwiches but we also earned some pennies, performing “the Twist” for the older ladies, often Scottish, from the tour buses.”

Left, Rosemary Brown, aged 16, at the Palladium in Portrush (photo courtesy Minihan family)
Right, David Thomas, David Patton (artist of the Minihan’s shop painting), and Peter Thomas (photo courtesy George Lavery/David Thomas)

Dana says that she then got a job at the Palladium. I don’t find any photos of that venue but I pull the rabbit out of the hat when I ask Ken Mcallister if he knew of it. “Yes indeed,” he says, “my mother worked there, on cloak room tickets. There was always quite a crowd attended.

“Later the hypnotist Edwin Heath had his show at the Palladium, in Causeway St. I used to work for him there, and we also went to Ballycastle and did a show at the Lammas fair time. Good times. Everyone thought I was a brilliant singer. My time with Edwin Heath must have been in 1956. We would kid on that we were hypnotised, then we would kid on that we were on motorbikes and we would go all around the hall. Then he would lift me unto 2 chairs and get 2 people to sit on me. The last part of my act he would say that I was a famous singer. Who are you? and I’d reply, Tex Ritter! and I sang the song, The Wayward Wind. We did the same show, 6 nights a week. The audience loved it.”

The hypnotist Edwin Heath became a regular slot in the summer season from about 1958 to 1964. Syd Watson remembers the show in 1963: “Late on a Sunday there was a midnight show at the Palladium, much to the annoyance of a number of folks. The star of the show was a fancy guy who was a famous hypnotist.”

1963, and Sunday was Sabbath – no fun, no frivolity. A risky venture was to allow a ‘Sunday matinee’ – Palladium doors opened at five past Sunday midnight for a 00:20 show. And big crowds attended, with 200 left outside, unable to get in. There were marches up to Ramore Head in protest, and calls on Edwin to give all proceeds to charity.
(Me, I’m in Germany, where shops are pretty universally closed and Sunday is a quiet family day, quiet actiivities, a special day, different from the other days – I like it.)
But after that hassle over the Sunday midnight matinee in 1963, Edwin did only one more season at Portrush, 1964, as described below.

Summer 1964. In the centre, there’s the advert (Belfast Telegraph, July) for the Edwin Heath show. On the left the article describes Edwin’s exasperation that people in the audience were being a pain, pretending to or really dozing off, not hypnotised, and spoiling the show. On the right is about Rosemary (13) and Susan (17), having been singing together for over a year, performing in halls over the province, facing the most nerve-wracking as appearing in front of their own family!!

But the advert for the Edwin Heath show is rather low-key, compared to – on the very same newspaper page – about the Rolling Stones coming to Belfast, August 1st, 1964 – teenage screaming, hysterics, people fainting at a rate of one every minute..

Dana says, “The Edwin Heath show: 6 evenings a week, and I remember the thrill of it, watching him. He was so amazing, I think he was one of the best hypnotists – even to this day, one of the best I’ve seen. I remember watching him, and the fun of the people, coming up and thinking they were a chicken or whatever. It was a lovely lovely experience for me.”

Dana, do you happen to remember it, the Palladium venue? “Oh yes, I remember it yes, I can see it in my mind’s eye, I can see being on the stage looking out, I can see the front of the building, I can see the theatre itself.

“Of course at that time Portrush was a major holiday spot. So, I was very very lucky to sing at a show like that.”

Someone tells me that Eileen sang in the Dave Glover band – what a musical talented family! “Oh you know, there is such a tradition of music in N Ireland! My father joined the brass band, the same one that his father and his grandfather were in. He joined when he was about 6 – and all my brothers joined when they were about 6 too, so there was a tremendous training ground. We all learnt to read music and the discipline of being in a brass and reed band. I still have a tremendous love for brass and reed bands.”

And she reflects, “All my professional life I kept in touch with Edwin Heath. Again, one of life’s gentlemen. Years later, when I had children, I suddenly developed an extreme fear of flying, which of course was disastrous as I was traveling all the tiime. Edwin made me a cassette tape that I could listen to, at take-off and landing, and that helped me.”

