On arrival, I raced from the car to set eyes on the scene I had been dreaming of all year. Waves crashing on the huge beach, with well-worn tall black wooden wave breakers, stretching out into the sea. Oh, the smell of the sea air, the sight of the rock pools, the lighthouse, the mysterious Capel Island, Perks Merries, the shop on the front strand with its teasing assortment of buckets and spades, fishing nets, beach balls, windmills, sun glasses, and HB ice cream.
Our summer home, for the last two weeks of August in 1955, was a converted railway carriage. There, in a field of sandy soil and long wispy grass, between Claycastle Beach and the railway line, near the east Cork town of Youghal, we found a perfect playground for young imaginations.
We hired a green Morris Minor van to take us there. Into it, we crammed sheets and blankets, summer clothes, Clarks sandals for best wear, shoe whitener for our rubber dollies, buckets and spades, my new fishing rod, beach ball, football, swimming togs, as many children as could fit, and finally Smuggler, our dog.
Played on the beach
We played on the beach from sunrise to sunset, building sandcastles with moats and dams to stop the tide, and swimming until we got goose bumps. At low tide, we explored the magical world of rock pools.
Perks Merries was our Disneyland. I would usually be given about six pence pocket money, a little more if Dad came, and if used carefully it could last a long time, especially if I won on ‘roll-a-penny’.
We would end our night at the Merries, sitting on the beach wall, eating vinegary chips, listening to the new rock ’n’ roll music from Perks, talking and laughing.
I loved to lie in bed at night listening to the lonesome whistle of the steam train moving slowly along, engine chugging, bringing the ‘day trippers’ back home to Cork. I would drift off to sleep listening to the soothing sound of waves breaking on the shore, and gazing at the comforting clear bright yellow flame of the paraffin lamp.
The swallows swooping in acrobatic flight signalled the end of our summer holiday. Gathering noisily on the telephone wires in readiness for their long trip to a land where it’s always summer. Then it was time to bid farewell to new friends easily made. We promised to write and hoped to meet again the following year.
