We could have been contenders!

Every Boxing Day when we called up around Armagh direction with relatives in Keady, Markethill, Caledon, Tynan, Killylea we entered a strange border territory that was almost foreign to us.  Down long endless lanes to farms we found doors flung open and hoards of relatives would fill rooms eager to learn your news and share theirs.  The yearly pilgrimage coincided with the Killylea hunt on Boxing Day and I was fascinated with the huge steaming horses prancing around Main Street.  My eldest brother felt differently and referred to them as big smelly animals that could fart from both ends.  Years passed and my attitude hardened.  I disliked these fancy folk on their steeds who took perverse pleasure from hunting wildlife to death.  Deep inside, I have to confess it was their ‘Hurrah Henry’ accents, crisp riding outfits and tilt of their heads that got up my nose even more than their hunting proclivities. To me they represented the landed gentry, rich folk that were the polar opposite to my ‘poor pig farming’ background.  In contrast to the hunting fraternity, my relatives like Uncle Archie were genuinely impressive; he intrigued us children, by having a conversation with us each year consisting solely of farts.  Auntie Sally fed her grandchildren with huge lambing coke bottles with a teat on the end and the babies were all huge beaming Buddas on her lap.  Auntie Eve winded her babies by holding their bare bottoms to the fiery range and we were intrigued by the engine ‘put, put’ sound they made.  Their earthy good humour had us in stitches of laughter.

The welcome at each farm remained as warm as ever each year and it always shocked me how the bloodline of family breaks down all social barriers.  Every Boxing Day when we travelled down from Dungiven, high in the northern Sperrins, I felt embraced by a clan I hardly knew but one that claimed me as their own.  Chunky chickens (a name for particularly fat birds) were smuggled into our boot along with boxes of biscuits and sweets.  It was akin to a family hunting party on a raid.  There were strict rules that needed to be abided by.  If we called into a warm kitchen bathed in heat from a massive Aga and failed to consume a good tea – ham, salad, beetroot with lashings of hot tea, followed by freshly baked cakes my father would be scolded solemnly at the door as we left.

“Sure, this doesn't count as a visit, son!  You hardly had a crumb.  Now, mind you, it wasn't a proper call at all.  You'll have to call again and have a real tea.”

The scolding was intense and serious with deep disappointment that the social niceties had not been adhered to.  My father would bow his head and admit he’d failed his hosts and duly promise to return for an extra call before next Boxing Day.  Given that we called at half a dozen farmhouses on Boxing Day our appetites were phenomenal.  You couldn't get out off a meal by saying that Auntie Annie had already fed you to the gills.  That wouldn't do at all.  So, we learned to develop appetites that consumed all that was presented on plates.  My brothers and I became skilled at clearing table after table.  Only when our bellies ached, bloated beyond bearing did we call a halt.  Dreading the terrible scolding our father would endure, if we were rude enough to leave with only a cup of tea in us.  It was part of our cultural identity to eat meal after meal with gusto.  If only eating had been an Olympic sport we three would have been contenders.  I was, years later, at a Christmas ‘work do’ and had consumed a huge plateful of food.  My colleague next to me was feeling indisposed and could not touch their equally enormous pile of turkey and stuffing etc.  It was second nature to immediately consume their dinner and desert straight after my own.  Their appalled expression said it all.  Training and endurance, I called it.  Sure, hadn’t we as a family eaten our way across Co Armagh for decades?  A powerful appetite is the only proper response to a generous host.  Sure, any kith or kin of mine knows that!

I seem to have been born not fitting in to my culture and then got worse with age

Am back in Malta after soaking up family and friends for three weeks in Northern Ireland over the Christmas holidays.  I didn’t get to see many friends and am amazed how the time flew in.  I also realized that I am a foreigner in my own country and find it perversely difficult to blend in.  Let me explain an incident that occurred which crystallises what is tricky to put into words.

My mother and my son were having coffee in a small café in the Whitehouse in Portrush.  It is a shop that sells everything from bedding to pots, clothes to furniture and on the upper floor there is a café overlooking the street.  I don’t shop there as when I once lifted a blouse to examine it I found that it was priced at a ridiculous price of ₤165 reduced to ₤99 and that put me in a foul mood.  Even looking around at the ridiculous ornaments, no one would want, costing hundreds, has me muttering, “Is this a joke, or what?” in outraged tones. 

It does serve reasonable coffee and that was why the three of us were having cappuccinos in the café high above the street.  A lady at the nearby table leaned across and said to my mother,

“That is a lovely colour of jumper.” 

Before I could stop myself I replied,

“Yes, shame about the face!” 

In our family we do routinely tease each other and my mother was not surprised.  The lady however was offended and her husband asked me, in cold tones,

“Have you been drinking?” 

Realising, I had offended these polite folk I tried to explain,

“No, it is just that I’ve spent years being asked if my mother is my sister and it has made me sensitive to people complimenting her.” 

My mother and son laughed and so did I.  My Mum’s recent holiday with her sister visiting me in Malta was typical.  Everyday we would walk miles along the coast and each day someone would ask, “Are you three sisters?”  We do have similar colouring but there is a thirty-year age difference, so you can understand my sensitivity.  As far as I was concerned the neighbouring table’s angry response was funny but also strangely admirable.  They felt I had offended my eighty-year-old mother and were stiff with fury!  Oblivious, the three of us enjoyed our coffees.  On my way to the toilet, I passed the nearby table and the man instructed me,

“You should swing by Spectsavers! (a local opticians)”. 

His upset was tangible and again I admired their heated defence of my mother.  After all, if an elderly person was being abused verbally, these people would not sit idly by and let it happen.  Surely, a good thing?  I returned to my mother and son and we collected our coats and began to leave.  My mother, always goodhearted and even tempered, wished the neighbouring occupants a merry Christmas, as did my son and received a warm response.  However, when I wished them the same, all three carefully averted their heads, stiff with distain, and ignored me pointedly. 

I found it all vaguely amusing but by now my son was irritated and wanted to go back to the table to speak to them.  I restrained him with a warm hug and said, “It’s not them, it’s me.  They belong here and I evidently don’t.”  At such times you identify how foreign you are, how much of an outsider you have become.  The worrying thing is, I seem to have been born not fitting in to my culture and then got worse with age!