Two Walls and a Roof (29 page)

Our disco was a huge success; the whole town was talking about it except for those who saw it as ‘a place of sinful intentions’. History has since shown that the very same Church that rai
led on against us and our morals
had priests that were doing far worse to the youth than our flashing lights and darkened hall ever could. Still
,
this Church persevered in demanding that parents would not allow their children to go to our gigs, and Catholic Ireland ultimately won. We continued for a while with our
crowds dwindling more and more
until in the end we had no choice but to stop playing in Buttevant. Rather than be defeated by them, we took to the road. We then had Ireland
’s second ever mobile disco. ‘The Liberation Disco’ became ‘T
he Liberation Mobile Disco
’. T
he first one was in Dublin and soon would
go bust, and by a twist of fate
I would actually work on it in the distant future.

To become mobile and get wheels, Hayes would use his father’s driver’s licence illegally to
hire a big van from Kennys Van H
ire in Cork and drive it like a lunatic to Buttevant. There we would load all our gear and head off to Dungarvan, our regular gig every Saturday night. It was
brilliant;
incredibly exciting, and also very dangerous. Two rival gangs were our main punters
. T
he bouncers would disarm them literally at the door, keeping the weapons in two separate boxes, and returning them to their owners at the end of the gig. There would be chains, knives, and knuckledusters, and I once saw a hatchet in the box. We had no stage either and only a barrier we made from long seats separated us from the gangs, but to their credit they never once harmed us. They did not need to, as after each gig they fought each
other all the way round our van
while we loaded our gear. It was a crazy
,
crazy
,
fun
,
happy and mad time, and we acted and felt like
r
ock
s
tars with the only thing missing being the groupies.

Our fame was growing also, and one night we were contracted to do a gig in a
small village for a youth club
somewhere near Mitchelstown. When we got there I was sure we were either in the wrong place, or it was
going to be a disastrous night
because the whole area seemed so quite.  We began to set up when the first bus arrived. About a hundred kids piled out and lined up to pay. Then more busses arrived soon after, and in a sh
ort time a huge line had formed
with hundreds and hundreds of teenagers
all excitedly waiting to hear T
he Liberation Mobile Disco
. P
erhaps the name was not too bad after all.

Fowler
,
our lead
DJ
, began the main pa
rt of the show with the classic
‘
Brown Sugar
’
from the Rolling Stones, and I saw magic happen. I believe it was our best gig ever, and one could feel both the e
xcitement and enjoyment
of almost one thousand kids in the hall that night. They danced and danced and loved every song we played. Fowler was never better
,
and Hayes and
I worked the lights like demons
while Joe Moroney had opened the show and whooped up the crowd to a great frenzy at the start. In the middle of Led Zeppelin
’
s
‘
Whole Lotta Love
’
, a piece we used to specialize in, all of the main lights suddenly came on and immediately the atmosphere died. I’ll never forget it. This had never happened to us before on a gig, and I ran off down to try and get them turned off while the crowd looked on
in amazement. In the box office
the local priest
,
who I believe was a trustee of the hall, had
decided like the Buttevant gang
that we were corrupting the morals of the youth
,
and the show would only be allowed to continue if the hall was fully lit. This was totally unacceptable to us and no amount of pleading from us, or from the people hiring us
,
was going to change his mind either.

Fowler told the crowd of fiery
young
teenagers what was going on and first the booing began, then bottles were thrown at the windows inside the hall, and when that didn’t work, some chairs were broken
. V
ery quickly a riot almost happened. It was looking like the kids would wreck the hall. We stood and waited
,
and finally the old priest capitulated and the lights went out.  We were back in business with
‘
Sympathy for the Devil
’
being blasted out to the cheers of the kids. It was a great night and we were on a huge high as it ended. It was a night when we would easily be able to pay the mother back for her table as well as buy a lot of new gear, but we were counting our chickens far too soon.

When we had loaded our gear and went into the box office for our take of the door, the caretaker informed us that the ‘priest had taken the takings’ and we were not going to be paid any money. Our share was supposed to be used as compensation for the ‘damage’ done in the ‘riot’. It looked like my mother would have to wait for her money.

We left dejecte
d, disgusted, angry, and broken-
hearted if the truth be known. Catholic Ireland had won yet again. I think we gave up on our Liberation Disco soon after that, because it’s the last memory I have of those wonderful days. For the record, mother never got paid for her table, and for years after she would rise me about it. The only regret I have from those days was that we took the beating from the priest far too easy that night. Today a solicitor’s letter would have settled his case quite quickly. That incident left me with a bitterness that I never forgot or forgave. The disco days were great fun, but we were all about to move on with our lives, and had grown into even older adults by the time they ended
. W
e drifted apart and only meet far too rarely these days, but when we do, it
’
s like as if forty years have not passed by at all and the laughter begins all over again.

