Hi Tom
Would it have been called the Fish Bowl on Bridge street located on the left going down Bridge st.

Also what about the best ice cream on the planet.
Kitty Mllloy's, i think it's spelt right.
She had them all beat..

Hi all
What about the fastest haircut in the west he took max 3 mins to cut your scull.
He was called Marshall Blakely..

Hiya boys and girls
I could rarely afford to got to Belfast. I remember at seventeen, saving up to buy a girl a present. Birthday, I think. She said she would like a bible. She got a little beautifully scented, nicely wrapped package of Yardleys soap instead. If you're reading this Sally, I know I tried to be smart beyond my years and experience in telling you I thought it was more personal, but the truth is, for the first time here, I couldn't afford the extra three shillings. Sorry.

I was only at most ten when I climbed up on that window sill and watched wee Billy Logue waltz with my mother, but even then I knew he definitely wasn't after the girls.

Hi John .
Cairnduff's was on the right hand side going down Bridge Street, A Marshall Blakely , seat never warmed , remember the large photograph of JOE LOUIS , on display .Talking about barber's, what about DAN GORMAN'S with son DONAL , Stranaghan's , barber named BOBBY a gentleman from dromore,Change of subject remember the Dining Room's owner in White coat serving , don't know his name. Re -- Kitty Molloy's,going down to Kittie's on sunday night with sweetie coupon's , buying stick's of liquorice , and a poke , rushing back home in time to hear on the radio PAUL TEMPLE and STEVE, my wife keep's asking to see my birth certificate.

Hi tom
Yes those were the days matey.
Who remembers Eamon O'Connor used to work in Elmores
every time he past my grandas window on the Longstone he used to stand and spar with himself it was better than watching TV. :-)

I remember as a boy sitting on the board set across the arm rests on the barber,s chair. Later he would try to sell you a jar of Brylcreme after the haircut
Donald

i used to go swimming at the plumhole behind sprusefield in the ravernette river.Weused to dig out the spent bullets dehind the firing range and throw them at the trout on our way home.That was a long time ago as iwas only about 6 or 7 and i am now 78

Harold
There was also a plumhole at the point between Hilden and Lisburn locks where the Lagan river joined the canal, in May Blair,s " Once upon the Lagan " there is a foto of Dickie Hanna taken there in a boat at the weir . It was there Billy Aberneathy accidently blew himself up with dynamite about 50 years ago. He was a well sinker and dynamite was part of his equipment. He lived with his wife Tischi at Lock View Lisnatrunk in the house my Grandparents vacated upon moving to Mill St. Hilden
Donald

Hi All.

Does anyone know where about's GIBSON'S BITE , IS ON THE LAGAN AS MENTIONED IN MAY BLAIR'S BOOK (Once upon the lagan.) And also does anyone remember a fellow dressed like TARZAN with loin cloth , and knife , swinging over the wee race . And finally what is the name of the engineering company , The front of the factory was on the old hillsborough road and the back went down to the lagan , were the fellow's used to swim across to a landing stage . Boy we all thought they were hero's , TARZAN and how brave they were, and to swim across the lagan , and swing over the wee race . Regard's Tommy

Donald,

The week before Billy Abernethy was killed, he was in Dundalk with my Father,Mother,Tischi and her sister Lizzie when he was approached by a gypsy selling sprigs of heather. He refused her with some harsh words, she spit on him and told him he would never wear another clean shirt. She wasn't far wrong, anyway since then, I have never refused a gypsy anything.I should mention that I was there and I was only 16.

Beano

I think the Engineering firm was called Carson and Robinson, it was an old weaving factory with saw tooth roof, they dealt in scrap also.
Donald

Hi Donald The Tarzan in question was well known but alas at the moment I cannot put a name to him I think the swimming area in question was known as Wrights Peir which was at the rear of Wrights Furniture Factory Regards Ted

Tommy, methinks you're takin' the mickey. I was one of those who regularly swam across the Lagan, and you could have parcelled me in Tarzan's loincloth

Hi Donald & Ted & Dabbler .

Many thank's all for quick information , Dabbler i am not taking the mickey , when i say Heroes , as a non swimmer at that time , my friend's and i would watch , and admire everyone going back and forth across the lagan , and the water looked awfull deep . Dabbler you might have had a slight build of a body , but you certainly made up for it in a courageous heart, in the challange going across and back .
Keep the letter's coming.

Regard's to all .

Tommy .

