My Town Of Strabane
“Memories etched in gold …”
The first glimpse you saw of Strabane was the church spires towering over the town as you crossed Lifford Bridge.
The highlight of our week was getting to the Commodore Cinema to see Flash Gordon on a Saturday afternoon. After the cinema we’d walk around to the “Back Street” to Cassino’s Cafe for a sixpenny bag of chips before heading back home. The journey never seemed that long as Flash Gordon was the topic of conversation.
There was one Saturday every month when we couldn’t go. We had to go to Confessions in the local church: that was a must. We didn’t always have sins to tell but we made them up. There was always dead silence in the confessional until the priest said,” Is that all?” Stealing the jelly cubes from the kitchen cupboard was never told in confession.
When I was fifteen I went to work in Strabane I earned £4 a week and thought I was a big girl who knew it all. After giving my allowance to my mother I had ten shillings (old money) to use as pocket money.
No cafe or chip shop meals then, homemade lunches were the order of the week.
A pair of Bear Brand mylons cost 2/11 and you were lucky if they lasted you all week. And then there was stiletto heeled shoes. We had to walk everywhere and you were lucky if the hells lasted a week.
New heels cost 2/6 in Pat Dunne’s wee shop at the top of Lepers Bray. We always had a good laugh with Pat, may he rest in peace. He was always giving us a hard time about walking the feet off ourselves,
Flash Gordon now forgotten we spent out Saturdays going from Ballindrait to Strabane on the 9.30am bus to get material in O Doherty’s to make a dress. (The shop now owned by Harleys) The material cost 4/6.
New dress run up on the sewing machine and new heels on the shoes it was time to think about the hair.
Premed hair was the style. The hairdressers put burning hot metal irons into your hair to give it a s curl. Then she poured lotion over it to make sure it set. The stench of burning hair and the fumes from the lotion was unbearable but we stuck it out for several hours. When it was over you looked like a whinn bush.
There were several Ladies Shops in the town. I remember gazing at ‘frocks’ – as they were called in those days – in shop windows and wishing I could afford to buy one.
There were a lot of other shops with awnings jutting out over the windows and doors. Lipton’s sold broken biscuits and cracked eggs at a cheaper price: shops on the pavement, buckets, brushes, bags of meal and many other items too numerous to mention.
Every shop in the town ran a club and people paid in weekly.
The book shop was owned by two old ladies. The only book we were allowed to buy was Woman’s Own Magazine as it always had the knitting and sewing patterns in it. Sadly, we have no bookshop in the town now.
My grandfather used to supply the greengrocers’ with fresh vegetables. He’d bunch up the scallions (spring onions) for Traynors’ and sell them for threepence a bunch.
There was always a brilliant atmosphere in the town.
Friday was Market Day. From the Square in the middle of the town all you could hear was men shouting, cows roaring and the auctioneers in the middle of it all. He spoke so fast nobody knew what he was saying.
A dear old lady kept the Public Toilets. You paid a penny to get in but if you soiled or wet them you were barred for life.
James Gregg’s had a wee shop (where Floral Bliss is now) – you could buy a penny chew or a glass of diluted orange for threepence – Jim stayed open late; people paid him sixpence to ‘mind’ their bicycles – otherwise they could be stolen.
Excitement always welled up in me at the sight of the old e Town Hall. When I saw the photo of the Town Hall in the Strabane Chronicle it prompted me to write this.
My mind travelled back in time remembering that excitement as I turned the corner there was the old Back Street; a narrow street with three second-hand shops, a greengrocers, a fish shop and a shop that sold snuff and tobacco – and at its other end the Town Hall.
I am recalling the days of my youth. It’s no surprise to me that others want to do the same.
Strabane to me then was like what Australia is like to the youth today. Those days of the 1950s and 1960s were very happy days for me – etched in gold and stored in a very special place in my memories.
Sally Moss March 2016 ©
Gemma Hill Writeyou Writeme 