Badminton at the Kelly Hall

April 17, 2024April 18, 2024 David MartinLeave a comment

“Members of the Holy Trinity Badminton Club, Portrush, pictured with trophies won in a very successful season.”

The Kelly Hall was used too for bowling and the Church Lads Brigade and other activities under the auspices of Holy Trinity church, Of the Holy Trinity Badminton Club, Cyril Davison started it up in about 1970, and I started playing there when I was still primary school age. It met first in Dunluce St hall – I guess that site became the Gold Rush arcade. The club was amazingly popular, so much so that Cyril had to arrange us in pairs, lined up either side of the hall, hitting the shuttlecock across to each other – as he said, it was the only way to ensure that everyone got a chance to play and practice.

The club then moved to the Kelly Hall when it was refurbished. The club developed really well and there were a few of the teams at various levels in local leagues, with awards like in the photograph above.

League match nights, and regular club nights – and some mucking about nights. One evening we were warming up before a game, knocking the shuttle around. One comes over and I swish at it. Unfortunately my partner Kathleen Diamond reaches to catch it, to start serving to start the match. But both her hand and my badminton racquet suffered in the collision. But at least me delivering the ‘Tele meant that I had pocket money to buy the replacement.

*Jonny Dobbin & Cyril Davison, 1991; Cyril & Margaret Davison, 30 June 2022*

Cyril & Margaret Davison were really marvellous, set up badminton at Portrush when I was a kid, working to get the Kelly Hall refurbished and courts marked up to play there, and got the badminton club up and running and doing rather well in the area leagues. Jonny Dobbin says about the 1991 photo, “That was the year that I won the most improved player in the Ballymoney and District league. Cyril coached me – and he was the reason that me and others from the club achieved local, district and country honours.”

I look for photographs of the badminton club but do you remember the 1970s, the days before mobile phones and not a million photographs of everything? I had only found the one photograph of the club, and then Clive Shorter produced a few more, of 1977. But David Downs says, “If only we had camera phones back then, knock knees Martin wouldn’t want any images around a badminton court even if he was OK at it.”

That photo, below right, of me practicing in our house, about 1974. My knock knees pose must have been good enough to earn those little medals and prizes, encouragement for improvement over the year.

My regular playing group was that under-16 team shown on the left (and all the lads were golfing buddies too – though I have no idea why Andy H has a shuttlecock on his nose). It was great tragedies that Sandra C and Janette K, school classmates, were taken away too early from us.

George Shorter remembers Cyril’s great humour. “I always remember Cyril walking into the Kelly Hall and asking ‘Can anyone ride a bike?’ If you replied Yes enthusiastically, he replied, ‘Well come and help me get this stuff out of the car.’

About 1977, and into the dizzy heights of the Minor C league, and photos include Tom Hentry, George Harkness, Tommy Peters, Eva O’Neill, Sandra and Heather Crawford, Thelma, and Cyril & Margaret, Sammy & Sadie and ‘the splendid array of trophies’
(all badminton newspaper cuttings courtesy Clive Shorter. But oh dear I can’t remember all the names, let me know of any blanks !!

A story from me? It is Easter holidays from school. One afternoon, me and Kyle and George and Mark McC get the Kelly Hall door key to go in to play for a few hours. Oh, nuisance! the bowling mats are spread out. We push them over to one side and set up the badminton net so that we can play.

Later, the caretaker tells us: she had spent hours doing the laying out the mats and vacuuming them, to perfecto bowling green flatness for the match that evening. And we had just pushed them over to one side against the wall, and then pulled them back after our games. She had to do the preparation all over again. And we got the rollicking.

Ken Mcallister: “We used to watch the caretaker lock up after setting up the net for the evening, and Denny Mcaleese and I watched him putting the key under the mat. Two hours playing badminton – pure luxury.”

About 1977: Sammy & Sadie Kane, Clive Shorter, Cyril & Margaret, Tommy Peters, Thelma, Elaine Adjey, and oh dear but I can’t remember all the names – well it is 45 years ago !!

As well as at the Kelly Hall, Cyril also did badminton coaching at the primary school, including to Jonny Dobbin in the mid-80s. The badminton strip and the football strip are surprisingly similar! (“Those horrible sports strips for all sports. Absolute nipple wreckers!” , says Jonny.)

Photos, 1986. Sports strip, similar between badminton and football teams?
Cyril also taught badminton at the primary school, teaching Jonny in the mid-80s. Badminton. Starting back row left. Jonny Dobbin, Miss Steele, Richard Hassan. Front row from left. Shane McDonald, Richard Kettyle, Peter Smyth, Stephen Mckenzie
Football. Starting back row left. Richard Hassan, Jonny Dobbin, Edwin Burgess, Rowland Robinson, Nigel Smyth, Miss Boyd. Front row from left. Peter Elliott, Shane McDonald, Peter Smyth, Jason Quigley, Richard (Archie) Kettyle, Stephen Mckenzie, James Allen

Cyril was heading towards retirement in the late 1990s, with some months back and forth to Spain, continuing to coach badminton to kids in Spain. Jonny Dobbin, back in Portrush after uni, stepped up to take the club forward in the late 1990s.

Raymond Mcneill: “Well done Cyril & Margaret! An account of badminton days gone by. When the Saturday night at the was brilliant, ending with fish & chips and Match of the Day! it!!”
David: yup, agreed! Battered sausage and chips at the Dolphin, on the way home!

On the left: winners of the Ballymena & District League & Cup, 1999: Clive Shorter, Jonny Dobbin, Cyril Davison, Steven Hastings; front: Sharon Kennedy, Margaret Davison, Margaret Weir
Right, back row: ladies Sharon Kennedy, Margaret Davison, Margaret, Pamela Smyth
Front row: William Snelling, Stephen Hastings, Clive Shorter, Jonny Dobbin, Tommy McCarroll

Left: the junior members who represented Ballymoney and District at the Jack Wilson Trophy (all Ulster under-17 years old badminton districts) – Andrew Harte, Johnny Dobbin, Anne Hopkins, William Snelling, Aslan Bucukoglu
Anne Hopkins. “Yes me in centre. I was only around 13 at the time and don’t remember much about it but I remember going to Donegal and playing badminton in the tournament.”
Right: the Junior badminton club in 1991. Back row left to right: Alan Stewart, Steven McMinn, Jonny Dobbin, Cyril Davison, William Snelling, Chris Graham, Richard Weir. Front row: Rosemary Payne, Katherine Snelling, Claire Mclain, Anne Hopkins, Andrea Weir

Jonny records, “Cyril & Margaret were so awesome, they coached at the badminton club from about 1970, and they taught me at primary school sports as well, in the mid 80s. So appreciative of Cyril’s coaching, and that Cyril was the reason that me and others from the club achieved local, district and country honours.”

Aslan Bucukoglu: “Thanks for this article. I play 3 times a week during the season in Edinburgh and I remember Cyril every time I step on the court.”

Karen McQuilkin: “I have so many wonderful memories of playing badminton at Trinity Hall. Cyril was the heartbeat of the club, and I am very grateful to have been coached by him. “

Geoffrey McKillop: “Cyril was a real gentleman, a unique character, someone I knew very well back in the late 70s early 80’s … A great badminton player in these times, very involved in Holy Trinity in Portrush at that time along with Margaret his lovely wife. Both of them were very giving of their time & gave so much back to their community..… “

When I played in the 1970s, badminton club nights were Wednesdays and Saturdays. The Church Lads Brigade, CLB, with folks like buddy Kyle Miller, met in the hall as well, on Fridays. And George Shorter in Hamilton Place says he was in those two organisations and also in the Bowling club – he was in the Kelly Hall every evening of the week. At least as important as badminton skills, I’m sure that tact and diplomacy are important parts of any town or church activity, like with the Kelly Hall where so many different groups and users were vying for the hall. But I think Cyril and Margaret, and Sammy and Sadie Kane, were really great at just ensuring everything went smoothly. I think it was Sammy that pulled together a few bowling evenings, where the badminton folks would play the bowling club. As you would expect the bowling club won, but at least my rink managed one draw, our best result. I remember at that evening that Sammy spoke about the value of church togetherness and of the younger and older folks being together. Sammy was also a leader in the CLBs as well and the lads appreciated his leadership, with courtesy and respect.

And the example of contribution to the community too: sometimes with Cyril’s coaching would be interrupted as he heard the fire station siren and dashed off to serve the community. And the club played variously in Coleraine and Ballymoney and Ballymena district leagues. Jonny says of lots of late nights through the week and lots of inter-district events at the weekends, and really appreciated that senior members gave up a lot of their time to ship the younger players around the church halls of Ulster and then up to Belfast for the ‘majors’ games.

Steve McMinn: “Great article David. I played for Cyril and Holy Trinity for years and extremely honored to have been mentioned in the article. Since then I have played badminton all round the world. I recently moved home, where I still play and set up the local kids club at UUC, now called ‘Smashers’. I’m pleased to know that Cyril had recently found out that I was coaching the kids club and I was hoping to re-connect. I hope that gave him great satisfaction, as it would not have been possible without him. Thank you for sharing his story as I talk about him all the time, and I am glad he gets that recognition for all his work. With thanks, Steve.”

So, years of playing and coaching badminton at the Kelly Hall in Portrush and of supporting the Coleraine and Ballymoney and other leagues and clubs in the area, and their work and service in the community. So much respect for Cyril and Margaret Davison, for the parts they played in training up youngsters in badminton skills with others following on in coaching in various places based on their example, and all with the life lessons from their example too.
———
Newspaper cuttings & photos, courtesy Clive Shorter, Jonny Dobbin, Andy Herron, David Martin

There were especial tributes to Cyril Davison, is this version:
https://portrushstories.wordpress.com/2022/11/05/cyril-davison-a-tribute/

Link to Index of ‘Portrush Tales’ topics, you will find stuff of interest, I am sure!
https://portrushstories.wordpress.com/2023/09/14/index/

Barrys · Family · Portrush - Great Institutions · School days · The development of Portrush · The story of Portrush

(2/2) Causeway Coast Safari Park

September 13, 2023November 27, 2023 David MartinLeave a comment

Caroline D: ‘I remember Judd and Lucy Stephenson came to Carnalridge schol. Their mum brought in lion cubs one day in a huge cardboard box. We were allowed to look at them but not touch – just as well, as even though they were small, they had massive paws with very sharp, scratchy claws!

‘What a day that was! I remember thinking how lucky Judd and Lucy were!’

The Opening day of the Causeway Coast Safari Park was Friday May 17th 1970. Elephants were the main attraction at first, then, a couple of months later, having completed their quarantine period the pride of 22 African lions were released into their parkland on Friday 28th August, and they took their pride of place at the safari park. I wrote about those early days in the first blog, Benvarden: into the Lion’s den… worth reading if you haven’t seen it already.

From Daniel Tietze’s archive of leaflets, Benvarden featured strongly in the attractions for the north coast – it was a great success, a great crowd-puller. Kyra W writes, ‘The safari park was so popular! Every Easter Monday and Tuesday, so many visitors, the cars were grid-locked all down the Portrush line!’