The trio of Brown sisters:
Left – from Lawrence Minihan: “My sister Catherine with our cousin Eileen (Rosemary’s (Dana’s) sister), who used to sing together with their sister Susan in Portrush – I remember them in Fawcett’s hotel”
Centre, Susan (“Better pic of me here – anything will beat that zoom one lol If I knew you were going to take a picture of me on the zoom call, I would have at least combed my hair.”) Right, Dana, from a Christmas card to Pauline

(And Susan confirms with Eileen and tells me, “Our sister Eileen, who by the way was the best singer of all of us, did not sing with us at any of the Portrush venues. She was already a well-established artist in her own right, having been a resident singer with the Embassy Band of Derry, The Memorial Hall Band (along with our brother Robert) and also the Derry City Show Band and Frank Mc Laughlin, indeed she even went to work in England with this band. She did sing with the Dave Glover Band on many occasions – not as part of his resident band but as a frequent guest.”)

And Syd Watson agrees: “Yes, all that family were musical – her mother and her aunt Mary Minihan could have sung professionally. I was at Jackie Minihan’s wedding and his grandmother who was over 80 got on the stage and sang an aria it was breathtaking.”

“In those days the Rosie and Susie sang as the Brown sisters. The oldest sister, I wasn’t so pally with – ah, Eileen, I couldn’t remember her name. You are right she was a hairdresser.

“the Brown Sisters” : Susan & Rosemary at the Palladium, with their trademark outfit of white dress and matching white shoes, here leaning on the big white organ (Photo from Susan)

“Susan was about my age. She was in the London area training to be a nurse. We were pen pals at the time – I was training in the RAF at Somerset. She met someone and they got married, and they went to the US.”

Jennifer J remembers Rosemary practicing her songs at the juke box in Graham’s cafe across the road from Minihan’s shop. And Syd continues, “Rosie was the youngest, very pretty. Strangely she didn’t have the strongest voice in the group but they were brilliant – I can remember them knocking out, ‘Da Do Run Run’.”

So that was the 1964 summer season at the Palladium. For the 1965 season, the venue is re-branded as ‘The New Theatre’ and there is a big ‘Palladium show’ with stars like Frank Carson; but Edwin has moved on to Bangor.

Bertie Blundell bought up the Picture House on Main St (became Sportsland) and the Palladium / New Theatre venue on Causeway St. fades away. There were ‘To Let’ and ‘Would Sell Lease’ adverts in ‘The Stage’ newspaper in 1964 and 1965 – “550 seats. Electronic organ if required”.

I think that ‘Palladium show’ season in 1965 was the end of that venue.

Alan McFadden writes about the building, “Hi David, the Palladium: a ballroom, with its unique bouncy floor. I can’t explain that in any great detail but it must have been the way the wood was laid that gave it a great “bouncy” feel when dancing.” And my brother Jim tells me, “Mum remembers it as a ballroom, later a cinema, and they used to play cards in it like Whist or Bingo every Tuesday night. I remember it for Edwin Heath’s hypnosis show every summer – especially him picking dad as the bald man in the audience.“

Alan continues, “Later, it was a printing works owned by Jack Fawcett who you know owned the Counties and Fawcett’s Royal Hotel.” And a George Shorter discovery, “Hi David, I remember it being empty for years. I have a vague recollection of finding the back door smashed open and going in. It was just being used to store loads of stationery, things like duplicate invoice pads etc.“

1980, it is up for sale and is bought and converted into St Patrick’s church hall. “Saturday mornings were dancing classes & activities, and it was a roller disco for the kids.” Garth Law remembers, “A roller disco in the early eighties – the hall had a sprung floor, which my head can attest to!“

When the town hall closed about the year 2000, summer theatre was held in St. Patrick’s hall for a good few years, like as in the poster on the bottom left photo.

St. Patrick’s church hall, 2006 (venue for performances before the Town Hall re-opened), & 2014; and interior, 2019, St. Patrick’s night, showing hall with stage

Dana says, “Being part of such a professional show at such a young age – I was 13 or 14 – was a tremendous experience. You know I had sung at talent competitions, on the stage every year, but this was different, to be on a show with an artist like Edwin Heath. I watched him every night, his professionalism – although he repeated his act over the evenings it was as though he had never done it before – oh the freshness of it, the fun of it, and I loved that.”

From the trio of singing and song-writing sisters, Eileen went into hairdressing as her day job, and singing with various top bands; after 1964, Susan went off to do nursing training in London, met and married and went abroad.

