TIPPERARY MUSINGS: Windows on the world of wonder

On my nightly rambles in Thurles I meet every type of person, from joggers and casual strollers like myself to the amiable masters and mistresses of well-groomed and friendly dogs and cats.

Once, I even met a swan from the nearby river Suir in the middle of Liberty Square in Thurles.

But when I saw two respectable ladies I know staring into a boutique window one night at midnight, pointing what some in darkness might consider to be a suspicious looking object at the window with its seasonal delights of fashion.

My curiosity was aroused.

Was that a glass cutter in one lady’s hand pointed at a cute black and white cocktail dress in the window, or was it a lethal weapon?

What little I knew of these ladies spoke volumes for their acute sense of law abiding rectitude and respectability, and I dismissed all unworthy thoughts of anything untoward being afoot in my friendly hometown.

But one of the ladies, who knew me well and also my reporter’s curiosity, ventured to suggest I should do a piece in Irelands Own on window shopping with camera phones.

It was a cold, wet and miserable November night, and I could see the merit in the helpful suggestion.

Pop around to all the colourfully decorated shops, from boutiques and toyshops to cake and gift shops and book stores.

Then record with the camera of your mobile phone or iPhone what was on offer at keenest prices.

Then dash off home in the wind and rain to peruse the shopping offers of Thurles on your phone or television set or laptop with a nice cup of tea or something even stronger in your hand by the cosy fireside.

Ah, bliss and peace and comfort.

Then, decide on that special gift for the special occasion. Quite an irresistible notion.

The idea seemed appealing if irrelevant to me as I had no mobile phone at the time.

Indeed, the only phone I ever really owned was one made from the lids of shoe polish boxes attached to copper wires in the days when I served with the Us Marine Corps of the Watery Mall in Thurles in its island- hopping missions with the US Navy across the Pacific.

To me window shopping was ever a serious business to be carefuly considered and cogitated over at those times of year when you had occasion to purchase anything from a Valentine card or Christmas card to a little dress for the sister in law’s new baby niece.

Window shopping began for me as a child, in the days when children could walk to the local Presentation or Ursuline Convent or Christian Brothers School through a relatively traffic - free Thurles, peeping into the windows of toyshops, sweetshops and newsagents with colourful Film Fun or Dandy and Beano comics for boys and School Friend for thegirls and the Lion or Tiger or School Friend or Bunty annuals and fervently wishing Christmas or my birthday would come along soon.

We had no money to buy them otherwise.

But in the meantime, as the old folks used to say –The cat can look at the King!

It was at that innocent time of eight years of age that I learned the useful lesson that one of the greatest pleasures in life is looking forward with eager anticipation to the day when some little modest dreams such as those of a child couldbe realised.

For what’s seldom is wonderful (an rud is annamh is iontach, as the sean fhocal wisely points out).

It’s a lesson that stands to me now as I look forward optimistically to better days economically for Ireland.

Of course, what you seek in shop windows varies with your age.

As teenagers, we gave the female window dressers or window trimmers of Thurles some annoying moments as we blew them kisses and admired them more so than the goods displayed in the window.

Geraldine Long Manton, my former neighbour, was a window trimmer in Woolworths in Thurles in the sixties.

She told me:

“I had to train for three months to be a window dresser.

“When I was dressing a window in Woolworths, I would never be at the counter.

“You’d start a window at nine in the morning and you’d never finish it until six in the evening.

“The only time you could leave the window was if a manager had to leave the premises to go somewhere or if a manager was going to lunch or whatever.

“You had your badge with ‘window trimmer’ emblazoned on it. To see the people looking at you in the window made you feel like the movie star, Marlyn Monroe.

“We wore a very short skirt, fashionable in the sixties, but the overalls covered it. You wore beautiful shoes with stiletto heels, and your hair was up in a beehive.

“You had to look well for the job. There was great professionalism then.

“You took pride in your work. People used to promise children they’d bring them to Woolworths for Christmas if they were good.

Those were the days when people noticed activity around them as they did not drink as much or go into pubs as much.

They noted activity such as the window trimmer dressing the window.

“I had a load of books on window trimming.

“I went into Woolworths in Thurles in 1962 at Christmas at fourteen years of age.

“When people passed Woolworths in Thurles in those days in the sixties they knew St Patrick’s Day was about to come along, that Easter was around the corner or that Christmas was coming as every window was dressed for every occasion and season.

“We women had tobe trained to dress windows. You had to have well-dressed windows in Woolworths.

“I think it was the windows that drew people to Woolworths.

“If the windows were well done and stock shown off properly, people came into the shop, and that was where custom came from.”