And Kyra continues, ‘I worked as a zoo keeper there for ten years. Great times, and so many great stories from there! Like, one of the times that Peter the chimp escaped, he used a green plastic tray as a trampette. He sprinted from the opposite side of his enclosure onto the tray and bounced up the wall lol. He got over the fence, and then chased a young fella Mark from Coleraine across the car park. My granny Mcmullan was sitting in the kiosk said his feet never touched the ground as he was running so fast!
‘No-one was injured, and Peter was quickly darted and off to sleep he went.’

And an advert of 1972, ‘THERE IS MORE AT THE LION PARK THAN JUST LIONS’ – with a little train ride, amusements, picnic areas, cafe, like in the photos from Stuart W above, and Sean S remembers, ‘And a bounce inside “Lunar Land”! .’

Patricia G: ‘I was staying at Benvarden that summer and woke to the sound of lions roaring every morning – that was a bit bizarre, in the middle of Dervock!’

And Nan P says, ‘I remember it well! One time we were there, a lion climbed on the bonnet of our car, the ranger had to get it away – scary!’

Allison C: ‘A good read again! We used to go to lion park with Sunday school trip or with aunt for a day out
I loved the train and seeing all the animals it was very exciting for us
‘I remember one trip, an ostrich put its head in through the small opening in the car window: I thought my mum was going to faint lol ‘

Between the Stephensons and Mr. Boyd, the vet, Benvarden proved to be an important breeding ground for endangered animals. The first birth, of five African lion cubs, came in 1972 – the first of many cubs from Henry the lusty lion. Henry had come to Benvarden to retire after his circus career, but who bred like a rabbit.

And the safari park developed beyond elephants and lions: other animals came in two by two hurrah hurrah: baboons in 1972, though they had the tendency to rip off your windscreen wipers in the search for peanuts. Sheila K remembers going to Benvarden ‘on a couple of bus tours – as my dad would never have taken his good car through where it might have got damaged by a curious baboon !’

A puma, though it made the headlines in 1973 by escaping.

And in 1978, Bengal tigers are introduced, although at first they were cagey and cowered up close to the fence, being unused to such open space!

And in 1981, the park made history with the first baby llama to be bred in captivity in Ireland.

Benvarden was a great wildlife reserve, and timely in an era of consciousness of the worldwide loss of natural habitats. The park was world-class, but it opened to the background of the troubles and the world didn’t come to N. Ireland any more. Bombs and troubles and protests, and people avoiding crowds and nervousness of the chance of an explosion at the park that would release all the animals into the Antrim countryide. Power cuts in 1972 did result in the monkey cages opening, as in the newspaper article above. But other news that same day were of the troubles – bombs, IRA, burnt out factories, a russian submarine surfacing and calling for the end of internment – and the monkeys thought it safer to stay within their cages in Dervock.

Left, Gareth R: ‘Photo of me and my brothers with a lion cub at Benvarden, about 1974’;
Right, Stuart Walker: Benvarden 1982

Left, Lisa A: ‘This photo was at the safari park, 1980s – great hair! I look about 9 there, I vaguely remember that we met up with the others that day, and we went on a ride that really didn’t feel very safe! ‘
Centre, Gareth R: ‘Photo of me and my brothers with a lion cub at Benvarden, about 1974’
Right, Stuart W, Benvarden, 1982;

Kyra W: ‘I remember, a big fella full of confidence went in to fix the electric fence of the 17-strong crab-eating Macaque monkeys. Well, we warned him not to look at the monkeys or provoke them – but he went on in and acted inappropriately, strutting his stuff.
‘It wasn’t very long before we heard him screaming, Get me out of here! lol. They had chased him into the moat and pinned him up against the electric fence.
‘He came out very embarrassed and soaked to the skin.
‘That put the big strong man out of him ‘

Kyra I started 1988 aged 17 or 18, just out of Tech.’ Left, photo, 1994; and right, ‘That was me holding the cub, I was 22 lol’

Benvarden was privately-owned by Pat and Louise and they built it up to have 102 animals, of which 52 were lions, many Henry-ettas. But with the collapse of tourists from overseas, in 1982 it is up for sale.
The Stephensons were pleased to announce a new responsible buyer, reportedly with big development plans, but I don’t think the ideas of shark pool with dolphins came to anything.

Me, I visited the lion park during the 1970s; I went off to uni in the 1980s. I had scottish buddies come to visit but Benvarden didn’t feature on my places-to-see list. I guess I was never too keen on zoos, even spacious ones like at Benvarden, and like all visitor attractions they needs ongoing big investment to renew and refresh their attractivenes; my feeling was that the park was declining, conditions deteriorating, maybe better suited for kiddies, and I didn’t visit there again.

Lion cubs, photos courtesy Kyra. ‘He was a heavy weight boxer. Can’t remember his name for the life of me lol. Oh found him – Ray Close. He went up against Chris Eubanks.’

It was up for sale again in 1986. The number of animals had been reduced to 34, but financial difficulties and surviving reportedly only with donations of food from Crazy Prices supermarket. There are tax payment troubles and bankruptcy.

A decline, those last days at Benvarden. Visitors amused themselves by throwing in packets of cigarettes or sweets into the monkey enclosure, and Peter the chimp’s party tricks were to open the packet and chain-smoke the cigarettes, and to unwrap and eat the sweets.

Caroline D says above that when the Stephensons brought the lion cubs to school, they were warned of sharp claws and not to touch; the camel that broke the lion’s back for Benvarden was the girl inside the tiger’s cage, taking selfies. It was too much for the USPCA and in 1997 they intervened to take over the site, converting it to a cats shelter.

The smoking chimp Pete and his companion Freddie had just been re-housed to a Welsh zoo. Re-housing the other animals was challenging but a success was one of the pride of lions, 19 of them, moved to a zoo at sunny Marbella, by the end of that year, 1997.

Photos courtesy Kyra. Chimps, with Peter celebrating his 25th birthday. ‘Yes, Peter the smoking chimp, and Freddie the ejit, oh he always tried to copy Peter.’

Mixed years, under USPCA stewardship. There were lurid tabloid stories of animal husbandry, of headless corpses being found: putting elderly animals to sleep may or may not have been appropriate but sentiment had turned against the park, and 2006 seems like the complete end of the nature reserve.
==============

Looking back over the years, I am dead impressed that the Stephensons really seem to have a tremendous animal husbandry program, with Benvarden established as a world-class breeding reserve for African lions, and under the supervision of curator-vet James Boyd. The 1970s seem to me to be its heydey, with not so good years at the end.

Kyra thinks over her ten years there too, from 1986 with the Duncans from Kells and through to the first year with the USPCA, and thinks about the end of each day:

‘Closing time was at 6pm, and the crowds left and the gates were closed. The animals enjoyed the quiet at the end of the day, as their keeper-friends came into their runs for supper time feed and clean up.

‘Dusk, and the lights were dimmed, and the animals settled down into their houses or favourite sleeping places.

‘Me, I worked there for ten years. It was exciting, exhilirating, moving, precious, such fun being there. It was the best job that I ever had.’

==============================
Other info –
With thanks to Roger McCallum, for Benvarden brochures of 1970 and letter from the family attic, and Daniel Tietze with his wonderful archive of Portrush photos and leaflets from his years here.
Overview of latter years of Benvarden – !!warning – not so nice!!
Other Facebook site, Remembering the Causeway Safari Park

‘Portrush Tales’ by David Martin – Index of topics

Barrys · Family · Portrush - Great Institutions · School days · The development of Portrush · The story of Portrush

(1/2) Benvarden: into the Lion’s den…

August 28, 2023November 27, 2023 David MartinLeave a comment

About 1974. My eldest brother spends his weekends sanding and tackling rust holes and painting his first car, a purple-y Ford Anglia estate, out on the back lane.
It is a grey, miserable, damp Sunday afternoon.
‘Who wants to go to the Lion Park?’ he says. ‘Rain? It is only a sun-shower!’, he says. ‘Let’s go!’
Where’s the sun? I said.

So, outing to Benvarden, with 3 or 4 of us in the back of the estate.
Sunshine, after the shower?
No, it was grey and rainy all afternoon.

The damp weather affecting the car electrics. A lasting memory of that trip? Car, broken down in the lion enclosure, with the monkeys leaping on the car bonnet pulling the windscreen wipers off in their search for peanuts, and of lions sitting quietly, watchfully, looking at us, drooling, licking their lips hungrily, waiting to pounce if you thought to get out or even to open the car window to shout for assistance….

Stepping back…… 18th November 1969. It is coming soon! The Belfast Telegraph announces that the Stephensons / Trufellis are setting up a 50-acre reserve at Benvarden. Those great circus families, top animal trainers, and their sister Lucy will join after her tour with the Barnum circus.

Excitement is building, looking forward to the new lion park…..

Sheila Kane writes, “My first inkling of what was going to be set up was one summer’s day when I was out for a run with my grandparents. We were having a picnic, sitting against the estate wall along Benvarden Rd. and my grandfather said, ‘This time next year there will be lions right behind us.’
Well! you can imagine how my imagination went wild after that! Thinking about safaris and jungle adventures that I loved reading about in my dad’s old Boys’ Own annuals … oh the adventures I was going to have at this Safari Park! “

23rd February 1970, and Sgt. Fulton writes a birthday thank you letter to his grandchildren, written on ‘Wild Game Reserve’ -headed notepaper – Sgt. Fulton was good friends with the Stephensons and the Trufellis – and he says, ‘I am sending you a brochure of the wild life [Benvarden park] which will be open at Easter ….. you will be able to see it, if you are all good runners when the lions get going.’

His grandson Roger finds that letter in the attic while searching for memorabilia of him, and laughs that The Sergeant signs off as ‘Man’ – Roger’s name for him, his first words as a toddler, pet name used here even in Roger’s teenage years.

April 1970 and the Belfast Telegraph announces that an Indian elephant has packed his trunk and arrives at Portrush’s Causeway Coast Safari park, in time for the Opening day, Friday May 17th 1970

The elephants were the main attraction at first as the pride of lions are still in quarantine. Karen Monteith writes, ‘I remember going there with my dad. He had sweets in his pocket and the elephant snuffled his big long trunk in and stole all the sweets! ‘

Other features and adventures developed in the play park alongside the animals. Daniel Tietze’s memorabilia of the early 1970s includes photos of his family trips, including being on the little train at Benvarden.

Sheila K, “The wee train was great fun … and the African hut style shops… I remember one selling plants and another ‘African’ souvenirs. Most of all, I remember the smell… the earthy, animal (probably dung??) smell on warm sunny day trips there.”

And then, a few months later, the lions big release day. On Friday 28th August 1970, 11am, the 22 African lions, ranging from yearlings to fully-maned seven-year olds, were released to roam on the range, and take their pride of place at the safari park.

Daniel’s carefuly archived Portrush folders are a treasure trove of tourist leaflets and information of the sizzling 1970s. It shows the big tourism push by the council and Tourist Board, with the lion park featuring strongly, up there alongside Royal Portrush golf course – Benvarden was a great crowd-puller.

Me at Dunluce School, Mr Binnie English class in Form 3, about 1976. Every year he took that group to the film studio at the university for an afternoon, I guess it was for practice of team work, script-writing and things. My celebrity moment was as guest interviewee, talking about animal security at Benvarden – I guess I had just visited there, but otherwise I have no idea why thattopic. My breakthrough to fame and stardom? Well, almost fifty years later – I still shrivel up in my chair thinking of it, it was so unforgettable, embarassing.