Rosemary Brown, now solo, won first prize in a folk music competition in 1965 at the Embassy Ballroom in Derry, with prize to record a demo tape. Tony Johnston, a headmaster and part-time promoter, took her under his wing. For the next few years she did her school work, did her Junior exams and was then preparing for Senior exams when she got a phone call, Might she be interested in auditioning for the Irish National Song Contest?

=================
Dana / The Brown Sisters series:
(I) Dana -Coming to Portrush
(II) Dana – Summer job at Minihan’s, Portrush
(III) The Brown Sisters at the Portrush Palladium !!
(IV): from Portrush Palladium to Eurovision and beyond

Podcasts – Dana / Rosemary & Susan Brown
Dana – Part 1 – Coming to Portrush
Dana – Part II – Summer jobs at Minihan’s
Dana – Part III – the Brown family
Susan – Part I – from the Palladium to Decca Records and 5-year contract
Susan – Part II – Fun at Portrush
Susan – Part III – Music & The Big Nights in Derry

(IIa) Ramore St. development, 1960s
(IIIa) Portrush Ballrooms: the Palladium & Arcadia

With thanks to….
Helena Alcorn Espie, who first told me of Dana being at Portrush;
Kevin McFadden for his great write-up of seeing the Brown sisters at the Palladium;
you, for your contributions and photos and memories, especially to Eleanor Bond, David Thomas, George Shorter, Pauline Rigby, Lawrence & the Minihan family, Syd Watson, David Matthew Patton, George Lavery, Ken Mcallister, Jennifer Jaggers, my brothers and mum, Simon Bates….. and oh so many others that have added comments that have been included in the blog;
the great encouraging review feedback from Alan McFadden, Sheila’s Brown & Kane, Karen Monteith.

And Dana herself – she so kindly replied to my out-of-the-blue message on her FB page and she was so lovely and charming in a 20 minute conversation about her Portrush days.
And her sister Susan too, such a great friendly Zoom call with her too.

And thank you, if you have read the blog to here! I guess some blogs would at this point ask for a donation but tell you what, if you add a comment in FB or on this blog, in sentences please (not annoying emojis or push-button responses), it is appreciated for the effort that when into this blog.

Sources:
https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/122880#Background
Kevin McFadden: https://www.facebook.com/profile/100005073183664/search/?q=dana%20killea
https://www.danaofficial.com/about
All newspaper cuttings, source: BritishNewspaperArchive.co.uk
St Patrick’s church hall photos:
https://www.geograph.ie/photo/3976528 & https://www.geograph.ie/photo/222923 ;
https://www.facebook.com/St-Patricks-Hall-Portrush-187896171791409/

Dana, II – summer job at Minihan’s, Portrush

Syd Watson says, “It was here that Rosie (Dana) and Susie Brown spent their summer holidays working for their aunty Mary Minihan, and then of course Rosie became Dana. My grandmother, Mrs Patton, lived in No. 5 Ramore Street and to this day that is where I think of when I think of “home”. I had many friends in Garden Court – the McMullens, McGonagles, McKyes and Stuarts – happy days for us Dockhead Rats. We didn’t have much but it was a happy place to grow up.”

Lawrence Minihan: “This was my Dad’s shop in Bath St after we moved from Main St – I guess taken in the 80s”

Continuing my conversation with Dana from the previous blog, Dana – Coming to Portrush, she says, “Well, I went to Portrush to stay with my aunt Mary Minihan and my uncle John, and I remember being there for three summers in a row. The first was when I was about 13 – so young, of course we were not allowed to go anywhere on our own in Derry. But my aunt Mary Minihan was my mother’s sister, and we were allowed to go to Portrush because she knew we would be well looked over. My uncle John was a perfect gentleman, and we went there to Portrush and worked in the shop.

Photos, courtesy Minihan family. Lawrence writes: Left: “My sister Catherine, age about 2, on the weigh scales outside our shop in Lower Main St – about 1960.” And, “​Here’s one taken early 60s of Catherine and me as a young boy with my older cousin Madeline. Notice the old Recreation grounds Pavilion in the background with the Punch and Judy hut left of it, where we were entertained as young kids.”

