I recently enjoyed a message from an old American sailor on his Fenian forebears and it really made me laugh bringing back some memories of my own. I might have been reading about my own maternal grandmother, Mary Bridget Tobin, who hailed from Kilkenny, Ireland. She shared the same Irish dietary obsessions with grub but her focus was on forcing little old me to eat platefuls of turnips and swedes, two root vegetables that I detest to this day. I can’t say that her Brussels sprouts, which she called ‘wee cabbages’, were one of my favourites either.

Despite what my Nan thought, she was not the world’s best cook and my Granddad, who was a big hulk of a navvy from Cork, who loved his food, used to jokingly call her kitchen ‘the burns ward’. But her (pea-whack) ham and pea soup, plates of steaming hot bacon ribs and apple pie were her 5-star specialities and I couldn’t get enough of them. Granddad used to say, “Get those down you son, sure they will make the studs drop out of your boots.”

Although they had lived in England for many years I never knew their political affiliations being far too young as I lost them both with two years of each other when I was eleven. But I suspect that deep down, they must have held their reservations and possibly a niggling rebel mentality towards the English government in general.

Naturally, there were many Irish pubs in Liverpool and his favourite watering hole was "The Eagle and Child", which was affectionately called "The Buzzard and Bastard" by the local Irish community. Whatever his deeper feelings about England may have been he was fiercely defensive of her during the war years. When some Irishman had ecstatically rejoiced to one and all in the bar at the news that German U-boats were being restored and refuelled in southern Ireland, Tommy, my granddad calmly walked over and broke the man’s jaw with a fist the size of a shovel.

During the Blitz in 1941, two of my uncles, one in the Irish Guards and one in the Royal Navy, both men in uniform, dropped into the pub to have a pint with Tommy. Pubs closed at 2200 hours in those days and the landlord, Patsy Flaherty, who was a rabid IRA supporter, deliberately refused them a drink making the excuse it was time when it was only 2145.

Tommy simply rose from his chair and going to the front doors closed and bolted them. Turning to Flaherty and a full pub he announced that unless drinks were served to the two servicemen nobody would be leaving the premises in one piece, least of all Mr Flaherty. Needless to say they got served that night. In fact, drinks were still being served at 2330 when Big Davy Dempsey, the local beat copper dropped in demanding to know what the hell was going on. When the situation was explained to him, he took off his cape and helmet, sat down at the table, set down his night stick and said, “That’s just fine Tommy, then I’ll be after having a jar with you too.”

Those were certainly happier and less complicated times when there was no such things as PC or BS spin; when men weren’t afraid to be men just in case they might upset or offend somebodies sensibilities or politics.Back then it was big boy's games with big boy's rules when common sense prevailed and we were all better people for it.

Peter

Where are you from? England

Peter, I ejoyed your memories story.

But I have ohe question.

What are swedes?

And I do not like brussel sprouts either.

Bob H.

Where are you from? Arkansas

Bob,

Thanks for your kind comment. Please see link for swedes. I have just discovered reading the link that they are called rutabaga in the US. They all appear to belong to the turnip family.

http://vegbox-recipes.co.uk/ingredients/swede.php

Peter

Where are you from? England