Barbara S remembers, “My dad was the vet at the Safari park in the 70’s. We were living in a caravan at the park while our new house was being built. Barry’s helter skelter was wintering at the park beside our caravan. During a storm one night, the helter skelter blew down on top of the caravan! We got a shock, but no injuries.”

George Lavery; “Ah yes I knew Barbara then as Boyd. She was a gorgeous looking young woman, as I remember! She may remember me with this story:

“It was my first day reporting to Benvarden Lion Park: I worked in Barry’s Amusements and they loaned me out as the Lion Park needed more staff. On arrival Mr Boyd informed me that before gates open to the public, all litter in the car park to be lifted and binned! Easy enough job I thought; what they didn’t tell me was that before the doors opened to the public, the ostriches are allowed to roam around the car park freely.

“Now I’m standing picking up litter in the middle of a large area when out of the corner of my eye I noticed this rather large bird making it’s way towards me, slowly at first. It looked quite comical, the way it walked, the head nodding back and forward as it seemed to pick up pace. At this point I realized that things in the distance seem small, but were now getting much much bigger and very quickly. Dropping everything and getting a head start on this overgrown turkey I began to run at full pelt. Mr Boyd saw what was happening and jumped on what could only be described as a motorbike for a dwarf, and give chase after the ostrich, with one hand steering and the other with a brush shaft.

“I’m sorry that I don’t have a video of this Benny Hill type frolic but your imagination should suffice!”

I will do the second part of this story next week, do you have memories of Benvarden and photos and stories that you would like to share, that I can include?

George Lavery tells me, “One story right off the top of my head is about the photo, above! Many years after Benvarden closed, when I was much older, I was staying at a B&B just outside Banbridge. One evening there I was sitting in the lounge talking to the owners and the lion park came up in conversation, and that I had worked there. The owner showed me a photo album, with the photo below of his young daughter in the cart – and it is me with the donkey!!

Sheila: “PS …. I’m a little envious of your trip and the excitement of breaking down under the watchful eyes of the lions and the terror of the monkey attack …. What a chance for David the Intrepid Explorer to save the day and lead his tribe to safety. “

‘Portrush Tales’ by David Martin – Index of topics

Dunluce school · Family · Portrush - Great Institutions · Primary school · School days · The development of Portrush · The story of Portrush

Portrush Tales: The Two Sheilas

January 8, 2023January 19, 2023 David Martin4 Comments

In writing and researching and gathering material for the blogs, thank you if you added in a Comments and your own story, I really appreciated that! In particular I especially wanted to thank ‘Team Sheila’ – for their support, all the way through the series of blogs. Sheila Kane was great – I think she read and gave encouraging feedback on every one of my blogs – at times I felt that she was the only one reading them. And we had some hilarious conversations about some of the events – she has great humour I discovered, not the serious straight-laced Head Girl that I remembered. And she did great write-ups and contributions herself, especially on the primary school, on Dunluce School, the Girona and Ramore Head blogs. So, thank you so much Sheila Kane, and here is your Crackerjack pencil.

Sheila K: Aw David! This is so lovely of you to do! I feel like I’m back at school and having the teacher write a report about ME!

(Sheila Kane’s great write-up of her first days as a teacher at Portrush Primary School are in this blog:
II. Portrush Primary School – Infants, downstairs.

Other folks have been great throughout too, adding in to a number of Portrush Tales blogs too – so my thanks to Alan, Alan, Alastair, Alistair, Allison, Allyson, Beatricia, Christopher, Columba, …….and other people all the way through to Victoriana, Whilharmonica, Xanthum, Yulysses and Zechariah. Thank you!

Me as a kid, morning duty was to go round to Blair’s shop, round the corner on Croc na mac, and get the newspapers from Sheila Brown there. I guess everyone in the area passed through that shop and Sheila Brown knows everyone and everything that was going on. She always said how well-brought up and polite I was, so I guess I was on my best behaviour there. Sheila has great memory and with great photos, she has made great contributions to episodes of Portrsuh Tales, particularly to the blogs on the floods of Portrush, on Croc na mac, the L’Atelier studio, the coast walk to Portstewart, and these days especially the Portcards of Portrush series is based on her Collection. So, a Blue Peter badge for Sheila Brown.

With her great memory, Sheila Brown (nee Blair)’s has written up her life experience of Portrush. As well as being her own story, to me it also tells a social history, of the development of Portrush, of being hard-working, of taking opportunities, of community, of care for others. And being Portrush Tales, the memory must be validated by facts – newspapers, documents to support the story.

Sheila is nervous that you may not find it interesting – I am pretty sure that you will, and that you will really enjoy it.

Blair family photos, courtesy Sheila Brown. All early 1960s: Left, “My dad and me at Magilligan beach”
Right, “My mum painting at the Tides house”

“Hi David, a few notes for your blog: my mum and dad had a farm on the outskirts of Belfast. My mum did the farming, my father did a country run of deliveries with his van. He wanted a change, and when my dad saw the property now known as The Tides up for sale, he came to the town and bought it at the auction. They sold the farm and moved to the port, my brothers and me, arriving in Portrush in 1943. I was 11 years old.

“The family, a the Tides house. From left to right: Robin, Sheila, Tom, my little sister Molly, and my dad and mum, James & Sarah Blair.
And, do you see the picture there above the fireplace, of a red setter dog and a cat, amde with wool? All my life I loved making things with my hands, and I made that picture.”

“The house and shop had been McLaughlin Stores, and became J. Blair & Sons. I worked in the shop, I discovered that I really enjoyed it, it became my passion. Shop-keeping was not easy in those days though, with rationing and coupons for everything. Our parents were good to us though – no frills, but lots of good home-made food. Another passion for me was looking after the family; my little sister Molly was born a few years later, and I loved doing things with her or making things for her.

Left, photo captioned, ‘McLaughlin Stores, Ballyreagh near Portrush’
Right, that house, with the shanty town around, before those were cleared for the caravan park.

“All around the house and shop were huts and caravans, rented out during the summer months. My brother Tom started in the caravan trade, becoming a letting agent for the caravans, and me and mum prepared the caravans for the next visitor. The bus driver would call out the stop as the ‘S-town’, the Shanty town – my mum hated it being called that. There was an outbreak of typhoid in 1959, from one of the other shop-keepers, that led to the site clearances and the development of Glenmanus homes as better accomodation.

“The family business was J. Blair & Sons. As well as the Tides shop, we had a shop in Bushmills and we did a country run with a big mobile shop. My brothers all worked in it – there was lots of work to do. I helped out there too – they say Variety is the Spice of Life.

“We bought another small shop in Croc-na-mac Street in Portrush, so small, really just the front room of a small house, and I worked there.

Sheila’s Wheels: my first car, in 1964. No driving test in those day, I just bought a licence, it cost 5 shillings, just because my friend had got one, and I am still driving.

“Later I met a friend of a friend, Harold Brown, who was visiting Portrush with his family from Magherafelt; a holiday romance, and we married in 1964. I wanted to stay in Portrush and I renovated the apartment above the shop and initially we lived there. The Croc-na-mac area was still the post-war prefabs – they were replaced by the brick houses we moved into one, in Croc-na-mac Square.

Helena Alcorn Espie: “Mrs. Davies, one of my Primary School teachers, was very partial to McVities Chocolate Digestive biscuits, and I was often sent to Blair’s shop to get them for her.”

*Portrush postcard, sent back to Harold’s parents in Magherafelt*

“We renovated the shop and extended it to be a supermarket, and my brothers took it over.”

The renovated, extended Croc-na-mac Street shop – Sheila, Harold (Brown), and Tom and my father James Blair

Ray McConaghy: “I have very fond memories of working with Harold Brown on the “delicatessen” counter in the shop after school and during school holidays – a wonderful kind man. Sometimes I would go over to Sheila and Harold’s house in Croc-na-mac Square and help Harold to drill holes for electric cables in glass bottles. which Sheila decorated beautifully with shells and transformed into lamps.”

Helena Alcorn Elspie: “Way back when, we would have used the telephone in the shop, as few people had phones in their homes. I remember going after a job interview, the boss phoning Blair’s shop to tell me I’d got the job. Always someone would have come to the house to tell you thee was a call for you.
“My best friend Sylvia worked in the shop. She lived across the road, so did Sheila and Harold. He was big burly sort of man with gingery hair, always chatty and cheerful. No supermarkets then, it was a busy shop, also over in Rodney Street was Hamill’s shop, and both shops did well.”

Maureen Kane: “Oh so long ago! I only remember as a very small child going into buy sweets with my thruppence when Sheila’s mum was behind the counter, and I had to stretch up to put the money on the counter. The door was inside a porch and when opened the counter was near the door – jars on the shelves behind the counter which was a big high counter – I was very small then. I always have the impression of Sheila’s mum as a tall woman, very friendly with a lovely smile. Then Sheila worked in the shop, I don’t remember much except like her mum she was always very friendly. I remember Harold in a white coat, working in the shop. He had lovely blonde hair.”

Caravans & Transport – the Blair family moved to Tides in 1943, and Tom started in caravan business. A small beginning, I see an advert for sale of a singe caravan in 1945; then in ads in 1947 are to let out a handful of caravans on the Ballyreagh site, around Tides. That caravan business continued with sales as shown in the 1978 advert, on the right.

David: Sheila mentions the mobile van in Bushmills. Me, I guess I was pre-school age, about 4, but I remember the Saturday morning visit by ‘James the Baker’, in his Inglis van. We got white bread from him, with a black burnt crust that I always cut off my sandwiches, and maybe my treat from him was a coconut-y snowball bun. His half-red and half-white van had big long pull-out wooden “drawers.” He had chocolate-covered ginger biscuits, 1/2d, my brother Trevor’s favourite. The upgrading of shops like Sheila’s round the corner, and as car ownership expanded, that buying from mobile vans became unnecessary. I remember my mum feeling obliged to continue to buy bread from James, felt too bad to tell him not to come any more. I see the Blair’s advert in 1968, above centre, selling their two mobile shop vans – I guess that era of the mobile van calling came to an end.

Margaret Mullings: “Love this story, thank you. Memories of shopping for my mum in Blair’s Shop. We lived in Parker Avenue, nine children. A lot to feed but we are all still here. Great memories to last a lifetime.“

“I went down into the town and took over a small shop, the Shell Cove, which is now a gallery on Main St., near the cinema, it was really a poky, footery wee place. I gathered bags of shells from Magilligan, Portbalintrae and Donegal beaches, and in a room out the back of the shop I made all kinds of ornaments to sell in the tourist trade.

“Later I was able to get the larger property next door, across the little lane, and over the years the work expanded so that I had cottage workers making flowerpots covered with shells, and letter racks with the clam shells.

“There was a clam factory in Glenarm and I went there. My husband Harold was very helpful to drive, and our son Trevor too. We went further afield too: we went on holiday to Tarbot in Scotland to gather Queenie shells - a type of small clam - and we came home laden with them. They cost nothing to collect and were lovely when varnished. I also bought a lot of tropical shell goods from a big shell factory in Bude in Cornwall, where they made shell stuffI. I enjoyed the trips over. It was great to go to Holiday Blackpool, a massive show, a world-wide wholesale for fancy goods. It was held in the Winter Gardens there – later it moved to Birmingham – I loved it, shops were my passion.

