FORTY years ago, when I was a "cub" reporter, I worked on a number of small provincial newspapers, learning my profession. They were happy days. During this odyssey I invariably lived in digs", usually shared with young bank officials, county council officials, gardai and old and middle-aged bachelors. We were all in digs because we hadn't a clue about how to cook or look after ourselves. Boiling an egg would have been quite an achievement. To wash a shirt would be an Academy Award performance. The old bachelors were absolutely helpless and especially needed a landlady to look after them.
The young women, of course, lived in flats, mainly because they were familiar with the culinary arts and they liked their privacy. They would also have found it harder relating to landIadies than men did. They certainly would not have put up with some of the food we were expected to consume. But men, being easy-going and just interested in a peaceful life, never uttered a word of complaint.
Nowadays, the situation has changed considerably. Many men now live in flats because they are better attuned to matters in the kitchen. And even if they aren't there are numerous take-away and packaged foods outlets within walking distance. They can easily get by. Many of them are also richer and able to afford to buy appartments.
Less funny at the time Still, the modern youngsters don't know how much they missed. We had lots of fun. It is hilarious to look back on it now, although some of it wasn't so funny at the time. I lived in one digs where the landlady did not want us in the house after dinner; we had to be out by 8 p.m. every evening, so that she and her husband could take over the sitting-room. I spent most of my evenings in the snooker hall or in the cinema. I became quite useful with a cue and quite an authority on films. Myself and John Wayne were almost on first name terms. I could tell what he was going to say 19 minutes before he opened his mouth. When the wagon train was surrounded, I knew which injun was going to bite the dust first.
There was one digs where my fellow-lodger was an elderly alcoholic, or at least he was elderly to me. I was 17 and he was in his 50s, which was ancient.
When he was sober at lunch-time I was the best in the world; I was a bright kid who would go far in life. Later that night, when he was elephants drunk, I suddenly became a little upstart who thought he knew everything. His mood swings were incredible and upsetting. One night, in a bout of thinking out loud, he told me that if he wasn't careful he would become an alcoholic. He already was an alcoholic, but like all unfortunate people suffering from that disease he was the last to know. Coming home late at night, I would find him down on all fours, scraping in the flower bed, looking for the key. The key had been over the door when he arrived but he invariably fumbled and dropped it into the flowers.
Smoking in bed
I was in another digs where our resident drunk succeeded in setting his bed on fire. He had been warned a thousand times by the nervous landlady not to smoke in bed, but he wouldn't listen. Like many heavy drinkers he was addicted to smoking as well. Luckily, the landlady, who had nose like Snozzle Durante, smelt the smoke on the landing and rushed into his room. There was mayhem. It was all hands on deck and we had it extinguished before the fire brigade arrived. It was a nerve-wracking experience and showed the danger of the combination of drink and cigarettes. The incident was the "talk of the town" for weeks afterwards.
The landlady, who was very tolerant, didn't throw the old man out in spite of threatening to do so. That was nearly 40 years ago and they are all dead now, but between them they made my youth quite eventful. In fact I was lucky to survive it.
I stayed in another digs where I had a lovely old genteel landlady. She treated me like her son. She was very fond of Britain's royal family and the walls were festooned with pictures of titled personages. One day I was reading in my bedroom when I heard her frantically calling me:
"Come down quick, Frank, quick, quick, quick." I moved as fast as I could because the last time she had got that excited my car had been stolen from the street. I rushed into the sitting-room and there she was pointing excitedly at the man walking past on the footpath. "Look, look, look, he's a black," she cried, the eyes popping out of her head. She had never seen a black man before and it showed. Forty years ago black men were very thin on the ground in provincial Ireland. I calmed her down and in my best man-of- the-world manner explained that there were many such people in Dublin. Trinity College and the College of Surgeons had dozens.
Taste for Guinness
Later, I got to know the black man, who was staying in a nearby digs. He was Sampson Mwanza from one of the liberated British colonies and was in Ireland stud in local government. We became quite friendly and we used to go out for the odd pint together. He loved Guinness and I was just beginning to acquire a taste for it myself. You should have seen the heads turn in the pubs in that little town every night we strolled in. We had some very interesting conversations.
He wanted me to go to his country and gave me an assurance that he could get me a job on a good English-speaking newspaper. Even though I was at the rock bottom of the journalistic ladder, I thought it was better to stay put.
I wonder if I took his advice where I would be today if I had accepted his invitation. Maybe a very rich, famous editor?
With my luck, more likely shot in some revolution as the rebels did their usual trick of taking over the television and newspapers first.