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The Time of the Corncrake: an Irishman's memories of his life in the 1940's and 1950's

by Kevin M. McDermott

208 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-2053; ISBN 1-4120-1676-2; US$19.00, C$23.00, EUR16.50, £11.00

A story that is sad, funny, informative, and describes in great detail a way of life now gone forever.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book The Time of the Corncrake is about the author's life as he grew up from boy to man in the austere conditions that existed in Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s. Although it is a serious, informative, and sometimes sad account of growing up in a small Irish town, it is also full of humour. He tells in great detail of his schooldays, his teenage years, and his inevitable migration to England. He also writes from an Irish perspective, of his time in the Royal Air Force, and of his first year in his chosen career, the London Fire Brigade.

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About the Author Kevin McDermott grew up in Cavan, Ireland during the 1940s and 1950s. In 1955 he joined the Royal Air Force and served three years as an anti aircraft gunner in Germany and Cyprus. Following demobilisation he became a firefighter with the London Fire Brigade and served for 25 years. He has also been a factory worker, a part time soldier, a drummer and an accordionist with various bands, a driving instructor and a driving examiner. In 1989 he moved from London with his wife and family to live in the south east of Ireland. He enjoys writing, good conversation, and playing all types of music.

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Sample Excerpts

PROLOGUE

I think it was sometime in the early nineteen seventies, that I stood by the side of an Irish country road listening to the vibrating sound of a corncrake calling from the long grass. It was summertime, and as I was on a rare visit from London, I rejoiced in the fact that I was hearing the bird for the first time in many years. It was a sound that was as much a part of the summers of my childhood as was the buzzing of the bees. Even as I listened, memories of my young life flooded my mind. I remembered how, as I walked to school with my brother and sister, we thought that the corncrake was calling: Late again - You're late again.

As I stood there with my memories, my companion informed me that every year saw a reduction in the number of corncrakes nesting in Ireland. I didn't realise it, but that was also going to be the last time I would hear its deep throaty call.

Some twenty years later, I returned to live in the land of my birth, and was saddened to find that not only had the corncrake gone from our midst, but there was a whole generation of people who had never had the experience of listening to its harsh call. A call that has been described as not unlike 'a comb being scratched along the edge of a matchbox.'

The corncrake of my childhood witnessed my misery, my joy, and my sadness. As I grew into manhood, it was still there every summer, waking me up at dawn with its 'rerrp rerrp - rerrp rerrp.' Now it is all but gone, and in a way, it is like most of the things that I have written about in this record of my formative years, all of which took place during 'the time of the corncrake.'

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Excerpt from - 'Go Easy with the butter'

My father only got an occasional few weeks work during the year. Around the Christmas period he got work as a temporary postman. I have a faint memory of him trying to light an old carbide lamp for his post office bicycle before venturing out early on a dark winter's morning. Other times he had to walk around the local countryside with sacks of mail on his back and his pronounced limp earned him the nickname of 'Hopping Jemmy.' It was a name both he and mother detested, but as children, we found it somewhat amusing. During the summer, he often worked for a number of weeks tarring roads, or breaking stones in the quarry. The local council, to try and ease the unemployment situation, sponsored this sort of work. It was known colloquially as 'working on the grant.' Eventually things got so bad for us, that he had to emigrate to get steady employment.

I remember that mother cried all day when this gentle, educated man, limped away from our door carrying a small battered suitcase. He was heading for Dublin and the boat for England where, because of his disability, his job prospects were limited. In fact the only jobs he was able to do, were cleaning up and making tea for fellow workmen on airfields and building sites. A sad end for a good father, who had had once been a local councillor, and had 'done his bit' in the struggle for independence. It was an enforced separation, and it would be at least thirteen years before he and my mother would be able to live together again. I only saw him once yearly after that, sometimes at Christmas, and sometimes in the summer. It was about seven months following his departure that my brother Patrick was born to mother. I was seven years old at the time.