“They had two shops there. The grocery shop was where he made the best home-baked ham in N. Ireland, if not the whole of Ireland, and he used to deliver it in a little van to all the surrounding towns. It was very famous.

“The grocery shop was the bigger shop. Next door he also had a little souvenir shop and fishing tackle as well, and I worked in there. My job was to put out the postcard stands and the buckets and spades and beach things that the children would play with. A daunting task was to check that the packets of lugworm were fresh – I hated that! Many’s a time someone would come in to buy a packet of lugworm and I would lift the packet and it would burst open and my hand would be covered in these disgusting lugworm.

“I think it has left a deep psychological scar on me lol !“

Lawrence M writes: “From the left side of the painting is the fancy goods / ice cream shop; then the larger grocery / confectionery shop; and then you will see the Electricity showroom on the right.”

from Syd Watson: “My cousin David Patton recently painted this of John Minihan’s grocery store and ice cream parlour, for want of a better description, at the bottom of Main Street and Ramore Street, back in the early 1960’s. It shows my late great friend Brian Minihan. The picture has captured the place and the feeling brilliantly.

Eleanor Bond: “David, the Dana I knew, her name was Rosemary Brown, from Londonderry. Her auntie was Mrs Mary Minihan who had the grocery shop at the top of the harbour, with fancy goods and ice cream and fishing tackle, the shop beside their house where the front row of maisonettes are now. The Minihans were a great family. I worked in the small shop when I was 12, and I also baby sat their baby daughter.“

Sheila K: “Oh I never knew their shop was ever there! What an amazing and detailed picture! Great to see … and thank you Syd for sharing.” 

Margaret M: “I remember the Minihans shop and the family. Mrs Minihan brought Dana’s mum to visit my mother a few times.”

Maureen McC: “Syd W, what a lovely painting of that lovely shop! I spent most of my childhood summers with my granny who lived in Garden Court and my cousins who lived in Ramore Street.”

1950s, extracted from Portrush harbour postcard (extracted from History of Portrush FB image)

Ken Mcallister: “Oh we used the shop there during the war with our ration book. John was very kind to us.”

Sheila Brown:  “Oh we knew all about rationing! No ‘Sell by’ dates in those days – we were glad of anything we could get. Points, sweet coupons, bread units, clothing coupons, petrol coupons… A week’s food per person was small – definitely no need for slimming.

“That was a long time ago, 1940’s – thankfully we have all we need now.”

Claire H: “Oh I love this, I knew the Minihan family well as I lived not far away. A very respected family in Portrush.”

And Eleanor B remembers, “That’s brilliant David, I enjoyed reading, it brings back a lot of really good memories. I spent quite a lot of time in Minihan’s house, they were a great family. I had only known them a short time when Mrs Minihan had a baby girl called Katherine, and when she was only a few month old she asked me if I would keep her overnight. They had 4 boys, I counted it a great honour.”

And of the family, Dana remembers, “Oh Lawrence was a terrible one for climbing, always falling off one cliff or another. I remember being in the shop when word came in that Lawrence has had a fall from another cliff, and my aunt going white, white in the face. And there were quite a few moments like that, during my working time there.”

Lawrence Minihan writes, “Just a memory I have of the shop at the harbour in Lower Main St. It was always packed on fireworks night as people left to go home at 11 o’clock or later. I remember my uncle Andy, with Dad, Mum and Maureen Patton (Syd’s Watson’s cousin) serving behind the counter. We kids were more interested in gathering sky-rockets from the rocks at Landsdown. It was a real community at the harbour, with cafés and shops. Us kids would play tig, (as we called it – Scottish influence I think) at the dock head late into the evening-chain tig was a favoutite. And marbles was a favorite game for us in those days (before mobile phones) – we used to play them along street curbs. Life was simple and fun.”

But I see 1959 news of the council drawing up plans to re-develop the area, in those brutalist town planning days, and brutal description as ‘slum clearances’. Dana was at Portrush for 3 summers until 1964, then she was busy studying for school Junior exams. She missed the area around the harbour dockhead being cleared and the maisonettes built, around 1967.