*Craft fairs, and getting stocked up for the season!*

“Later my mum moved from Tides to live in a house on Causeway Street, next to the old Post Office. I moved my business to the shop next door, into what was known as the Bonne Bouche. I did fancy goods, I made a lot of my stock – silk flowers, sea shells – there was plenty of work.

Bonne Bouche location, Causeway St.
Left postcard, from Sheila Brown’s collection. On the far left is the old Post Office (now the library); the building with the bay window will become Sheila’s antique shop; Bonne Bouche, the shop with the large street frontage

“Shops were always my passion – I loved being behind the counter, I loved making things to sell, I loved the products, I loved meeting people. I especially loved antiques – and later when the Bonne Bouche property was sold I moved next door, into a little shop that I called the Victorian Room, and focused on antiques.

Fiona N: “I remember The Victorian Room, on Causeway Street, in Portrush – it is where I got my engagement ring, 28 years ago. It was a really lovely shop and Mrs Brown was always so kind. She knew what I liked in jewellery and was the one who showed me the ring which I have now worn for nearly 28 years.”

“My very first purchase of an antique, years and years ago, was of a brass clock set. It must have been 75 years ago. A neighbour had given me a bag of shells that he had collected; I made some products and sold them, and had a few pounds from the sales. There was a man at Ballyreagh selling some old things – my mum had green fingers, she loved flowerpots and she bought flower pots, stands, anything to do with plants – she had green fingers, I have them too. She said, You should buy a few antiques with your money. The clock set was for sale for £10, that was quite a lot but that was the going price. I loved looking at and handling such old things.

”Those candlesticks are the oldest thing I have – they are my dad’s handiwork, he made them over 100 years ago, in the Sorocco works in Belfast.

**Bonne Bouche**: 1927, a cafe ; 1975, put up for for sale by Blair family

“I was there in that Antiques shops for the next 25 years, until it was demolished to be replaced by apartments in about 2002.”

End of an Era – closure of the Antiques shop on Causeway St.

Sheila Kane: “Oh I have so loved Sheila Brown’s account … She has such a great memory and always interesting recollections. I have a beautiful rose-gold bracelet and ruby and diamond ring that I bought from her antique shop in Causeway Street – it was like an upmarket Auntie Wainwright’s shop from Last of the Summer Wine … absolutely mesmerising to browse in. I loved her Shell Cove too. I used to have a big conch shell that had been converted to a lamp, and I bought many bags of shells for different little teenager art projects that I’d have been doing at home.”

Sheila you showed me your great collection of Portrush postcards. How did that come about? “Well David, after I retired from the Antiques shop, 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 – rare ones at £5 or more 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 ask Sheila B, do you remember Sheila Kane /Chambers – was she a trouble-maker? “Hi David”, she replied, “I knew Sheila’s mum, Jean Walker, when in Crocnamac shop. She married Harry Chambers. He was a great radio man. My Harold was always interested in Short Wave radio stuff and he loved Harry’s aerials. I knew Sheila to speak to, a lovely person I think, so many juicy stories t say about her!!” **

“We were in Vancouver four times, including going to my son Trevor’s wedding. Harold is wearing the hat. We saw lots of Craft and Antiques and got stocked up – they were great holidays! The first time we went to Canada though we had 12 different flights, what between breakdowns and going on a holiday as well to San Diego.”

** it case of any uncertainty, I should say that I just made that last bit up.

“Over the years I did talks on Shells & Antiques to all the Women’s Institutes and women’s gatherings untill I retired. I had a very enjoyable life meeting people and making my stock. I loved making things and now 90 years old and I am still crocheting – good for the mind. I made rugs, tapestries, loved baking, shopkeeping, and my pride and joy was making things for my little sister.”

*David with Sheila, June 2022; receiving card from the Queen, 2022; & Christmas, 2020*

“I have had a wonderful life. I moved eight times all in Portrush – I can’t believe it myself !!! I live now at Dhu Varren in a flat, with still a number of my precious things from over the years. If you are passing by, feel free to pop in and say Hello.

“This is only a few snippets out of my life David, I hope it is of interest to people – delete if no interest, Sheila.”

Sheila Brown: “Hi Sheila Kane, well if we were out of the picture David has brought us to light. He is a lovely man and just loves writing about Portrush. I think the book will be closed now but it was great, all the blogs, they keep us young, and we will not be forgotten.
Hope you keep well and look forward to seeing you soon “
David S: “Sheila Brown (‘the Model’) as Harold called her – a beautiful human being, who has a wonderful account of local history..“
Davy McA: “Two diamonds in the rough of Portrush”
Heather W: “You provide a fantastic platform for Portrush people to share memories and photos, David Martin! So lovely to read about the “good old days”! I’m a blow in and as I walk round Portrush I smile remembering the people and places mentioned.”
Bobby Ann: “Two great ladies..”
Lorna G: “Two lovely smiling faces ”
Sheila Kane: “Sheila, David certainly has put an awful lot of hard work into his meticulous research, into encouraging people to send him facts and memories, and he has pulled everything together in a way that his articles always make interesting reading … and let’s not forget the way he punctuates all with his wit and humour “
David B: “Sheila I loved reading your article Aunty, brings back many memories of the summers I spent in Portrush”
Melody B: “Wow! You still have an amazing memory Mum! Great you are able to share all this.”
Sharon C: “Sheila, absolutely loved reading this….so many memories “
Christine H: “Thank you for sharing this!”
Margaret M: “Love this story, thank you. Memories of shopping for my mum in Blair’s Shop. We lived in Parker Avenue, nine children, a lot to feed we are all still here. Great memories to last a lifetime. Always love to hear stories about Portrush, keep them coming”.
Karen L: “Love this! thank you for sharing.”
Reba J: “Great stories down Memory Lane / thank you both x“
Noleen K: “This is lovely.”
Sindy S: “Another great read bringing back great memories David Martin. My grandparents William & Kathleen McFetridge lived straight across from Blair’s on Croc-na-Mac. We were allowed to cross the road to spend our pocket money think it was only 2 1/2p but it went a long way, bubbly, black jacks & rainbow drops. I loved the shop and Mrs Brown, she knew all us kids. I would then play shop in Grannies kitchen using the cabinet with the drop down top as my counter. Happy days. Thanks for the memories David and the two Sheila’s ”
Sheila K: “When we lived in Rodney St, Mr and Mrs McFetridge allowed our next door neighbour, John Bacon, and I to play in their back garden as we only had back yards and they had a long, grassy, open stretch at their back. Great fun in what became the Wild West for us with John being the cowboy and me the Red Indian … I can still remember the smell from the cap gun and my rubber-tipped arrows We even had cowboy teas … sausages and beans … on wonderful tin plates from a toy teaset I had (food always looked good on tin plates in the westerns) I remember Sindy too as she would have played with us when at her grandparents’. Also Catherine and Suzanne Quinn from further up Croc na Mac St. All this before Croc na Mac Sq and Rodney Sq were built!”
Sheila Brown: “The stories from Croc na mac are good. I took almost all the kids round those streets to Sunday school in a Bedford van, me and the driver, they rolled about great fun. I certainly know a few generations. “
Elizabeth B: “So fascinating to read all this. My Dad is Sheila’s brother who lives in Vancouver Canada, we had many memories of visits to Portrush when we were children. We heard stories about all of this too. We loved Aunt Sheila and her shops. Thanks for putting this together.”
Lesley McB (nee Blair): “I’m one of Auntie Sheila’s Canadian nieces! Wonderful account of life’s story in Portrush. On our visits over to Ireland I remember our baggage got lost and My Granny Blair took us to Logan’s and bought us new outfits for Sunday, Granny Blair was exceptionally kind and left a legacy of kindness. Auntie Sheila was the same and I love her dearly, she took my two sisters and I and my cousin Kathryn to the Safari Park and we had our photo taken holding the lion cubs. I remember my Dad taking about doing deliveries for the Bushmill’s shop. What Auntie Sheila has said about her life in Portrush and all the lovely comments tells a true picture, she is a wonderful woman! I am now living in Armagh and seen her last on her birthday in May, I will hopefully get up soon again for a visit!!” Beth L: “Thank you for this! I am truly amazed (and jealous) of such a keen memory! It helps me remember my childhood and my wonderful hometown so much better.”

Janetha I: “David Martin I loved reading this and was delighted to spot myself and my classmates in the featured photo of Mrs Chambers’ (now Sheila Kane) P3 class. I loved Portrush Primary school even though I had a few tears most mornings when my mum dropped me off. Mrs Brown and then Miss Chambers always welcomed me with open arms and cuddles until I felt ready to face the day.
I wonder where everyone from my class has ended up.”

<=== oh Janetha, that story sounds so interesting…… Might you be interested in doing a write-up. “My First Day At School” ?

Portrush - Great Institutions · Primary school · Sports · The development of Portrush · The story of Portrush

Cyril Davison – a Tribute

November 5, 2022November 19, 2022 David Martin2 Comments

30th June 2022: David Martin, Sheila Brown, and Cyril & Margaret Davison

In the summer it was a pleasure to meet Cyril & Margaret Davison again. They were really marvellous, set up badminton at Portrush when I was a kid, working to get the Kelly Hall refurbished and courts marked up to play there, and got the badminton club up and running and doing rather well in the area leagues. Jonny Dobbin says about the 1991 photo below, “That was the year that I won the most improved player in the Ballymoney and District league. Cyril coached me – and he was the reason that me and others from the club achieved local, district and country honours.”

“Members of the Holy Trinity Badminton Club, Portrush,
pictured with trophies won in a very successful season.”

Audrey Macbeth: So sorry to hear the news. Remember him as a great friend from my early badminton years. Deepest sympathy to Margaret and family Audrey Macbeth (Donegal)

Katy Diamond: Cyril was a great coach David as you know. I used to dread being his mixed doubles partner lol as you were afraid of making a mistake. He will be sorely missed.
Sharon Kennedy: “Katy, I loved being his doubles partner , I just served then darent have moved a foot back from the net and Cyril had the whole court covered making it look effortless

I look for photographs of the badminton club but do you remember the 1970s, the days before mobile phones and not a million photographs of everything? I had only found the one photograph of the club, above, and then Clive Shorter produced a few more, of 1977. But David Downs says, “If only we had camera phones back then, knock knees Martin wouldn’t want any images around a badminton court even if he was OK at it.”

Anthony Chambers: What a great and enthusiastic man. Loved playing badminton at the Kelly.

That photo, below right, of me practicing in our house, about 1974. My knock knees pose must have been good enough to earn those little medals and prizes, encouragement for improvement over the year
My regular playing group was that under-16 team shown on the left (and all the lads were golfing buddies too – though I have no idea why Andy H has a shuttlecock on his nose). It was great tragedies that Sandra C and Janette K, school classmates, were taken away too early from us.

Rosie Oates: So sorry to hear this news. Cyril was such a great coach, and the badminton club at the Kelly Hall was such a huge part of growing up – I still hear his coaching tips even now! He made such a difference to so many. My deepest condolences to Margaret and family.

Heather Kennard: “What a character he was Margaret, so sorry to hear this.”
Jonny Dobbin: “Very shocked and saddened to hear this news.”
Sheila Brown: “Lovely tribute to Cyril real sportsman sad loss to everyone remember Margaret ”
Carol Mcfarland: “Such a gentleman. So sorry to hear this. Love to Margaret and family x”

George Stewart: “Cyril was also a brilliant footballer, he played with me in winning the Works league with Monsanto. Condolences to the family.”

