Back in my early teens, not long before I un-found God, I used to go to Chapel in the Ferry every Sunday. On one occasion, just before Mass began, two young men squeezed into the end of the pew I was sitting on. Their hair was slicked back with Brylcreem, their cheeks were red, as if their faces had just had a good scrub, and they were wearing what looked like brand new suits – those tight-fitting, pastel-coloured suits that were popular in the Sixties. It was tattie howking season and there was a farm close by, so it didn’t take much brainwork to figure that the pair were tattie howkers over from Ireland for the season. While both acted nervously, it became clear very quickly that one of them had never been in a Chapel before. As soon as Mass got underway, the latter sat back, seeming to relax a little. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches. An urgent gesture from his companion told him that smoking in the Chapel was forbidden, so back went the cigarettes and matches. Later in the service, the collection plate was passed along our pew, starting from the end opposite where the tattie howkers sat. When the plate arrived at the novice, he reached into it, grabbed a handful of coins and stuffed them into his pocket. “Fock sake!” his companion hissed. “Would you put those back, Michael?” As a laddie who had helped his Dad scavenge for coins under the Forth Bridge, I remember thinking that an awful lot of well-fed faces came to Mass on a Sunday and that maybe Michael had the right idea.
2 Comments
Brenda walsh
30/3/2018 07:34:03 pm
Loved this story can picture the ciggy senario
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