And that was the end of Ramore St houses and Garden Court and the Minihan’s shops as in the painting. The Minihan family and shop re-located to Bath Street, as John C describes: “Oh fabulous place! I lived at 13 Bath Street. Minihans was a beautiful family-run delicatessen at 1-3 Bath Street. It was the real deal from a bygone era. High quality produce and friendly staff. I lived there in 1973 and it was a thriving business. I know it was still in existence in 1986 but some years later I saw it had become a cafe. Happy memories of a friendly shop full of wonderful delights.”

Richard B: “I have good memories of Minihan’s deli (open on Sundays!) as well as Lawrence, my boss when I had work experience at AVX in Coleraine.” Lawrence says, “Yes I was at AVX for 35 years. I remember Richard well. He did work experience in the Production Control group. He was a bit of a character himself. I knew his dad John as well.“

Music was a strong element in the Brown household, and another family trade was hairdressing. Sandra McS writes, “Rosemary Brown’s uncle Paddy Hasson owned the hairdressers / barbers shop in Garvagh where she worked.”  And Anette M adds: “I was a friend with Eileen, Rosemary’s eldest sister. She had a hairdressers in Garvagh, in 1963.”

Eleanor continues, “I also had my bridesmaids and my own hair done for my wedding in the salon above Divito’s Lido cafe, with Eileen, on 16th December 1967.”

David: ‘Eleanor, might you have any photos of you, of those years that you worked at Minihan’s?’
Eleanor: ‘David I’m delighted to tell you I have no photos of my time working in Minihans not many cameras about in those days, thank goodness, wouldn’t want to see photos of me at that age .’

Photo of the inner harbour, the dockhead. The Electricity shop compares with the painting of the Minihan’s shop (Photo courtesy Freddie Fleming (“Blast from the past! I shot this one in the 70’s”)), and right, today – extracted from photo by Ian Leitch

Valerie B: “Thank you so much for this. I remember when Dad’s shop (Graham’s) first opened in Portrush, on the corner over the road from Minihan’s, and one of the Divitos (an older lady, from memory) taking my sister and me upstairs to eat our chips. She showed us the (now unused) hair salon and some beautiful dolls. She kept a bottle of tomato sauce upstairs just for us!”

Left: Rosemary Brown at Portrush, aged about 16, 1964; right photos, 1970

In the previous blog, Dana – Coming to Portrush, Dana remembers so many of the faces around Portrush and in particular of a lifelong friendship with Pauline. I message to Pauline R – is that you? “Yes that’s me,” she replied. “Captain Shutt, who arranged so many visitor events in Portrush, was my grandfather.”

And Pauline continues, “I first met Dana / Rosemary Brown in the 1960s. She used to come to stay with her Aunt Mary and uncle John Minihan’s shop at the corner off Main Street and Ramore St. – it was always known as Minihan’s corner! We lived across the road. She would help in the little shop they opened in the summer, and she would sing in Fawcett’s and at the Portrush Palladium. We would bump into each other and talk.

“We have kept in touch ever since – always exchanging Christmas cards and visiting each other when we can.”

I will tell you more about it the next time.

Minihan’s corner – photo (left) and David Matthew Patton painting (right) – courtesy Syd Watson

=================
Dana: “Dear David, It was lovely to talk with you and to read these tales. Brought back such fond memories.
Best, Dana” 
=================

Dana / The Brown Sisters series:
(I) Dana -Coming to Portrush
(II) Dana – Summer job at Minihan’s, Portrush
(III) The Brown Sisters at the Portrush Palladium !!
(IV): from Portrush Palladium to Eurovision and beyond

Podcasts – Dana / Rosemary & Susan Brown
Dana – Part 1 – Coming to Portrush
Dana – Part II – Summer jobs at Minihan’s
Dana – Part III – the Brown family
Susan – Part I – from the Palladium to Decca Records and 5-year contract
Susan – Part II – Fun at Portrush
Susan – Part III – Music & The Big Nights in Derry

(IIa) Ramore St. development, 1960s
(IIIa) Portrush Ballrooms: the Palladium & Arcadia

With thanks to….
Helena Alcorn Espie, who first told me of Dana being at Portrush;
Kevin McFadden for his great write-up of seeing the Brown sisters at the Palladium;
you, for your contributions and photos and memories, especially to Eleanor Bond, David Thomas, George Shorter, Pauline Rigby, Lawrence & the Minihan family, Syd Watson, David Matthew Patton, George Lavery, Ken Mcallister, Jennifer Jaggers, my brothers and mum, Simon Bates….. and oh so many others that have added comments that have been included in the blog;
the great encouraging review feedback from Alan McFadden, Sheila’s Brown & Kane, Karen Monteith.