About 1977: Sammy & Sadie Kane, Clive Shorter, Cyril & Margaret, Tommy Peters, Thelma, Elaine Adjey, and oh dear but I can’t remember all the names – well it is 45 years ago !!

Aslan Bucukoglu: “Thanks for this article. I play 3 times a week during the season in Edinburgh and I remember him every time I step on the court. Deepest condolences.”

Karen McQuilkin: “I was so sorry to hear of Cyril’s passing. I have so many wonderful memories of playing badminton at Trinity Hall. Cyril was the heartbeat of the club, and I am very grateful to have been coached by him. Sending love to Margaret and family. x”

Nicola Taylor: “Cyril taught my brother and me at the Kelly Hall as well. Condolences to his family and friends.”

Steven McMinn: “I am still playing today and coaching the kids in the local area. It would not have been possible without him. Thank you Cyril, for everything.”
Geoffrey Niblock: “Cyril did a massive amount of work for the badminton clubs in the area.”
Carl Kennedy: “So sorry to hear. I bumped into Cyril and Margaret on the West Strand prom for a chat a couple of weeks ago. I am so glad thatI did now. I’ll always remember the end of season celebration parties at our house fondly. Condolences to Margaret and family from Sharon and I.”

Sheila Brown: Margaret I am so sorry that my friend Cyril your lovely husband and soul mate passed away yesterday He was such a kind helpful person and will be sadly missed by you and family circle.
My prayers and thoughts are with you at this sad loss.

Cyril Davison, 3rd November 2022.
———
Newspaper cuttings & photos, courtesy Clive Shorter, Jonny Dobbin, David Martin

Family · Primary school · School days · Sports · The development of Portrush · The story of Portrush

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

July 13, 2022July 29, 2022 David Martin8 Comments

“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.

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

Barrys · Dunluce school · Primary school · School days · Shows · The development of Portrush · The story of Portrush

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

July 8, 2022July 25, 2022 David Martin8 Comments

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.

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.

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

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 - Great Institutions · Primary school · Sports · The development of Portrush · The story of Portrush

100 years of Badminton at the Kelly Hall

July 3, 2022November 6, 2022 David Martin1 Comment

It was a huge delight to meet Cyril & Margaret Davison a few days ago. They were really marvellous, set up badminton at Portrush when I was a kid, working to get the Kelly Hall refurbished and courts marked up to play there, and got the badminton club up and running and doing rather well in the area leagues. Jonny Dobbin says about the 1991 photo below, “That was the year that I won the most improved player in the Ballymoney and District league. Cyril coached me – and he was the reason that me and others from the club achieved local, district and country honours.”

The Kelly Hall was used too for bowling and the Church Lads Brigade and other activities under the auspices of Holy Trinity church, and folks like May Graham tell me of going to school there before the primary school was built in the 1950s, and of their family being the builders of the hall back in the 1890s, and it was venue for making pantomime stage sets!

Of the Holy Trinity Badminton Club, Cyril Davison started it up in about 1970, and I started playing there when I was still primary school age. It met first in Dunluce St hall – I guess that site became the Gold Rush arcade. The club was amazingly popular, so much so that Cyril had to arrange us in pairs, lined up either side of the hall, hitting the shuttlecock across to each other – as he said, it was the only way to ensure that everyone got a chance to play and practice.

“Members of the Holy Trinity Badminton Club, Portrush, pctured with trophies won in a very successful season.”

I look for photographs of the badminton club but do you remember the 1970s, the days before mobile phones and not a million photographs of everything? I had only found the one photograph of the club, above, and then Clive Shorter produced a few more, of 1977. But David Downs says, “If only we had camera phones back then, knock knees Martin wouldn’t want any images wee small arse around a badminton court even if he was OK at it.”

Small arse? Knock knees”? I am shocked. That photo, below right, of me practicing in our house, about 1974. My knock knees pose must have been good enough to earn those little medals and prizes, encouragement for improvement over the year
My regular playing group was that under-16 team shown on the left (and all the lads were golfing buddies too – though I have no idea why Andy H has a shuttlecock on his nose). It was great tragedies that Sandra C and Janette K, school classmates, were taken away too early from us.

League matches meant traipsing around to badminton clubs at back-of-the-end-of-the-earth places – Hoescht social club, the Strand club in Portstewart, Aghadowey, …. One hall out in the country somewhere, so narrow there was just room for the badminton court, with about 1mm separation to the wall. And close matches often lasted until after midnight – not good when school the next morning, and my Mum and Dad didn’t like it. One match I was particularly late home, after 1am – mum and dad were still up waiting, oh err I am in trouble. But I was saved from a worse telling-off because my brother’s Hi-fi Shop in Belfast had been bombed earlier that evening and they were up, anxious for news that everyone was OK, not primarily because of my lateness. That was the first of two Hi-fi shop bombings.

About 1977, and into the dizzy heights of the Minor C league, and photos include Tom Hentry, George Harkness, Tommy Peters, Eva O’Neill, Sandra and Heather Crawford, Thelma, and Cyril & Margaret, Sammy & Sadie and ‘the splendid array of trophies’ (all badminton newspaper cuttings courtesy Clive Shorter) !! oh dear I can’t remember all the names, let me know of any blanks !!

An annual feature of the club was the 24 hour badminton marathon, for fund-raising. They were great fun, and especially the lovely cooked breakfast on the Saturday morning. We really appreciated the effort everyone put in to support the activities. Badminton marathon, early hours of the Saturday morning, I always remember, Mr Sam McGuinness come along, just sitting quietly watching, but just such as encouragement that he took the time to come out and support the event.
———–
I had thought that the club starting in 1970s was a first for Portrush, and that the marathon was a new and creative things to do – but who said, There is nothing new under the sun? I am gobsmacked to find a newspaper article of 1937, about an all-night tournament with prizes (wow when we did the 24-hour, one aimed to pace oneself to manage the duration – not a competitive tournament!).

And I see the description of the annual meeting of the Holy Trinity Church Badminton Club, in 1922, including familiar names like Alex Lee (photographer family), Lundy, and me.
And badminton matches were being played by the ‘Portrush Club’ at the Kelly Hall, in 1917 – wow newspapers are amazing, with that same edition reporting on battles at the Somme and of plots to murder the PM.

Even in 1914 the ‘Portrush Club’ was making donations to Belgian refugee fund.

Discovering that badminton was so ancient in the town, I look back at the story of the ‘Kelly Memorial Hall’, built in 1896. Who was Kelly anyway? Well, a Church of Ireland minister who supported schooling and education as key for the community and who pushed for the development of a school, but who tragically passed away before being able to complete it. The quotation for teacher’s residence and school, of 1894, below right, was to R J Martin Esq., from builders in Freddie Fleming’s family, and the school opened in 1896. It was the ‘outpost’ of Portrush, beyond was the sandhills of the Triangle golf course.

The CLB started originally soon after the Hall was built. Their activities for an exhibition in 1899 are described, with (pretty shocking) drills of shooting, bayonet drill, and stretcher drill!!! Maureen Kane shows me the CLB membership card in 1923 of her dad, our neighbour Mr Tommy Kane who worked at the primary school. With a knight in armour, it looks a bit militaristic for my liking, but I’ve lived in an era of largely no-war in Europe for 75 years – that is, until Ukraine.

Kelly Hall, CLB, 1966, and people have identified: Revs. Roycroft & Wilson; Rodney Magee, Jimmy Arnott, Norman Mckay, Eddie Clements, Michael McConnell, William Bacon, John Charlie, Geoffrey, Morris, Sammy Johnston & daughter Daphne (photo courtesy Rodney Magee)

Mr Kane’s CLB membership card is dated 30th November 1923. If there was some form of membership ceremony or parade, it is my guess that it didn’t happen at the Kelly Hall – as it had burned down in that summer.

1923, and a fire at the garage destroys about 30 vehicles and the Kelly Hall

That extensive fire at the local Stewarts garage destroyed two dozen charabangs and sedan cars, and the “most extensive fireworks ever seen in the district.” The Kelly Hall was destroyed.

The Kelly Memorial School was re-built and re-opened a year later. Sheila Stirrup’s research has found the class registration books in the PRONI archives, with the column on the left with the emotive, “On Roll when school was burned 19.7.23”. Ray McConaghy passed me the photo of the school class in 1928. “My dad’s class, Kelly school. He is 5th from the right on the back row.” His dad (Jack McConaghy) is the chemist with Sadie Jefferson in 1951.

And it being ‘Portrush Tales,’ a story from me? It is Easter holidays from school. One afternoon, me and Kyle and George and Mark McC get the Kelly Hall door key to go in to play for a few hours. Oh, nuisance! the bowling mats are spread out. We push them over to one side and set up the badminton net so that we can play.

About 1977: Sammy & Sadie Kane, Clive Shorter, Cyril & Margaret, Tommy Peters, Thelma, Elaine Adjey, and oh dear but I can’t remember all the names – well it is 45 years ago !!

Photos, 1986. Sports strip, similar between badminton and football teams?
Cyril also taught badminton at the primary school, teaching Jonny in the mid-80s. Badminton. Starting back row left. Jonny Dobbin, Miss Steele, Richard Hassan. Front row from left. Shane McDonald, Richard Kettyle, Peter Smyth, Stephen Mckenzie
Football. Starting back row left. Richard Hassan, Jonny Dobbin, Edwin Burgess, Rowland Robinson, Nigel Smyth, Miss Boyd. Front row from left. Peter Elliott, Shane McDonald, Peter Smyth, Jason Quigley, Richard (Archie) Kettyle, Stephen Mckenzie, James Allen

Cyril was heading towards retirement in the late 1990s, with some months back and forth to Spain, continue to coaching badminton to kids in Spain. Jonny Dobbin, back in Portrush after uni, stepped up to take the club forward in the late 1990s.

On the left: winners of the Ballymena & District League & Cup, 1999: Clive Shorter, Jonny Dobbin, Cyril Davison, Steven Hastings; front: Sharon Kennedy, Margaret Davison, Margaret Weir
Right, back row: ladies Sharon Kennedy, Margaret Davison, Margaret, Pamela Smyth
Front row: William Snelling, Stephen Hastings, Clive Shorter, Jonny Dobbin, Tommy McCarroll

Left: the junior members who represented Ballymoney and District at the Jack Wilson Trophy (all Ulster under-17 years old badminton districts) – Andrew Harte, Johnny Dobbin, Anne Hopkins, William Snelling, Aslan Bucukoglu
Anne Hopkins. “Yes me in centre. I was only around 13 at the time and don’t remember much about it but I remember going to Donegal and playing badminton in the tournament.”
Right: the Junior badminton club in 1991. Back row left to right: Alan Stewart, Steven McMinn, Jonny Dobbin, Cyril Davison, William Snelling, Chris Graham, Richard Weir. Front row: Rosemary Payne, Katherine Snelling, Claire Mclain, Anne Hopkins, Andrea Weir

The Kelly Hall was refurbished in 2005, and with increasing demands for the hall its uses were revised.

