Poppy Day 1959: A story by Brian Connaughton

Brian Connaughton who won the famous Ras Tailteann cycling race 50 years ago this year and who is featured in this week's Meath Chronicle is also a writer and the following is his story - Poppy Day 1959. In his interview with the Chronicle, Connaughton recalls his days cycling with local clubs and as a Garda in Dublin. This is the story he wrote. 

Poppy Day 1959

I loved the way Jimmy smoked his Woodbine, letting it hang from the corner of his mouth while he puffed and talked as if it wasn’t there at all. And although he always wore a cap, peak to the front, the smoke drifted up and away from his eye. You’d think the peak would trap it someway, but he knew exactly the twist needed to chimney it away. Once in a while with two fingers and a thumb holding the burning fag in the cup of his hand, he’d swipe away any loose spittle that had gathered around his mouth. Smoking never caused his eye or him the least bit harm. I noticed that he inhaled very little and think he loved that Woodbine, not as a drug but as a companion. Heads together we studied the racing pages trying to pick a winner, the smoke from the Woodbine wafting upwards always, the incense to our meditation. I had just started serving my time in the retail trade and was learning fast from a First World War veteran about horses and cigarettes, elements of the job not included in my thirty shillings a week income.

“I have been in places you will never see the sky over” he said one day. “Were you at the Somme” I asked? “No, but I was at Ypres and that was just as bad.” I had learned a little about that war at school and knew that Ypres, Somme, Trench, Over the Top were places not to be. “Why did you go” I asked? “Ah, one day a notion of madness, and not long afterwards I was in the middle of it”. “Were you ever shot or injured?” I was hoping to see what the remains of a bullet hole looked like. “Not a feckin scratch. The nearest I came to getting shot was when they sent us to Dublin after Easter Monday and a rebel bullet lodged in the butt of my rifle”. “Jesus, Jimmy, you were lucky,” I said. “Come on and we’ll do that double on Lester.”

We worked in a Hardware shop. I the 16 year old shop assistant and he the yardman. It was a Protestant house as they said in the Ireland of the late fifties. Protestant bosses and Catholic workers, but a place I loved. “What’s them auld Protestants like to work for” I was often asked? There was still a fear in some minds that there might be a conspiracy to wean me away from the one true church. “Oh yeah,” one fellow remarked, “up North every 12th July celebrating King William’s win at the Boyne. The fecker won one nil an own goal by windy James.”

One boss was from County Fermanagh, but he would never go North for the 12th. “Not for love or money nor God or man,” he said. The other loved to go eventhough he was from the Republic with a nephew who played senior Gaelic football for his county. Yes, it was a place of contradictions. We had state of the art tools and equipment, but also cubbyholes full of items from at least one previous century.

“Are you going to wear the poppy,” he asked one day? He had just brought in a bucket of anthracite and fed the great big stove that heated the shop. If things were quiet the stove was one of our meeting places. We’d remain in that comfort zone until the first appearance of boss or customer. “I am in my royal arse,” I replied. I knew what the poppy was all about, a fundraiser for the British Army and a red rag to my father and thousands more like him.

“Well, the ladies you dance attendance on will be very annoyed if you don’t dip in the pocket and buy one.” He was referring to some women who were regular customers and had already reminded us they would be calling on Poppy Day. “Well, I might buy one but I won’t wear it,” I said. “Sure, they will have a bigger grievance if you do that,” he answered. I could see the gleam in his eye. He could see my discomfort and enjoyed it for a while. Poppy Day was looming and he was looking forward to it like a child does to Christmas. “Listen,” I tried to explain, “you were a British soldier who fought in the First World War and you are entitled to wear it. Ordinary Catholics just don’t wear the poppy, they hate it. It’s a fund raising opportunity for the Brits to raise money so they can keep the heel on the Catholics in the North.” “Will you go away out of that,” he said with annoyance and darted out to the yard as if he was diving into a trench to dodge a German shell? I felt bad. The last thing I wanted was to annoy him. Working with an old war veteran was the same to me as if I worked side by side with a famous old footballer. I bragged about him to my pals.

Sometime later I had to fill a half-pint porter bottle with raw linseed oil, which was stored in a forty-gallon barrel at the bottom of the yard. He was hacksawing a piece of 1” round steel inside the door of the large store and saw me pass by. On my way back he was waiting. “Come here, young fellow. I want to have a talk with you.” I quickly stopped and waited for the verbal artillery. “When you have your customer sorted, tell them I need a hand to get that delivery of mattresses upstairs.” He nodded towards a dozen large mattresses stacked at the bottom of the stairs at the back of the store. “When you have done shifting them with me it will be easy talking to you.” The ice was broken, his tone was firm but the glint was back in his eye.” I’ll be back as quick as I can, Jimmy,” I said, hitting towards the shop, swinging the porter bottle like the baton in a relay race. “Will you take your time, I have another 3/8” to get through on this penance,” he shouted after me.

“Now,” he said, when we had finished the job with the mattresses, “I’m an ordinary Catholic and an ordinary Irishman. Yes, I fought the war in the British Army and the rebels in 1916. But I fought the British with the rebels for independence and I fought after that for the Treaty and now you have me fighting with yourself. And another thing, I was your age when I joined up and never thought twice about anything. I was working with a priest who had a bit of land. Every Sunday after Mass, a gang of us played pitch and toss.

"I was good at it and used store my winnings in a barn at the back of the priest’s house. It was safe there in a hole high up in one of its walls. I left for the army in such a rush that I hadn’t time to get the money. I thought I’d never see it again. There was over three quid in it.” “Did you ever get it,” I asked? “I sure did, the first day back, I couldn’t believe my luck, many the day and night not knowing when the bomb or bullet would do for me, I cursed myself for not spending it. And another thing, that yarn you have about poppy day money is a load of bull. The British Legion looks after old soldiers and they collect money to do so by selling the poppy. Any that are hard up can apply for a few quid.

On Poppy Day we meet at the top of West Street and march to the Legion Hall where we are fed and well watered. There are only six of us left and we make a great day of it. I get the day off and sure you must come out and see us as we pass by the shop.”

I stood waiting on the footpath. Six lean and hardy old men came towards me swinging their arms stepping in unison. I could feel his eyes on my lapel as they passed and got the wink, nod and smile of approval. And while they were in formation, it wasn’t really a march, just a slightly speeded up version of the normal gait he used coming to or going from work, or a little slower than when hitting for the bookies when the bosses weren’t watching. They all looked so contented and proud. I think that each step and swing of the arms reminded them how lucky they were to be alive, that that moment in time as they moved through West Street was an aspect of the utopia they longed for as they marched through hell forty years before. That evening, cycling home I removed the poppy.