And Dana herself – she so kindly replied to my out-of-the-blue message on her FB page and she was so lovely and charming in a 20 minute conversation about her Portrush days.
And her sister Susan too, such a great friendly Zoom call with her too.

And thank you, if you have read the blog to here! I guess some blogs would at this point ask for a donation but tell you what, if you add a comment in FB or on this blog, in sentences please (not annoying emojis or push-button responses), it is appreciated for the effort that when into this blog.

Sources:
https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/122880#Background
Kevin McFadden: https://www.facebook.com/profile/100005073183664/search/?q=dana%20killea
https://www.danaofficial.com/about
All newspaper cuttings, source: BritishNewspaperArchive.co.uk
St Patrick’s church hall photos:
https://www.geograph.ie/photo/3976528 & https://www.geograph.ie/photo/222923 ;
https://www.facebook.com/St-Patricks-Hall-Portrush-187896171791409/
===================
Other links to topics to read:
Portrush cinema (I) – 125 years: Pavilion, Palace, Picture, Playhouse
Portrush cinema (II) – The Playhouse, year 2000
Portrush – the Harbour story
Leander House girls & RAF Portrush lads
Portrush, 1960s – the Swinging Sixties!
Portrush music: Showbands to Stranglers, ’60s and ’70s
Portrush, Easter – My Day in Barry’s

Link to the index of blog posts – stories, family history, events, humour, landmarks, history of Portrush – the things that catch my interest

Dana, I – Derry Girls, coming to Portrush

“Well,” Dana tells me in our phone call, “I first went to Portrush to stay with my aunt Mary Minihan and my uncle John in the early 1960s. I was aged about 13 – so young, and so of course we were not allowed to go anywhere. I remember that I went there for three summers in a row.”

Lawrence Minihan: “This photograph is from my brother Paul, taken about late 80s.
From the left is Dana (Rosemary Brown); my mum Mary Minihan (Rosemary’s aunt); my (and Rosemary’s) great aunt Mary; and Rosemary’s mum Sheila (my mum’s sister).
“Rosemary and her sisters used to stay with us in Lower Main St, at the house that Sid Watson sent you a painting of.”

Helena Alcorn Espie tells me: “I was on a plane to London, turned out that I was sitting next to Dana’s mum, and she told me that they were related to the Minihan family. Her sister Eileen was a hairdresser and worked above Divito’s Lido café on Main St. And she said the ‘Brown sisters’ did a summer season at the Palladium theatre in Portrush.”

And that is the first that I ever knew of Dana and her connection with Portrush. And that the hall on Causeway St. was a ballroom and theatre.

I try to contact her to ask her for any memories, and put a request in to her Facebook page.

A few days later, after Easter hols at Portrush, I am back working at my desk in Munich when the phone rings. I don’t recognise it, an Ireland number. I take the call, expecting a robotic voice to say, Hello this is Virgin Media, we’d like to offer you a new contract…… I waited for the robot, but silence, then the phone went dead.

Same happened, a few moments later.

A few minutes later, an email arrives, from Damien Scallon – Mr Dana – that Dana has been trying to contact me but couldn’t connect.

I am sooo excited! but what a plonker, that I didn’t pick up her call.

I tell this to my buddy Karen – she is in fits of laughter, that I have ghosted Dana.

Andrew Minihan: “Photo is Dana and her mum Sheila. Dana is my Dad Lawrence’s cousin. My granny and her mum were sisters, unfortunately both passed away now, Granny died in 2019. But her and Sheila were very close and loved singing.“

“Well,” Dana tells me in our next phone call, “I first went to Portrush to stay with my aunt Mary Minihan and my uncle John in the early 1960s. I was aged only 13 – so young, and in Derry of course we were not allowed to go anywhere. But as you know, my aunt Mary Minihan was my mother’s sister, and we were allowed to go there because she knew we would be well looked after. My uncle John was a perfect gentleman, and we went there and worked in the shop. They had two shops there – a grocery shop, and next door a smaller souvenir and seaside shop.