And at least as important as badminton skills, I’m sure that tact and diplomacy are important parts of any town or church activity, like with the Kelly Hall where a number of different groups and users vy for the hall. But I think Cyril and Margaret, and Sammy and Sadie Kane, were really great at just ensuring everything went smoothly. I think it was Sammy that pulled together a few bowling evenings, where the badminton folks would play the bowling club. As you would expect the bowling club won, but at least my rink managed one draw, our best result. I remember at that evening that Sammy spoke about the value of church togetherness and of the younger and older folks being together. Sammy was also a leader in the CLBs as well and the lads appreciated his leadership, with courtesy and respect.

30June2022: David Martin, Sheila Brown, and Cyril & Margaret Davison

So, 100 years of badminton at the Kelly Hall in Portrush, from early 1900s to early 2000s. So much respect for Cyril and Margaret Davison, and Sammy and Sadie Kane, and Jonny Dobbin, for the parts they played in training up youngsters in badminton skills, and in life lessons too.

———
Photos, courtesy Jonny Dobbin, Maureen Kane, Ray McConaghy, David Martin
Newspaper cuttings of badminton teams, courtesy Clive Shorter & Jonny
Newspaper archive: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/

Family · Portrush - Great Institutions · School days · The development of Portrush · The story of Portrush

I. Portrush schools – Growing pains

August 8, 2021January 25, 2022 David MartinLeave a comment

“Me and my cousin, we were chatterboxes, always talking in class. Our teacher, Miss Perry, called me out to the front and scolded, I’ve had enough of you and your talking! Go now to Mr. Clarke, the headmaster, and tell him that I sent you!”

There are the four schools that we recognise in Portrush now. I like learning about their origins, and then hearing from you about your experiences there – so please do add your comments that I can extend this blog as a social history record!

Going back to our roots, Portrush harbour was built in the 1820s and then the town developed, adding housing, business, hotels, saloons, steam trains, and law and order and the sherriff. Opportunities open up worldwide and there is the drive for education education education to bring new opportunities and better lives for everyone.

Churches and church schools and reading rooms and lending libraries promote learning and civilisation. Holy Trinity church was the first church building in the town, in 1842, with school rooms for boys and girls nearby. The first school was earlier, initially just open air, started by the Wesleyan / Methodists with Dr. Adam Clarke in the 1830s. Other churches were added after ‘Disestablishmentarianism’ – oh I just love that longest word. The Presbyterian church (below left) was built in the 1840s, in the early days of Portrush development with open space all around it; the Methodists building (right) was later, 1880s, with its obelisk outside, after fund-raising in the US.

Good Victorian values and discipline also brought the temperance movement. In the history of my Cambridgeshire village, the workers came in from the fields after their days’ labours, past the 13 pubs along the way to attract them, and worst case they drunk their day’s wages and the kids went hungry and the wife was thumped for complaining. With similar concerns in Portrush the ‘United Temperance and Total Abstinence Society’ met in 1841 in the Methodist church – wow that soiree sounds like a barrel of laughs – the elite seeking to improve the lot of the working families.

Good / bad Victorian ethics too of ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’ discipline mentality features often in people’s memories and that appals us now. I am pretty shocked that corporal punishment was banned only as recently as 1987.

So, 1830s to now, that makes about 190 years of schooling at Portrush. From its 1840s beginnings the Presbyterian church was later extended and a hall added out the back, which in a few years became the Mark Street National School. Through the 1880s it hosted the annual Teachers’ Meeting, a hotbed of National Union of Teachers’ activism with calls for legislation and pensions and teachers’ rights.

And an 1896 article has Samuel Porter, the son of the Mark Street principal, being Top Boy in an All-Ireland competition – the little swot, a creep. (But still he had the shame of being beaten by a girl.)

There are not many photographs – well, none – of Victorian schooldays, but from Sheila Kane: “The Causeway School was under control of the Education and Library Board and employed a teacher to teach in the way of 1950s and 1900s teachers, depending on what era the class was doing. We could get a term’s work on old schooldays and ways of life and then end with a trip to the Causeway School where, for a day, the children were in character (they all had names of actual pupils who attended the school). The children actually loved the strict rules and regulations, and were terrified of being called out to be “caned”. These two photos are of a 1990s class trip for a Victorian school day.”

Sheila Brown attended Mark Street National School (“Mark Street (Portrush Primary School)”) and writes: “We arrived in Portrush in 1943, my four brothers and myself. I was 11 and I was there until 16. The headmaster was Mr Bingham. Oh he was rough on the boys – Bobby Alcorn, David Friel, Ronnie Collins and others – they got it rough with the cane. Bingham also had a golf stick with which he whacked the boys – cruel. One lunch time we were with Ronnie Collins and his sister Margaret, and Ronnie got the stick out from the back of the Science cupboard and broke it. I can still see Bingham’s face blood red with rage. We kept our heads down but he never found us out. He sat the whole day putting masking tape on it, but the spring was gone out of it.

Jennifer Y: “I went to British Legion building – it was for infants – with Miss Mogie and Miss Cunningham. Then to Mark Street – Miss Brodie, Miss Woodrow (she was lovely) and Mr Logan. Mr Bingham was headmaster. We ate our school dinners at the cafe in the railway station. Once a year Barry’s gave us a day with free rides and Morelli’s gave us ice cream. Then on to Portrush Primary.”

“There were no activities that I remember, nothing exciting, just school and homework. Bobby and David used to wait on our bus to get my exercise book to copy the answers. We got small bottles of milk and I remember it changed to quart bottles, and Mr Bingham licking the thick cream on the cardboard lid. We made shopping bags with the lids, with raffia – nothing was wasted.

Ken Mcallister’: “Yes I remember all these teachers – Mr. Bingham, Miss Woodrow and O’Hara Logan and even Miss Cunningham. I started in 1943. Ernie Donnely was my pal and we used to copy each others work, but we both got it wrong so we finished at the back of class, face into the corner. I used to caddy for Mr. Bingham in later years but he never spoke about school.”

A 3-week trip to Russia for Miss Woodrow?? Wow that sounds a risk move! They will visit places “within reason” and the newspaper article asks, Will that include the slave-labour camps?

Elaine B: “I have fond memories of Mark Street school. Miss Woodrow was my teacher. She often asked me to go to the Stairway restaurant to bring round her lunch. She was a great teacher and wonderful lady. I was 9 years old when I was there, only Miss Woodrow stands out in my mind. I had forgotten about Mr Bingham until I read your blog. He lived in the house beside the school. I went from there to new school in Croc na mac then to the Kelly Memorial school in 1961. It became compulsory to transfer to the intermediate school in Coleraine. My memory of Kelly school was teacher Mr Lynn Mitchel who lived in Causeway Street. He was a real character was good at throwing chalk at pupils.”

“Other teachers were Miss Cunningham and Miss Woodrow (of the rather brave Russia trip, above). Some of the other teachers were hard on the children and my youngest brother refused to go to school because of the treatment. Some of the teachers and that treatment carried over to the new primary school.”

Charlie McConaghy: “It is good that Miss Woodrow this mentioned with fondness. I recall my father doing a daily taxi run to and from her home on the the Coleraine Road to the school. I drive by and still recall their home.”

Kelly Memorial School opening, 1898, named after Rev. Kelly, and (right) Freddie Fleming has the 1894 offer from his family for the building work

The Church of Ireland had Boys’ and separate Girls’ Schools that met around the Church Pass area. Later the minister worked to prepare for a new school hall, though he passed away before seeing it built. That Kelly Memorial Hall was where I played badminton, and earlier May G attended the school there in the late 1940s and ’50s. I imagine the school as being the size of that one badminton court, divided by curtains into classrooms. May was there from aged 5, did the 11-plus there, and there were classes through to aged 15. At age 13 May went on to Portrush Technical College.

Raymond McConaghy, “My dad’s class – he is 5th from the right on the back row”

May admits that her and her cousin were chatterboxes, always talking in class. Her teacher Miss Perry called May out to the front and scolded, I’ve had enough of your talking! Go now to Mr. Clarke, the headmaster, and tell him that I sent you! and she pushed May out the door towards his room. May says she went ….. but went on past, down the corridor, to the nice tiled entrance hallway, washed her hands there at the sink, had a drink, washed her hands again, …….. and after that few minutes dallying she went back in to Miss Perry’s class. There, Miss Perry said, That’ll teach you, there’ll be no more talking in class now!

GS: “I attended Kelly Memorial school in the forties. Mr Clark was the headmaster then. We used to tend his garden next door. Mr Elder, Miss Lord, Miss Irwin were the other teachers then. I had the cane from Mr Clark and Mr Elder on numerous occasions, some deserved but mostly not.
Not the most happy place for me. I left school at 14, one of the happiest days of my life.”

Miss Irwin, with her long austere Victorian ma’am skirt, was the room next door and May dreaded hearing the twang of her cane. She wailed to her dad, “Miss Irwin would be my teacher next year and I am not going back there!” Her father took her for a walk and explained how important education was, and that Miss Irwin had taught there for years and was expected to retire shortly. So May agreed to go back – and found herself taught my Miss Irwin that year – and who stayed to teach a generation more of kids.

Alan Mcfadden: “When I came to Portrush in 1957 I attended Mark Street school and was in in Ernie Bingham’s class. Then in January of 1958 I attended the Kelly Memorial school until June that year, prior to going to Coleraine Inst. I was in Mr. Clark’s class. So I guess I was one of the rare breed who attended both schools!”

What were the school days like? May says they were about the same, 9am to 3:30pm, same as us, and school holidays were also similar, though about 6 weeks in summer (rather than my whole July and August holidays) with 2 weeks in late September for the tattie-gathering. There was an annual holiday day, the Monday around 24th May, Victoria Day, when the whole town closed – and I mean, really completely closed – and May says one went off on excursions, to places like Belfast, Londonderry, Ballymena or for variety Limavady, great days out on the trains.

Joan Cook (Sharkey): “I also attended Kelly Memorial in the ’40s. I remember all those teachers also Miss Perry who I loved she helped me a lot! I was one of the first lot of pupils who passed the 11 plus exam and went on to Bushmills Grammar school in 1947 with my best friend Marion Francis. We are still in touch even though we are now in our ’80s! The headmasters daughter Judith Clarke was also in our class. Happy days for me! I have no bad memories of anyone there!“

Was it a good school? Yes it was nice, May says, some of the teachers were nice. Miss Perry of Ballywillan Rd was very knowledgeable. Mr Elder was very good – he taught May, and he also taught me in P7, football coach too, over at the new school on Croc na mac.

The church schools migrated to be under ‘National School’ umbrella though they generally preserved their denominational focus. For the RC chapel, the 1856 article above describes the centuries of angst, with the Ulster Plantation displacing the old catholic O’Cahan and MacDonnell families, such that there was only one catholic family in Portrush in the 1820s. But the minister worked to build up the congregation, to have a resident priest, and despite opposition built a church and school, ‘one of the most elegant and finished schools’, in the 1850s.

And at that big fund-raisng event, I’m sure that Miss Harkin had them rocking in the aisles with her harmonium.

I have only had the single response from anyone, about this school, though again, corporal punishment is the thing that comes most readily to the person’s mind. Is that because it is something definite to write about, and emotive, rather than days and days of good teaching? Anyway, ABC: writes “St Pat’s like the other local schools had a tough regime with some unfairness but mostly happy. Master Fitzpatrick using the leather strap frequently (hidden up the sleeve of his jacket). The spoilt kids sat beside the old stove while the rest of us froze … Miss Mearns had a addiction to using a cane walking stick for punishment. (I got it frequently for being unable to spell Australia…) Rita McNally and Higgins were great … but not soft.”