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Excerpt from - 'A wooden bench, a whitewashed wall'

The school itself was a very old whitewashed building, with three classrooms and a porch. There was no electricity or running water, and the toilets consisted of a small blockhouse type structure. The toilets housed a wooden platform with two holes over a dry ditch. The hole for the boys was separated from the hole for the girls by a mud wall. There was no door on the boy's side and an old red door on the girl's side. There was no toilet paper of any description available, but a plentiful supply of 'dock leaves' and grass grew nearby. Only two classrooms were in use, and in the corner of mine stood a pot-bellied stove. We often spent our lunch break scavenging the nearby fields for sticks to replenish the pile of firewood and peat that was stored beside it. Ê

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Excerpt from - 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.'

It was while studying for my confirmation that I first encountered the list of sins that were contained within the sixth commandment; 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.' This commandment seemed to cover the complete range of forbidden fruits, and was without a doubt the hardest one to keep. Sins of the flesh such as impure thoughts and deeds, visiting occasions of sin, and reading the juicy bits in the banned News of the World, were covered by this commandment. Even looking at pictures of Betty Grable and Esther Williams dressed in their swim wear were covered by it. As puberty set in and the hormones went coursing through my body, I often succumbed to temptation. I thought at the time that I was the only boy in the world who was doing such a thing. The shame and fear of having to tell the sin to the priest in confession remains with me to this day.

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Excerpt from - 'Jigs Reels and Paradiddles.'

I was about sixteen when I got my first chance to play with a dance band. My uncle was running a small band in the country, and asked me to play drums with him. The big drawback was that I would have to cycle to grandmother's house in Laragh on the night of a dance, and home again when it was over. That was a round trip of some fourteen miles and I cycled it for about three months.

My uncle's band wasn't exactly Glenn Miller, but I was enjoying the experience, and I was learning all the time. The band consisted of a sax, a clarinet, a piano accordion, drums and occasionally a trumpet player. Sometimes we had a girl crooner, and sometimes a male crooner and we travelled miles in a hired car, picking up whatever musician or singer we could find. The car always seemed to smell strongly of milk, and in answer to my query about the smell, I was told that the owner also used the vehicle to deliver milk to his local creamery.

Most of the dance halls we played in had no electricity, and the small amplifier and two speakers were run from the battery of the hired car that had conveyed us to the venue. The battery was invariably on its last legs and the amplifier often packed up halfway through a number.

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Excerpt from - 'Paddy in the Air Force'

The Drill Instructors spread out into a line facing our general area and one of them entered our bus. He stood for a time by the driver's seat in absolute silence just staring down the aisle. His eyes seemed to burn into each recruit in turn. The peak of his cap was nearly touching the bridge of his nose to such an extent that he really had to hold his head back to enable him to see properly. I couldn't help but notice the gloss on the toe caps of his highly polished boots, and the sharpness of the creases in his trousers and jacket sleeves. Suddenly he took a deep breath and in a high pitched voice he screamed,

'Get outside and get fell in.'

We sat in stunned silence for a moment not sure what to do, and when he saw there was no immediate response to his command he seemed to have a seizure. This time he smashed his 'pace stick' on the cowling of the engine, and screamed even louder than before.

'Outside... Move... Double... Move it.'

This time the message got through loud and clear. We moved as one man towards the exit and clamouring from the bus we found that all hell had broken loose outside. Recruits were running in all directions, and as the combined screams of the DI.s got more and more frenzied, we somehow managed to form up in three ranks.

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Excerpt from - 'A job with a pension'

Throughout the weeks we were continually assessed and checked as to our ability to become firemen, and some recruits were already falling by the wayside.

It was shortly after I commenced my training that a member of a senior squad fell from the third floor of the drill tower. He was badly injured and would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. The incident didn't do much for our confidence. By the time we had reached the end of our first months training we had lost two of our squad through fear of heights or the inability to take the pressure. As the weeks went on I felt content with my choice of career. It was a job for life with a pension, and I liked the idea that I would play an important role in the everyday life of a large city. I'm afraid my dreams of playing the drums with the Joe Loss Orchestra had faded.

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Catalogue Information

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