“I remember being there for three summers in a row. Normally from Derry we’d take the train to Portrush, sometimes by car, and we would get out and the first thing we’d see would be Barry’s amusements and that would be so exciting! They have penny machines and to this day I remember you had to line up the three most glamorous film stars of Hollywood – Ava Gardner was one of them, I don’t remember the other two – but you had to get three of the same. Oh it is still in my memory.

“Reach with the stars” arcade game, starring Ava Gardner!
Games machine photos courtesy the awesome collection of Stephen Morrison

“That was huge excitement. And then the walk down Kerr St, past those beautiful Victorian houses that looked out over the beach. In fact my great aunt I think it was who lived in one of those houses, herself and her husband. And that’s why it was a that my aunt Mary Minihan went to Portrush, to be companion to that aunt – and there she met John Minihan, the most beautiful man, and they married.

1960s, me and brothers on the wee cars at Barry’s, with those big Victorian houses that Rosemary mentions, there on the right Centre photo “Portrush, 1964” from trainsandstuff

“So, you went past the gorgeous houses and round the bend – and there was the little cars of Barry’s, and the harbour.

“On down Kerr St and you could look up the hill and see their shop, and you look the other way and see the harbour and everyone jumping in and the rafts. And there’s a famous story of someone in our family going for an ice cream, but ending up in the line for the water slide and going in to the harbour.

“And of course my beautiful view every day when I was setting up the postcards and beach toys outside the shop, looking down over the harbour. So beautiful, so vivid in my mind – I just loved it so much.“

Postcard, Portrush harbour, with postmark of 1961: courtesy Sheila Brown’s postcard collection. It shows the (Teas and Ices) cafe, the beach huts, the big diving boards and slides and raft.

Dana continues, “All of us – all my sisters and brothers – came from Derry to Portrush at various times, and both my sisters will have worked in the shop.

“There were fancy dress competitions too, in the bowling green up at the Recreation grounds. My cousins – Lawrence, Paul, … would be in them as well. I won it one year, dressed up as a Spanish lady. I remember that very clearly.

August 1964 – Portrush fancy dress winner: “Prettiest: Rosemary Brown, Limavady – as ‘Lovely ballerina’ (Dana remembers ‘Spanish Lady’ outfilt – maybe she won it more than once?)
(And other prize winner names that I recognise in newspapers reports over these years: Mack O’Neill as ‘Chef’, David Patton as “Enos – No.1 Space Chimp”, Helena Alcorn as “Rose of Killarney”, Christopher Langford as “The Scarecrow”, Clifford Mason as “Dear Spud, I am Coming Down” (I have no idea what that means), Julianna Harte as “Indian Girl”, Nuala and Bernard McNally as “Indian chief and squaw”, Alan Kennedy as “Roman Centurion”; and for category “Costumes depicting drink a pint of milk a day,” prize winners were Fern Edgar [a Croc-na-mac neighbour], Jane Bamford, and Pauline Hunt. )

Left: Stephen O’Neill: “Hi David this is a picture of my older brother Mac taken by Billy Lee, L’Atelier, must be in the mid 1960s for the fancy dress at the recreation grounds don’t know if it would be very pc nowadays.”
Right, Nuala Mcallister: “Well, that newspaper quotation jogged the memory a bit , David! Here’s the ‘Indian Chief and Squaw’ from 1964… lol”

Dana continues, “And then I started singing and I got a job in the Portrush Palladium. I love to tell everyone that my first gig was when I was about 14 and that I had a season in the Palladium – they all go WOW!!  I don’t actually tell them that it was the Portrush Palladium. 

The harbour; “Oh yes, the harbour was always a bustle of activity.” 1960s and there is a weekly container ship, going to Preston; there is the fishing fleet; and ‘RAF Portrush’ with motor boats in the harbour
 

“Oh and I remember too, the first Midnight Matinee that I saw, the first I was ever allowed to go to, was at Portrush, the Majestic cinema on Main St. Oh the excitement! It was a re-run of The Jazz Singer. The original movie was 1929 – I stress, I didn’t see it then, this was the umpteenth re-release. Though it’s minstrel plot might not stand the test of time, it was the first talkie movie, a big significant breakthrough.”

As a little teaser quiz, I had asked people if they knew of Dana’s connection with Portrush. Someone commented, ‘Is it where she had her first snog on the sandhills?’
I asked Dana, is that right?

