...........that we could eat or cook, in order to get in!  Mind you, it wasn’t aisy for them, stealing out of their own houses like that!

There was a while when I didn’t work. I was a ‘hippie’, I suppose, standing, long-haired at the corner. I didn’t want to work. It was just a phase I was going through. All kids go through phases like that.

Now at this time in the village there were lots of women good to me: there was Mrs Eddie Magill, and Mrs Rafferty, Mrs John McComb and Sarah Conlon, Phil Monaghan’s aunt in Acton.  All those fine ladies knew I was a little ‘bum’, raggedy and skinny, hanging round the corners, not working.  Still, when their men were away, they were all good to me!

I could have gone into any of their houses and got something to eat!  Mrs Magill would have come to the entry for me!   I can see her yit, about the entry and she’d give me the nod!  As soon as I would walk down and round the entry, she would have a big wheaten farl with butter and a mug of tea for me.   Mrs McComb did the same: Rose and Sarah Conlon, Mrs Rafferty, they all did the same – and a thousand times over.

Another great woman – who had very little – was Mrs Mary Gribben, a lovely beautiful woman.   But, as I said, those women would give me nothing if their menfolk were around.  You see, I was caught a couple of times eating in their homes when the husbands came home.  They all had the one attitude:

‘Lazy son of a bitch should be out working. A big, strong fellow like that!’

And they were right.   I was big, and strong and ugly enough to be out at work.  But I was rebelling against work. I was rebelling against society. I didn’t care about religion, or nothing else.

I was just ‘doing my own thing’.

..... more ..........