Harold, Your name is familiar. I think I went smiming in the same hole in the Ravarnet river. The hole was about 100/200 yards before if flowed into the Lagan. I would have been about 10 or 11. Dead scared of the water but had to go in. Someone threw mud on me and I wiped it off with my towel instead on ducking into the water. What a wimp. That was about 60 years. I learned to swin since. Sean

Sean: My father used to take us for walks along the Ravernette River on a Sunday and I remember one Sunday
(I was about 10)my father sent us home and he went and
got a young lad out of the river - he had drowned. I don't remember who the kid was - but it was very tragic.

It's a long time ago but I know that we young 'swimmers' had two crossings of the Lagan, one at the point which we called The Pier, and another a wee bit further along towards the locks that we called Wrights. They may have led to the same place on the other side of the canal, but Wrights was a wider crossing; and when we could manage to swim from The Pier to Wrights, we were very proud of ourselves. With others, I also swam from Nicholson's towards the left, through the bridge and back, with the Wee Park on our right as we started.
We used to swing across the wee race. I don't know who was dressed as Tarzan, but one or two fell in. The water at that point was only waist deep at most, even for a wee squirt like me.
I did my first ever strokes at the Plumhole, Ravarnette, naked. Raymond McDonald was among those with me on that day.
Joe

Sorry, folks, not exactly Characters material, that story. Just saw the bit about swiming, and joined in.

daphne
we used to go swimming there also and i remember the death of the young lad you mentioned from drowning
i,ve been trying hard to remember his name as there was a lot of us used to swim there i think he had a brother as i remember us kids feeling sorry and that
fot the brother he came from county down area close to duff's factory i think

Anybody remember a guy called Sandy, who lived, I think, in the wee entry that led from Bridge Stret to the 'hollow'? He spent some time in the Merchant Navy. I believe he married a girl from the Maze. In younger days in the wee park he used to show us the muscles rippling on his forearms. At the corner of Graham Gardens, he once told me he wanted to borrow a couple of quid 'till the ship came in', and looked astounded whn I lent it. I'm still waiting for the ship.

Hi Joe,

I think that must have been Sandy(Sponger)Graham, you are not the only one waiting for the ship. The last time I saw him he was working for Geordie Long the Bookie.

Billy

that would be Sandy Thompson, he was on the merchant navy, years later or when on leave he worked at Neesons pub in Smithfield. Ken.

Taking about pubs.
Has anybody ever been in Mckinie's pub used to be beside woolies. May not be spelt right.
Sometimes used to go in on a friday night and he used to just through the empties box under the table so we could all fill it for him. :-)

John
Wasn,t that pub beside Woolworth down an entry? I remember hearing tales about it and how he bottled his own Guinness. Somehow I associate the name Topping with it.
A Hilden character Davy Edgar drank there, Ned Close stationmaster at Hilden Halt also. It was and probably still is, custom to drink in rounds in Norniron and once Davy Edgar when asked by the person buying the round what his would be, Davy having enough to drink but not wanting to miss out answered " A large Woodbine"! ( that was the name given to a double 10 pack of a cheap Cigarette )
Donald

Yes Don thats the one had some breat nights in there i can say, it was like a cult pub, surrounding were rough no carpet on the floor just concrete but the crack was magic.

Football on TV is over, so here I am.
Sandy Thompson is right, and of course he knew as well as I that the 'loan' was a gift.
McKinneys was one rough pub. The oft mentioned Tommy Lewis was a regular. Sammy Castles too. Plus half of Antrim Street, I think.
Unrelated to this, does anyone remember Davy Anderson, from somewhere off the Longstone, who was killed by a sniper's bullet in Cyprus? I'm not sure if all you guys and gals really are 'olduns' like me, or if there are one or two smart 'younguns' who can ferret out info, but some fascinating wee bits come to light.
Thanks;
Joe

I suddenly remember PC Chestnut.
When young, I was fascinated by the policemens' batons and guns.
Does anyone remember a constable called McGorian? I don't want to be had up for passing on slander, but I was told that when he was asked by a certain young 'hard man'outside Fuscos. "Who's going to take me?", he (wisely) blew on his whistle, and waited for help.

Dabbler
I think the policeman you mention was called McGurnigan, a red haired cop from up the country somewhere, he was stationed in Lisburn beginning of the 60s. His sister I think still lives around Lisburn, she was a nurse in the Lagan Valley if my memory serves me right
Donald

Thanks Donald
He was ginger. When I was in Lisburn, I thought his name was McGurnaghan, the same as a schoolmate, but somebody mispronounced it - not me, of course