The development of education is documented in the brilliant write-up on Schools by Discover Portrush, highlighting that there were also early schools at Ballywillan and Loguestown, and later Millstrand, the Integrated school. And Carnalridge, up on the hill, is one of the oldest sites, starting in the 1850s, with the job advert there in 1857 for School-mistress.

Reba Jackson: “Well David I have very happy memories of Carnalridge – a 2 teacher school then, two wonderful teachers, Miss McCartney and Mr Bankhead.”

“Miss Mc Cartney taught the younger children. She had us in a band playing the triangle, harmonica and drums! She also had us acting nursery rhymes to music. She also sent a few of us outside to look at Carnalridge sign and learn how to spell it!

“Mr Bankhead taught the older children. In the days before piped water, the older boys had to go to the well down the road to fetch a pail of water back for the sink!! And in Mr Bankhead’s rooom we got to listen to Radio programmes like about the Ice Age etc, and Musical programs to sing along with them. We also had silent reading once a week in the afternoon and this instilled in me a love of reading.

“I remember when Prince Charles was born we had to write a composition welcoming the baby prince to our green and pleasant land. And I remember the first day school dinners were introduced – Miss Harbinson and Miss Smith were the cooks.”

In the 1950s the Mark St and the Kelly schhols were merged into the new Portrush Primary School, across from us at Croc-na-mac. The foundation stone ceremony was in 1956, with a nice bouquet presented by Gwendoline Longman, and later the VIP Lord Wakehurst also delivered the big Curtis Cup golf trophy, the British side having been captained by the local Mrs. Bolton against the Americans, to the RPGC club for safe-keeping.

I will write other episode about Portrush Primary School but overall, there was about 190 years of schooling in Portrush. School days – a wide range of experiences, good and bad memories. About the bad times a buddy writes, How anyone could be cruel to a child is beyond me?? – the most vulnerable wee loves, heartbreaking.

Pretty unbelievable that corporal punishment was allowed through to the 1980s. I guess there was a spectrum of teacher motives, maybe at one end of good intentions to instill discipline and good behaviour, through frustration trying to prevent repeat errors, but to horrid scale of bullying and victimisation and brutality and the worst of child mistreatment. The horror of behaviours to others.

Facebook of my Cambridgeshire village has end-of-school term incident, kids messing about at the recreation grounds, with bottles and litter the day after. “Oh and I just cleaned it up last week!!” Response? Calls for security cameras, more police, padlocks, bring back national service, bring back the birch. Is that the same aim to control someone else’s behaviour, when someone doesn’t behave the way you want them to? I cannot comprehend the mentality that sought to scourge others but thankfully those days are gone and hopefully most of us are left with a good memory of our schooling in Portrush, of the care and attention and excellent teaching by most.

Family · Portrush - Great Institutions · School days · The development of Portrush · The story of Portrush

III. Portrush Primary School – Seniors, upstairs

July 23, 2021January 23, 2023 David Martin6 Comments

“When our class moved upstairs I felt very grown up. Mrs. Davies was Scottish and she used to pick a pupil to go to the shop in Croc na mac Street to get her favourite biscuits – chocolate digestives.”

A bit older now, upper level classrooms. Mrs. Johnstone’s P5 class, first room on the right at the top of the stairs, where I was taught to mime when singing for the Christmas concert.

Students from uni, brilliant me selected to look at their 12 cards, grouping them in sets – only I forgot to also say the obvious, that the cards could also be set’ted by the obvious, by the card colour.

Helena Alcorn Espie: “O’Hara Logan was of course the Principal and I was scared of him. You could always see part of the cane hanging below his jacket. I think may have got caned once it was painful.” David: He was a big man and always a bit scary to me. He was stand-in for Mrs. Johnstone one afternoon. I was desperate but too scared to raise my hand to ask to go to loo and wet myself in class. (Great introduction to being in the senior school, huh. (Oh dear, oh dear, 50 years ago and I’ve never confessed to that before.))

Garry McIlwaine: “I loved being given wee jobs or errands to do: there seemed to be an awful lot of taking money to Mr. Logan’s office where he would be pulling at his pipe while sliding thrupenny bits across the table and into his hand. Neat piles of coins surrounding him in his tobacco haze. There always seemed to be a school radio programme playing in his office??? The bonus for me was being all alone in the entrance hall to re-examine the collection of cacti, marvel at the stuffed crocodile, dream of owning a huge ostrich egg of my own, or watching the sword fish glide to and fro with their neon stripes and pointy tails.

“The plum jobs, however, were doing the milk or biscuit round. Usually two boys to each. I preferred the biscuit round: you were trusted with keys to the store (yes, there were spare canes in there) and you had ages to roam the school, calling in to every class. You missed dictation and you didn’t end up stinking of stale milk from the bottles and crates. To be honest, there was one huge bonus of being a milk boy: you had the opportunity to sort the bottles to make sure that someone in your class (hopefully you!) would get that special third pint bottle of milk with “Suki” written on it with green ink!”

George Lavery: “It was getting close to break time – you could smell the third of a pint bottles of milk heating up nicely as they were stacked in their crates next to the hot radiator. Suddenly the classroom door opened, “George Lavery!” I stuck my hand up “Yes!”
“Your Da left this in for you, you left without it this morning”
My Mother had baked an apple tart – don’t get me wrong her apple tarts were yummy, it’s just that the apple bit was quite runny. The slice of tart was loosely wrapped in “Sunblest Bread” wrapping, the grease proof type, I could see the apple juice leaking from the sides.
SPLAT!! The lad who brought this to me let it drop from about two feet above the desk, it went everywhere! Never again – I changed to Digestive Biscuits now sold by the school each in its own wrapper.”

*School trip to Edinburgh, 1986: Mrs Gilmour, Mrs Sherrard, Miss Steele, Miss Boyd, Mrs Craig*

P6, Mrs Davis, lived over in Portstewart, I’m told she could ‘buy’ your warts for 6d.

My brother Trevor must have taken me to school one day, he was in the classroom, I felt very proud. And hey, discovered I was pretty good at maths – but not very good at being told things, I have to figure them out for myself, in my own time. Like, Mrs Davis with the cardboard clock, pushing the hands around and asking us the time – but I made the same mistake over and over, despite her explanations.
Well that’s my excuse for being late – we became known as being on ‘Martin time’.

Helena: “When our class moved upstairs I felt very grown up. Mrs. Davies was Scottish and she used to pick a pupil to go to the shop in Croc na mac Street to get her favourite biscuits – chocolate digestives.”

Garry: “..that brings back memories of the lovely Mrs Davis and her “wee furry purse”. She was always proud to tell us how it was of seal skin, Scottish seal skin, and that it was a present from her much talked about daughter, Deirdre. Anyway, the wee furry purse was where Mrs Davis would keep her collection of silver sixpences and thrupences. Biscuit duty folk were always keen to keep any small silver coinage for Mrs. Davis. The wee furry purse would come out of her big top drawer when something needed celebrating, like when someone said something really kind, made a page of beautiful non-blotted handwriting with a new Osmiroid fountain pen, or did a nice picture. In my case, my only way into the wee furry purse was when I showed the class my little black stitches, retained from an appendix operation!

“But I did come close, on one other occasion… Mrs Davis loved big, big sums which were often put onto the blackboard as a challenge. We begged to be chosen to have a go but as soon as you made a slip, you would be dismissed and someone else chosen to carry on from where you left off. I was chosen once to have first go… a sum which involved the addition of 3 rows of gallon, quarts, pints and thirds. I wasn’t overly confident but things were going well, very well. I hadn’t been stopped so my carries must have been good enough. Onto the gallons column, nearly finished… but out of the corner of my eye I spied the top drawer being slid open, a hand reaching in to find the furry purse… the opening of its little top clip…. and I missed a carry from the quarts to the gallons!!! I was stopped, Elizabeth Dennison finished the sum and got the silver!!! It was the nearest I ever got without the help of a surgeon’s scalpel.”

*Louise Walker: “You have probably seen this old classic before. The Kelly Hall preschool probably 74/75. Karen Faulkner and I in the middle seats lol. My mum was a helper in the back row”*

George L: “Woke up late one morning, arrived into school via the “bunker” fence, sweat was blinding me but not enough to stop me noticing O’Hara Logan walking down the corridor and into my classroom. I scuttled across the grass and in the back door, I’m half way down the corridor when I encounter my worst fear!
“Where have you been?” He thundered.
“At the toilet Sir!” I answered in a flash.
“Do you normally take your school bag to the toilet ?…….. My office NOW!
Eventually got to class hand stinging and everyone giggling at the fact that I got caught.”

Sheila: “While still a student in 1983 I was on one of our many teaching practice sessions at the school, and the new Abercorn Court was being officially opened by the Duchess of Kent. The whole school was out on the football pitch to see, some with bunches of quickly-gathered daisies and buttercups that they naively thought they’d get to present to the royal visitor. Mrs Nevin, the staff’s unofficial / resident photographer, had her camera at the ready and snapped away from a variety of angles, well pleased to have such a good vantage point. Unfortunately, when she took the camera to the chemist to get her film developed, she discovered that it was empty! Of all times to not have checked!

“A few years later at a staff night out, someone reminded her of this – she was not amused! The person got that famous Mrs Nevin pursed-lips glare, and a verbal denial that it ever happened and she had just ‘lost’ the photos. I was very glad that I was not the one who had reminded her!”

David: yup I think I remember that event. I see TV stories of other royal visits, passing through streets of cheering masses. But Norn Irn being Norn Irn, such visits were hush-hush, inner secrets only. So only me and a handful of others happened to see the royal limousines gliding down Croc na mac afterwards, the Duchess in her yellow suit waving so-enthusiastically to the handful of us bemused watchers, her safely behind her bullet-proof windows.

David: It was super that the school was used as a polling station. There were some great years in the 70s, with edward heath, oil crisis, miners strike (3-day weeks and doing homework by candellight, and making shadow puppets on the wall), general elections, EEC referendum – several non-school days in each of several years. Sheila writes: “I also worked an Election Day at a table with Mr Logan and he spent the day drawing fab sketches of people and animals. However – that evening Sgt Louis Craig came in, in uniform, to vote and when Mr L asked for proof of ID there was a stunned silence in the hall. Louis hadn’t anything appropriate with him and Mr L refused to let him vote. Louis left and returned with ID, slapped it down without a word and got to vote. It was like the meeting of two great John Wayne characters. And …. Louis and HO’H were cousins!!!”

*Backing your school jotter? I remember using only plain brown paper on mine, here Louise’s is very artistic! ….but with the ominous threat from someone!*

Helena: “I told you the story of the school being broken into? No idea what year that was. I was on my own and think I was going to the library. I was dallying along on opposite side from where the Police Station is now – it was owned then by Sarah Ann Boyd’s family. A man approached me and asked the way to our school so I told him and he then asked was there another way or shortcut and I said Well you would have to go through the hills. The next day found out the school had been broken in to and I was scared to say anything about the stranger. Eventually I told teacher who then tells O’Hara and I’m questioned by the police and they showed me books of photographs to see if I recognised him. I couldn’t, and can’t remember if they ever got anyone!!”

