Memories of sixpenny wafers in the Ritz and life-long friendships

Blacksmith’s granddaughter Phylis Whelan contentedly sipped tea on the sofa in her semi-detached house on the edge of Clonmel.
She is proud of all the friends she has made and maintained through her life. Her carefully coiffed dark hair and bright green eyes belied her seventy-eight years as she talked of her family’s deep roots in the town.

The Gibbons have lived in the area for generations. Phylis’s grandad, James Gibbons, had been a cooper who made barrels for Magners. Her dad, Daniel, fought the First World War in France and never fully recovered from being gassed in the trenches.
“I wondered why my father was ever in the English army, but the recruitment men came to every town and demanded that they go. There was loads from Clonmel had to go out and fight. Some are buried in the cemetery below.”
Before the war, aged thirteen, her father had been a telegram boy, taking urgent news as far as Fethard by bicycle.
“When he came back from the war he returned to the Post Office. He and another man were the first men to drive the mail cart in Clonmel.”

Dan fathered thirteen children. His first wife died of TB aged thirty-six. His second wife gave birth to Phylis in 1945. Phylis proudly told me her dad was the first man in Baron Park to have a car.
“It was a Ford Prefect, and he was always driving people to the hospital to have their babies. He buried two of his own children when they died of diphtheria.”
Phylis’s parents knew hardship. Wages for postmen weren’t great and her aunt used to send parcels from England.
“Clothes were expensive, so my mother used to knit all our jumpers and made our uniforms for school and all our casual wear.

For my First Communion I had a pair of New Look shoes.
“My parents bought their house for £1,000,” Phylis recalled. “Where we were born there was no sitting room, just one big kitchen and two bedrooms.” Gas lamps on the wall provided lighting; there was no electricity or central heating. A horse-drawn cart delivered coal for the range to cook and keep the family warm. Most food was home-grown.
“We always had geese or chickens,” she said.
Phylis’s grandfather Richard Hyland from Newcastle made church gates and railings as well as shoeing the horses which did the farm work.

The Gibbons family in c. 1950 at 32, Heywood Road where Phylis was born. In the photo are Phylis’s parents Bridie and Dan, her sister Kitty (left) and Phylis (right). Front row are her two brothers Daniel and Richie and their dog Spot.

“I remember them lined up the road waiting to have their shoes done.”
Food from the farm meant that young Phylis’s family ate well.
“Grandmother Gibbons would buy piglets and fatten them up for resale. She would keep one to put on the table and feed her own family when young with chops and liver. Granddad Hyland would buy about ten pig’s heads and hang them on the wall up high. I loved the tongue.” He also had a herd of cows. She screwed up her face as she queasily remembered them. “We milked them by hand.”

She spent her holidays on her grandad’s farm.
“I used to go out to the bog for eight weeks every summer to help collect the turf when I was ten years old. I’d have to carry sandwiches up to the bog and take two gallons of tea to Newcastle for all the men weeding vegetables.”
Phylis was by no means a couch potato. She and her friends created their own outdoor amusement with few ‘Health & Safety’ restrictions to limit them.
Phylis reflected, “Our parents were more responsible when I was a child.” Her father warned them of the dangers of the fast-flowing River Suir, where a few people fell in and drowned, but suicides were virtually unknown.

Her memories of school weren’t all happy.
“I went to the Sisters of Charity in Clonmel and I hated it. One teacher used to fist me into the ears and if you were late in the morning she would belt you down the fingers with a bamboo stick.”
All the children looked forward to 11 o'clock when Mrs Fitzgerald handed out grinder bread and enamel mugs of cocoa. Phylis didn’t think life was hard.
“We never saw hunger really. Some families used to go to the Presentation Convent every morning at 8 o'clock to get their breakfast.”

She escaped the harsh discipline of the nuns when she was thirteen, pleading with her dad, “I will scrub the quays on my hands and knees, please don't send me back to school.” She was expected to earn her keep, so found a job in the Oisín Cinema cutting blocks of ice cream into sixpenny wafers and selling them in the kiosk.
At fifteen she started work in the Curran Aluminium factory helping to make “buckets and parts”. By sixteen she was in the Slievenamon Hotel earning £2 a week for six 12-hour shifts. Then she spent four years in Magners (Bulmers) on the line putting blue caps on Babycham bottles.
Phylis didn’t bother with any more formal education and enjoyed an active life.