In about 1967 a man called Larry Anderson called to fix the mother
’
s TV set.  She had it on rent for three shillings and six pence a week
;
the equi
valent of less than twenty cents
a week today. It was always in danger of repossession as she didn’t always have even that amount
of
money to pay for it, and it did get repossessed on a few occasions.  The father loved it though a
s
did
we
, and it was the greatest of pleasures to be sitting in your own home watching ‘Lincoln Vale of the Everglades’,
‘
Mr Ed
’
, or some other exciting or funny programme. It was definitely a lot better than standing in the cold outside Tadgh Hurley
’
s window
with the others who
could not afford the magic box of light. The TV sets that were made in those days were very unreliable, and fixing them was like a black art. If you could fix a television set you were considered a kind of God, or at the very least a genius or magician.  Those TV sets used valves or
‘
tubes
’
as the Americans called them
,
and these valves only had a limited lifespan.  Each TV set had as many as twenty valves
, all different
sizes and costs too. Therefore they were always breaking down because the valves would burn out. If you were trained as a TV engineer, it looked like you were made for life, and as a late teenager I was about to go into that very business.

My Nannie had a large 23 inch Pilot set and my mother had a smaller 19 inch Philips set which was always in trouble.  That meant that a man called Larry Andersen was a regular visitor to my mother
’
s house, and to a lesser extent
,
to Nannie
’
s also as he fixed both of them. He worked for a company called Buckley’s Stores in Millstreet town, the location for a famous Eurovision Song Contest held there in later years.  On one of these occasions the mother asked Larry
, who
she liked a lot, if he had any job going for a ‘good lad’.  She was meaning Kyrle
,
as we were both still going to Charleville Tech at that time, and she was preparing the road for her son.  I had met Larry a few times when he was fixing Nannie
’
s set, but I w
as too shy to ask him for a job
even though I loved what he was doing.  He had no job then, but told mother that he would keep her in mind if a job became available.  She was determined that Kyrle would get a good job, and soon she had answered an advertisement for a job in the ‘P & T’ as it was known then.  This was the state owned Department of Posts and Telegraphs
,
later to separate out into the Post Office and Ireland
’
s
national b
roadcaster now known as RTE. Kyrle went for that job and got it. He took off for Dublin where my aunt May was putting him up until he got on his feet and earned enough to move out on his own. When he began he worked in the phone service
,
and in typical form he began to study for promotion, which he got very rapidly due to his ability to learn with ease.

Kyrle had barely begun working in his new job in Dublin when Larry returned looking for him.  He was already committed and I was ‘volunteered’ for Larry’s job. I wasn’t even asked if I wanted it
. T
he Na
n told me that I had to take it
as it would bring in ‘steady money’.  Larry didn’t mind, but I think he would have preferred Kyrle as he knew him better than me. The job had an immediate start,
so
I had to le
ave school without finishing it
as Larry was opening his own business in Mallow, and he
wanted a boy who was honest,
who would work cheap and learn to fix TVs.  That was exactly what he got.  I was fed up with school anyway, and I didn’t want to be poor all my life
,
so I gladly took the job and the tiny apprenticeship salary going with it.  I can clearly see my first day at work just as if it were happening to me right now. Mallow is seven miles south of Buttevant and I had no transport of any kind other than my old push bike. On my very first day I got a drive to Mallow from a local man that the mother kne
w. He took me right to the shop
and said
, “T
hat’s it,
”
and left me to my own devices. I was just 18 years old then and as innocent as you could get, despite the general belief by Nannie that I knew everything. However
, I had two things going for me:
I was inherently honest with money due to Nannie beating it into me earlier in life, and I loved electronics with a burning passion.

When I first saw the little shop I was not impressed at all.  It had a big sign over the door saying
‘
Mallow TV Service
’,
and Larry and his first wife Eileen were living in an apartment above the shop. I went in and knocked on a little frosted glass window that was in the middle of a wooden partition which divided the workshop part from the customer’s front area. A small narrow door was also fitted into this partition a
nd it had all the signs of a do-it-
yourself job. If this was Larry
’
s place, then I saw a similarity to how we Cahills did things and I relaxed a little bit while I waited for someone to answer my knocking. No one did, so I went in the little door and on my right was a narrow staircase going up to the flat above. My first real shock came when I saw Larry come running down the stairs stuffing his shirt inside his pants, and on seeing me for the first time close up,
realize
d ‘th
is is him’. I saw his shock too
and thought this may not be such a good idea after all.  He shook hands with me and said welcome, then he told me
to do whatever I liked that day
as he h
ad to rush off to Millstreet because
he was late, and straight out the door he went.

I was
at a loss as to know what to do.
I was in a small room converted to a workshop.  It was about eight feet by six feet with its unfinished wooden partition dividing this inside office area from the outside world. The customer area outside was known
as ‘the shop’ and it had a fair-sized window with a large shelf
area facing the street. The entrance door was a divided affair with some small panes of glass giving light into the shop.  There were TV sets strewn all over the place and some radios too. Confusion seemed to be the order of the day.  The toilet was shared between us and a printing business
, and it was located down a half-
covered laneway beside our shop. The actual toilet itself was a small cubicle area with a red door, and aside from us and the printers, anyone else who knew of its location seemed to be free
to use it. Q
uite soon I concluded that I better never get ‘the runs’ as I’d never make it down that lane in time
,
or it might even be occupied.