Brian Logan: “I started at Portrush Primary in 1959 and have fond memories of some of the original teachers – Miss Cunningham, Mrs Davis, Mr Elder, Miss Nevin and, of course, Mr Kane the caretaker. I suppose I only became really aware that my Dad was the headmaster as I progressed through the school. Yes, he was a hard taskmaster, took no nonsense and expected the best, both academically and in behaviour from each and every pupil. I remember being caned by my father, along with Ian Richardson, for something we had obviously done wrong. It was sore at the time – but it taught us a lesson. I was worried about what Dad would say when he got home from school – I shouldn’t have – he was a headmaster in school and a dad at home – it was never mentioned!

George Lavery: “I came to Portrush in 1959, and started at PPS in P1, same class as Brian Logan, with O’hara as the teacher. This photo in the early sixties, I am 3rd from right, back row.”

“I found ‘arithmetic’ hard at school and had extra tuition at home from Dad prior to the 11+. God, I hated those sessions as the science of mathematics was drilled into me – but it stood me in excellent stead for the future. I do have fond memories though of ‘making’ the school football team, playing left full back. Good times.”

George Lavery: “I started Portrush Primary School in 1959 I was in the same class as Brian Logan. It wasn’t too long after that I met his Dad, strangely enough at that time I liked the smell of his tobacco even though it came to represent that I was in the wrong place and was about to be cained!!
O’Hara ran a strict ship, you even got cained for walking on the grass at break time.
I remember Mr Logan taking our class and giving us a test needless to say I failed miserably, O’Hara was not pleased to say the least, he shouted over to Richard Rosborough, a few desks to my left, “Why do you think Lavery failed this test?” “I think it’s because he doesn’t pay attention…..”
I was then helped out of my seat by O’Hara and frog-marched to his front office where he pulled out a piece of writing paper and commenced writing a letter to my mum detailing why he was expelling me!
Suddenly his office door opened and Miss Woodrow who had started to cry and beg Mr Logan to let me stay! Long story short I was sent back to my class with a warning that if I didn’t smarten up I was out.

“Two days later I was walking into the playground from the bicycle shed, Mr Logan spotted me and called me over, after a few further threats of expulsion he dismissed me and I walked away in the direction of one Richard Rosborough who gingerly asked me what Logan wanted. “Oh ! He said that I was to tell you to go over there and stand on the grass”
ROSBOROUGH! GET OVER HERE!
Every time I hear the name Rosborough it makes me laugh!”

George Lavery, aged 10, left, and right: “When I left school I joined the RAF I did not realise until many years later that O’Hara had also been a member of RAF! I found a life of RAF discipline easy after my years of discipline at Portrush Primary. Whilst in the Air Force I joined up with British Forces Broadcasting and during the following 10 years I found myself broadcasting in far away places like the Maldives! After my RAF service I joined the London Fire Brigade in 1983. In 1987 I transferred to Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue I did 23 years in the Fire Service. I retired in 2006 and nowadays I have a home recording studio where I voiceover adverts and record items for Belfast 89 Fm – on internet radio you can pick up my show on a Wednesday morning between 8 and 10am on Belfast89fm via tunein app.
“Those early days at PP school taught me to think on my feet, stay alert and most importantly treat others how you would wish to be treated.”

Sheila: “Comic Relief Days were always fun … I remember one where I wrote a script (in rhyme!) based on ‘Allo ‘Allo for the staff to perform at break time in the assembly hall … . This photo, 1991, has a keyboard so we must have sung something for that one. I also have one of me in my Bushmills Grammar School, my first form uniform !! … when the girls wore box-pleated skirts … later, when we moved to the ‘new’ school, skirts became much more modest in appearance. How amazing that it fitted me 12 years on!! (I still have it, you know, just in case by some miracle it ever fits me again and I’m called upon for some unknown reason to dress up in a school uniform.) (And why oh why wasn’t I like Mrs Nevin, who dated and named everyone in her photos? The arrogance of youth led me to believe that I’d always remember every child’s name whom I taught … quite often I now find I need a clue or two).”

Joanna Robinson: “Here’s one of my older brothers and cousins – Mac O’Neill, Jane McComb, Rosie Pogue, Stephen O’Neill and Angela McComb.” (David: Stephen was my year at school, I reckon this photo is about P5, about 1971)

And finally, Mr Elder’s class, P7, out in the green mobile, with those little electric heaters around the wall, giving the damp steamy fuggy air on wet winter days, and Clive Shorter, badminton buddy, coming in to visit his old teacher one day.

Helena: “Mr. Elder was the last class and I stayed there two years. He was really nice.”

Garry: “The first mobile classroom! What excitement we had when pupil numbers meant that Portrush Primary was to have a new mobile classroom. In Autumn 1968 our P7 class were the guinea pigs being herded by Mr. Elder. For some reason I remember double desks being a thing, and sitting beside Drew Hamill near the fire exit. All lovely and ship shape, smelling of new paint, it was another new start. Life there was dominated by reverberating footsteps on the hollow floor. Trips to the toilet always took longer than expected: we never really returned by the shortest route. Teachers of other classes often tutted when we would cross the assembly hall, interrupting their work. Poor Catherine (Trent (??) will have different memories after her fall on the mobile’s slippery steps. Her full length leg plaster and crutches made moving in and around the mobile a real chore. There didn’t seem to be too much of a kerfuffle at the time…. such an incident today would probably merit a two-part Panorama health and safety special.

Sheila: “Garry, I am transported back in time with your detailed tales … I remember the older girl, Catherine Trant, being allowed to sit on a chair at the side of the hall during assembly, her plastered leg propped up on another chair in front of her.”

“The mobile had great views, especially if you were interested in all the comings and goings from the car park. Mr. Logan definitely went to lots of meetings! And crusts thrown onto the roof – we would NEVER have done that! – definitely tested Mr. Elder’s short fuse when half of the Skerries’ seagulls descended to scrape for the scraps.”

Garry: “Mr. Hassen was our P7 student and he was like a breath of fresh air. Drama, music, art, recording our own class production of The Charge of the Light Brigade. And… we were taken on a field trip to the Black Rocks to study rock pools. What a world Mr. Hassen opened up to us and he never raised his voice, threatened or scolded. He read The Silver Sword to us. This didn’t happen in P7, a teacher reading to us! It was life changing for me: those stories, studies and his connection with us were a model for my own time as a primary school teacher.”

David: Bell rang after break time, kids run to queue up outside the back door of the school. The blond kid sticks his trippy leg out and the other kid goes flying and is hurt. Me, Head Boy, I take Blond to the Head. But really it was nothing more than a silly trip up kneejerk by Blond, a kneejerk reaction on my part to the other guy’s blood, and maybe Blond got the cane; a bit officious of me, all a bit unnecessary – sorry about that Blond.

And so, wee school days coming to an end. Summer term, with cycling proficiency in the playground, sports days and football, the 11 plus, and the finale of the school trip, and of getting ready for Big School. Long summer hols and then kids disperse to schools in other towns, on the bus to Bushmills or Inst or High School. End of an era of going to school together in the town, and I lost touch with many primary school buddies until re-discovering them through these blogs.

The Headmaster, O’ Hara Logan was a big man, a towering presence over the school in those years and looming large in our memories. Sheila writes that at his retirement ‘do’ at the Causeway Hotel, he insisted on buying everyone a Cointreau and orange juice … and that she, “who never touched alcohol, felt quite giddy and the drive home with Karen was quite the laugh, especially on the windy coast road!” Samantha A writes, “I might have been one of the few who liked Mr Logan… I think he actually would have been great craic, in another environment.” And Sheila writes, “Another time, at Royal Portrush, we on the local Save the Children committee ran a tournament each year to raise funds, and we supplied and served the meal at the dinner dance afterwards. Mr L was there and when the dancing started he came over and asked me to dance with him!!! Old style waltz to Lady In Red – I’d never seen him in this light, jovial, non-school way before. I never hear that song now but I think of him, with warmth and a respect for someone who really only wanted the best of standards for ‘his’ school, both pupils and staff – to whom he was always loyal.”

He retired at the end of school year in 1989 to care for his wife, but passed away himself suddenly in December that year, after only a few months of retirement.

Inviting you to add your memories and stories and any artwork or memoriabilia that you have. Like, Samantha Allen adds:

“School trip to Amsterdam, 1984 maybe? Misses Boyd, Millar, McNeill, Steele? We had all the subtlety of a brick in telling Miss Boyd of our intentions to have a midnight feast one evening. She smiled, and pretended not to hear us….. so of course, we had to keep telling her.
“That night, treats were arranged meticulously on an embroidered table mat and we counted down to midnight. Lots of giggling and being told to ‘Get to sleep girls!!’ Next thing you know, we’ve drawn the attention of some ‘foreign boys’ in the room across the courtyard ….who proceeded to flash their little, pale chests at us from behind their pyjamas!! I squealed, Daphne J G went to the window to look, Mrs Millar came in, sussed what was going on, and Daphne got a smack to the bottom!!!
“Lessons were learned…and we were very embarrassed at breakfast the next day…..”

So, to close up this story on Portrush Primary School and schools in Portrush, one of Sheila‘s stories: “I was in charge of Education for Mutual Understanding in school – basically, a subject that existed to help schools get on better. Well in Portrush we worked together anyway, but we got grants to do several projects together and had a great time. My counterpart in St Patrick’s was Miss Phil McNally and twice we had projects filmed by UTV to show to schools in ‘less friendly’ areas how things could be done. The photo below is us waiting in the Dunluce Centre for the TV crew. The Art on the wall? in the 80s teachers had to make their own visual aids on the wall behind – can you believe it?? You just got on with it, did the best you can, and hopefully it worked out well for everyone in the end.”

With many thanks to Sheila Kane, Ray McConaghy, Ian King, Janice Finlay Stewart, Helena Alcorn Espie, George Shorter, Garry McIlwaine, Janet McQuilken, Beth Logan, Brian Logan, Richard Brown, Louise Walker, Samantha Allen, George Lavery, for stories and photographs over the 60-odd years of Portrush Primary School.

I guess being Sgt. Martin’s son I avoided the worst of treatments, and being a quiet wee lad no-one suspected me anyway. Overall there is a wide range of experiences, some with difficult memories, hopefully mostly with memories of maybe great days of our lives, and the overall feeling that everyone in Portrush worked together well, had some fun, had a good time and did some great creative work to make random artwork and murals for the walls. Overall a great set of committed caring teachers, and mostly we all had mostly great experiences there. Hopefully this has been a great summer holiday fun read for you.

and Yay! there is the bell to signal the finish for the day, the last day of primary school, and you leave carrying the games you brought for the last day, and with your artwork and your jotters and wearing your t-shirt signed by all your classmates, as you say cheerio.

————-
Other school episodes –
I. Portrush schools – canes and gains – the start of Portrush schools in the 1820s, and info on St Pat’s and Carnalridge to date
II. Portrush Primary School – Infants, downstairs
IV. Portrush Primary School and the West Germany football team – my P7 years
V. Portrush Primary School – P7 and the School Trip
and,
On the bus to Dunluce School
Dunluced School plays Billa Liar
and
Sunday School Excursion to Portrush
Dhu Varren – The town between the ports – includes the story of Millstrand School

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