DANCING
“I absolutely loved dancing. I was a great waltzer and twister.” There was a record player at home and her parents loved listening to music. “Neighbours with big families would dance around the kitchens while the kids ate their meals.”
“Before RTÉ television was available we listened to The Mitchelstown Programme and The Kennedys of Castleross every Monday on the radio.”

Employment opportunities in Ireland were limited, so when she was twenty-one, she took the boat to England with sister Kitty and worked as a nursing aide in Rotherhithe Hospital. Her boyfriend Jimmy Whelan followed her and in 1968 at the age of twenty-three they married and Phylis Gibbons became Mrs Whelan.
“We had a small reception with a bit of music and something to eat; nothing fancy. There were about twenty-five guests at our wedding.”
Air travel was only for the wealthy in the days before Ryanair.
“None of our family could afford to come over. They sent wedding presents of blankets and sheets.” Contact with her family in Clonmel was limited: “My dad used to go to the phone in Baron Park to ring me.”

LONDON
Phylis and Jimmy found factory work in London and after she had given birth to two children, they returned to Clonmel and had two more. They were proud of their family and shared the household chores and the responsibility of bringing up the children.
“Jimmy worked for Cahir Meats and used to bring home horse steaks. He enjoyed cooking and made lovely curries, steak and kidney pies, potato cakes and tarts. For dinner every Sunday we had roast beef.” Phylis found a job in Cronin’s store, where she worked for twenty-four years.
How different is twenty first century Clonmel?
“A lot of strange things happened in Clonmel over the years,” Phylis told me. For example, the Oisín Cinema where she got her first job burned down years ago and has been replaced by Heaton’s store.
Cronin’s store, where Phylis spent much of her working life, has been placed on the drelict sites register as it is now considered ‘an eyesore and a location for anti-social behaviour’.

STRONG FAITH
Phylis has a positive attitude to life, and doesn’t yearn for the past. Her strong faith has survived the treatment she received at the hands of the Sisters of Charity.
“My mum and dad were very good-living people. I go to Mass every Sunday and I pray a lot. I like to light candles for everybody I know who’s sick.”
She has come a long way since serving sixpenny wafers in the Oisín. She leads an active life, going to bingo twice a week. She maintains an interest in children with disabilities, supporting Clonmel’s Dolphin Swimming Club of which she has been a member for forty years.
“I still see some of my friends from school but a lot of them are dead now.”
Phylis has no fear that her grandchildren will run away from school to avoid knuckle-rapping nuns. She is aware of how different things are today, especially the numerous treats available in the shops.
“I don't know what to get the grandchildren for Christmas - they have everything. The kids are spoiled rotten,” she said, remembering the simple gift of a ‘baldy doll’ with a hole in her head her parents had given her one Christmas. But she’s not complaining; she always felt loved

MAGIC OF CHRISTMAS
She was ten years old when she first saw the magic of a Christmas tree decorated with tinsel, and remembers, “We always had a great Christmas. Once a year my mum bought us a plate of chips in the Alvernia Café in O'Connell Street. That was our treat.” This may not seem exciting by today’s standards but seventy years ago eating out was a special event, as home cooking was the norm.
Shopkeepers knew all their customers and looked after them personally. Each year Mologhney's Store presented Phylis’s family with a Christmas Box of Madeira cakes, peaches, chocolates, assorted sweets and biscuits. It’s a long way from Aldi but material values have changed. What was once a valued gift is now accessible for everyone on the supermarket shelves.
Phylis questions today’s values and is saddened that her grandchildren don’t go to Mass. She understands that attitudes towards the church have changed, particularly since the revelations about parochial abuse, but feels “the girls should go anyway to set a good example for their children.”

Born in England , Paul enjoyed meeting one of the Elders of Clonmel

Paul Harrison was born in England and has been living in Thurles for twenty years. Most of his writing to date has been for TV news and documentaries. He enjoys sailing and has published books about Africa and Irish Travellers.