Back inside the little workshop, the walls had been covered with a big Pilot TV diagram and a shelf or two which held various bits of TVs and radios. There was a marble fireplace on one wall which was never used, and a long workbench ran along most of the back wall, except for a really tiny area to the right under the stairs. This little area was to become my workbench when Larry would be using the main bench. No one can imagine nowadays a little business like this unless you live in the wilds of China, but that business was where I was about to spend the next twenty years of my life.  Those years were without doubt going to become times of incredible happiness for both me and Larry, but all that was ahead of me still, and on my first day I was petrified and disappointed with where I was.  Larry told me to knock off at six just before he shot out the door and was gone like a flash, shouting back that he’d see me tomorrow when he had more time.  I sat down in a kind of daze and looked out through the frosted window wondering if this was going to become my life from then on.

Just under the window Larry had placed a table with a small green money box. This little table area, complete with its money box, was to be where
I would take in any rent money
and also the payment for repairs to people
’
s television sets.  All that was the theory at least, and all of my duties had been explained to me in the few minutes befo
re Larry took off.  As we spoke
I began to like him immediately, within a matter of minutes actually. He seemed to be really a mad, nice guy, and I felt he wouldn’t fire me easily, so I relaxed a bit as he spoke.  Very soon he was gone and I was left all alo
ne, now ‘in charge’ of the shop -
his shop, and I had no idea how I was even going to get to this workplace tomorrow.

As I mused on what lay ahead for me, there was a shadow at the glass followed by a loud buzzing noise which scared the hell out of me.  A customer was at the window pressing a buzzer which Larry had forgotten to show me. I slid across the glass pane and there stood a woman wanting to pay her TV rent money with a ten shilling note in her hand. I was so nervous that I took it, put it in the box and said thanks
,
then closed the window and sat down again shaking nervously. The buzzer went off again and I slid across the glass. T
he woman just stared at me and I stared back at her
saying
,
“Thank you misses”.   Still she seemed not satisfied, then finally she said
,
“Where’s my change, do you think I’m a fool or what
?
”
T
hen I felt like the fool as I fumbled in the box, wondering what change I should give her. I had no idea, and in the end I had to ask her what change she wanted.  She told me and left in a huff. Then I immediately counted the money in the little tin box not wanting to be accused of anything.  I wrote the amount down, as I wanted all to be right by evening tim
e.  I made my own little ledger;
Larry had none, and this was what I used for a number of days
,
carefully adding all the money each evening, and checking and double checking all the time to make sure that none had gone missing. I
was terrified of loosing my job
because Larry seemed to have made a big thing about honesty when he talked to the mother. As it turne
d out, he need not have worried
as honesty had become a principle of mine by then.

My nex
t shock came later that morning
when I saw Eileen, Larry
’
s wife
, arriving down the stairs,
beca
use she too was from Buttevant and
I knew her.  She
made me feel at home instantly
and asked me if I wanted some tea.  I was really very shy at that stage, especially with olde
r women, and I refused politely
even though I would have loved a cup of tea at that moment. Nannie had made me a few sandwiches and some milk in a bottle as my lunch, and so I resigned myself to that place for better or worse.  It was not my ideal of a job, but it was a job nonetheless and I determined to make the best of it as Larry was
nice at least.  That morning
I know that I did not have one single penny in my pocket. I know to
o that I decided there and then
to save money so that I would not feel so broke in the future. I made that commitment to myself while standing at the door of the shop looking out onto the street and the rain, and it feels like it was just yesterday.

Lunchtime came round
and I ventured off down the town. Mallow as a town was completely alien to me, and I knew Charleville far better from my recent school days. Of course, acco
rding to Nannie, Mallow was a ‘den of i
niquity’, but she said it would do for now and would ‘give m
e a start’.  Twenty years later
she was still
saying it would do for a start. E
ven though I often told her that I was very happy there, she still felt I deserved better.

I always loved inventions. They are in my blood, no doubt coming from Big Kyrl’s side, but of late I realize too that my mother also had the gift of a creative mind. She absolutely amazes me with some of the ideas she comes out with today, usually ones designed to make life easier, especially for old people. However
, in those early years
we just ignored the mother, especially when it came to anything requiring brain power, because according to Nannie ‘sure she’s useless’.

Larry Andersen would soon become the most inventive person I ever met in my life. His people were also inventors, and
he told me that during the war
his dad had made a car run on charcoal when petrol was scarce. Larry continued this fascination with energy later, especially with his ideas on ‘perpetual motion’. I was destined to have a first hand
experience of this energy work
within days of beginning his employment.  My second day with Larry
was almost as bad as the first;
again he ran out the door saying I did real good for the first day, and he’d see me tomorrow for sure. He was gone and again I remember feeling very much alone. I noticed that Larry’s customers were mostly people who came in to pay for televisions that he was renting to them, but he had no system of records
. E
ven I knew this was not a good way to do business
and I planned to bring it up with
him if we ever got to sit down together.