Old Russian proverb: “In Summer everyone suffers, in Winter only the poor suffer.” And how they suffered in the past. Every dry day gathering sticks from the ditches and hedges. Trying to keep a pot boiling on an open fire.We went hunting for rabbits. It was rabbit for dinner on Saturdays. Sometimes it was dressed up as chicken. Isn’t it lovely?” We nodded non-committally.
We went fishing too in winter but only bobbing for eels. You thread about 20 fat worms with a needle like a pound of sausages and make a fat ball of them.Tie them with a 6ft twine to a pole and dip into the likely places. The eels’ teeth catch in the threads and you haul them out. Ms B paid good money for them but JD was more interested in where the poor salmon were lying in the cold water. He wanted to take them from there and warm them up. In Ballintemple, a man was known to regularly strip to his underwear in January to save salmon from a cold existence.
We wore hob-nailed boots with steel heels and toes. They were very heavy. I dropped one by the bed one night and there was such a clatter someone called out “Are you alright?”
The diet changed too. Porridge with husks. It took about 20 minutes to cook. We had hand-knitted gansies and socks the better to keep us warm. Mother made an apple tart on Sundays in a roasting tin. It was two inches deep with lots of Bramley seedlings and Grenadiers from the garden. It divided neatly into 12 good portions. In winter too there was mutton stew made by a master. What a belly warmer that was and for the more refined there was French toast.
Just before Christmas a goose arrived in the post from a cousin in Ballycastle. The letter said there was a gosling inside. To me, it looked like a bottle of water but it had a very strong smell. I don't know what happened to it after. In the evenings, we had the Foley family and Question Time with Joe Linnane and of course Dinjo dancing on the radio . We were slowly becoming sophisticated and soon some would be taking skiing lessons and learning what to do with schnapps.
All in all, winter was better than summer.
