Page 17 - COBH EDITION 17TH MAY DIGITAL VERSION

There was a student there who hated noise and I shared a room with him. He had
such sensitive hearing that he used to hide his tiny folding travel clock underneath
his bed and cover it with some clothing so he couldn’t hear it ticking. My clock was a
bit bigger than his and sometimes when I came home, I would have to search for it.
He often buried it because it kept him awake.
Not long after I arrived, one of the other guys left, so Pat moved in. The following
year, we were joined by Pats brother, John who was stationed in Irishtown.
Looking back on it, the conditions were fairly primitive, but it was nearly 40 years
ago, and we didn’t know any better.
The hallway leading to the bathroom was covered with lino and there was a sky-
light with a broken piece of glass that often let in a bit of snow in the winter time. It
could be cold there too because we didn’t have any heating.

We shared that one bathroom between six of us and there was one guy who was
very fond of grooming himself. Because he was there the longest, he thought the
hot water was for his personal use. There was a limited supply and if we didn’t get
to the bathroom before him, we’d have to make do with cold water. This happened
regularly.

There was a very large antique mirror in my bedroom, and he loved to use that
when he was pruning himself and it didn’t bother him that he might be disturbing
anyone else. I was often tempted to break it.
As far as I can remember it was costing us about sixteen pounds a week for break-
fast, lunch and dinner and the food was good. When we were on nights, the land-
lady would make us a sandwich to take to work. We were completely spoiled, and
she really looked after us.

Molly Trait was her name and she was a tough, capable woman and she provided a
home from home for many characters over the years. She was married to Jack, a
big man who was very set in his ways. He had worked as a labourer for most of his
life and once he developed an opinion on something, that was that. There was no
changing him.

They were living in Dublin for donkey’s years, but they were originally from Kilkenny
and were really country people at heart. They were very traditional and everything
came to a halt when the Angelus came on the TV at six o’clock. Both were a little
hard of hearing and that often led to some confusion too, but it was a nice place to
live.

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then and some of the characters are
no longer with us. Hard to believe it’s nearly 40 years since we got off that bus.
Read more from Trevor on his blog at www.trevorlaffan.com