“Well, we had my mum and my aunt Mary breathing down our necks so I certainly never got that! I deny all knowledge of that one!”

(My wife Lesley says, Did I really ask Dana that?!! It was OK I said, Dana saw the funny side and laughed.

(I think.)

(I hope.)

“I still visit Portrush, though unfortunately too often on the sad occasions of family funerals. But the people in the family there are very much part of my life and I have so many personal memories. Very dear memories. I remember many faces around the town, though unfortunately I am not so good with names. I remember the “Little” family were friends of the Minihan family. And there’s a lovely girl in Portrush that I’ve kept in touch with, Pauline – from those days, over all the years ago – a lifelong friendship.”

“Oh I do think Portrush is so central to lots of people’s memories.”

Me, I never went for the ‘Good ol’ days’ view of the past, but from lessons learned, from examples. I ask Dana of her learning, of life lessons, from those days: “Life lesson: hmmm good question! I think the joyfulness of the place, simple pleasures – you know, coming up from the beach, buying postcards, watching the harbour, watching the people jumping in to the harbour, going down the slide, the simple pleasure of it all. Nothing complicated about it, simple pleasures – a life lesson, that you can get great joy and peace out of simple things.“

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PS Dana was so lovely, that she called me back after my exploratory request on her FB site (even after I had ghosted her), and the conversation with her was so easy and enjoyable – warm, friendly, chatty, great stories, and such fond memories of Portrush x

Dana / The Brown Sisters series:
(I) Dana -Coming to Portrush
(II) Dana – Summer job at Minihan’s, Portrush
(III) The Brown Sisters at the Portrush Palladium !!
(IV): from Portrush Palladium to Eurovision and beyond

Podcasts – Dana / Rosemary & Susan Brown
Dana – Part 1 – Coming to Portrush
Dana – Part II – Summer jobs at Minihan’s
Dana – Part III – the Brown family
Susan – Part I – from the Palladium to Decca Records and 5-year contract
Susan – Part II – Fun at Portrush
Susan – Part III – Music & The Big Nights in Derry

(IIa) Ramore St. development, 1960s
(IIIa) Portrush Ballrooms: the Palladium & Arcadia

With thanks to….
Helena Alcorn Espie, who first told me of Dana being at Portrush;
Kevin McFadden for his great write-up of seeing the Brown sisters at the Palladium;
you, for your contributions and photos and memories, especially to Eleanor Bond, David Thomas, George Shorter, Pauline Rigby, Lawrence & the Minihan family, Syd Watson, David Matthew Patton, George Lavery, Ken Mcallister, Jennifer Jaggers, my brothers and mum, Simon Bates….. and oh so many others that have added comments that have been included in the blog;
the great encouraging review feedback from Alan McFadden, Sheila’s Brown & Kane, Karen Monteith.

And Dana herself – she so kindly replied to my out-of-the-blue message on her FB page and she was so lovely and charming in a 20 minute conversation about her Portrush days.
And her sister Susan too, such a great friendly Zoom call with her too.

And thank you, if you have read the blog to here! I guess some blogs would at this point ask for a donation but tell you what, if you add a comment in FB or on this blog, in sentences please (not annoying emojis or push-button responses), it is appreciated for the effort that when into this blog.

Sources:
https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/122880#Background
Kevin McFadden: https://www.facebook.com/profile/100005073183664/search/?q=dana%20killea
https://www.danaofficial.com/about
All newspaper cuttings, source: BritishNewspaperArchive.co.uk
St Patrick’s church hall photos:
https://www.geograph.ie/photo/3976528 & https://www.geograph.ie/photo/222923 ;
https://www.facebook.com/St-Patricks-Hall-Portrush-187896171791409/
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Other links to topics to read:
Portrush cinema (I) – 125 years: Pavilion, Palace, Picture, Playhouse
Portrush cinema (II) – The Playhouse, year 2000
Portrush – the Harbour story
Leander House girls & RAF Portrush lads
Portrush, 1960s – the Swinging Sixties!
Portrush music: Showbands to Stranglers, ’60s and ’70s
Portrush, Easter – My Day in Barry’s

Link to the index of blog posts – stories, family history, events, humour, landmarks, history of Portrush – the things that catch my interest