Mauri - Cooper's bookies, my second home when I was a teenager. :-)

Ann, you knew Paul McKEOWN, nd probably Teresa, who married my mother's brother. i think they had children. She remarried after he died young.

Dabbler, Paul McKeown is also a cousin of mine. (We're everywhere)
Paul is alive, married with a family, and lives in Craigavon. Haven't seen him for some years.

I don't know the Teresa McKeown, to whom you refer, but Pat, my sister, might.

A new GP remarked to me one day that everyone in Lisburn seems to be related in one way or t'uther. If not actually related, we all know each other. You have to watch what you say in Lisburn, and to whom you say it.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ann
i thank you for knowledge of Paul's life. The paranoid GP sounds typical of the people. (Prods or Fenians may be listening)

Ann , What a coincidence I was helping to clear out a flat yesterday and came across a tin box with memory cards in it, and there included is one for Malachy and its sitting beside me here now and funny I didn't realize the date until I read your article and your right he is a hansom guy in the photo, Regards Ted

I know this is nothing to do with the subjcet matter but I remember on one ocassion when my family still lived at the top of the Longstone in Lismara Terrace it would be around September 1949 I was on leave from HMS Vanguard after six months in the Mediteranean. In my teens I used to wear white socks (still do) even with my uniform though I to caught a couple of times being inspected before we went ashore and I had to go back and change.
Anyway I had borrowed my Aunts bike to go downtown but stopped at "Ferris's wee shop at the corner of Ridgeway St and Chapel HIll to go in and talk to Hazel the owner's daughter. As I went in there was a bunch of young guys hanging around the corner and when I came out and went to get on the bike somebody made a nasty remark about me and my white socks,so throwing down the bike I challenged whoever it was to make the remark again and he would probably loose a couple of teeth, there was deathly silence so I picked up my bike and rode off.
Anytime I walked down Chapel Hill after that I always stayed on the
Chapel side to avoid trouble. Just think I am talking about 65 years ago when most of you were still learing your ABCs. Mauri

Hi Maurie, Just thinking I was probably in class at school across the road while you were chatting up Hazel she was a fine looking girl, manys a time I was in Billys shop and you needed coupons then but he had always something you could buy that coupons were not needed, then of course you had Livingstones up the road Paris Buns at lunch time Memories- Memories Kind Regards Ted

Mauri, good for you. You put the bigmouth in his box.

Dabbler, the GP isn't paranoid. He's only a young man, not long out of university, in his first GP practice. I suppose he had never come across a place like Lisburn where almost everyone knows everyone else (or is, indeed, related to them). I like him.

Barney, I see Brian all the time, although sometimes I'm in the car. He walks around Lisburn every day and I always have a word or two with him. He hasn't been very well recently and I know he doesn't work in the bookies any more. Saw him yesterday.

Barney, I'm sure you know that Hugh McGrogan has Alzheimer's. It seemed to develop very quickly and I think he is now in care, but am not absolutely sure.

Thanks, Ted.

Hi Ted, I remember the parris buns in Livingstone's also their ice cream. You were lucky at the Boys School having two shops like that so close, at the Central we only had the service station facing the school which only had limited supply of candy.
Hazel was a really nice girt, I believe she married and moved south,and if I remember correctly I heard she had passed away some time ago. Best Wishe. Mauri

Ann
On second reading of your posting about your GP, I see that HE is not paranoid. Hope he doesn't easily take offence.

At the corner of Millview /Chapel Hill Nipsy McGrath had a shop also,we used to spend time in it yarning about gambling dogs horses

Barney, Its a long time ago now but to me that shop at Millview and Chapel Hill always looked empty,did they do much business. Mauri

Not a big lot Mauri more or less just a bit of banter and chat Dickie Dodds who lived just on the other corner of Millview from Nipsies was the local rapper upper in the mornings,i am sure you would have known him
people who lived in Millview then were the Coburns ,Grahams,McCaughertys ,old Billy Lappin,the Smiths you would have known the father of this family Billy he got (pro,)for a nickname he worked in the picture house, Cordeners, Woods,and Kennedys,there was one other family who i cannot now recall

Barney,, Thanks for that, I think I remember Dickie Dowds and Billy Lappin don't forget we are going back well over sixty years for me anyway. Oh did you know the Laverys across the street???. Mauri

YES I KNEW THE LAVERYS IN CHAPEL HILL BILLY, HARRY, KATHLEEN AND CARMEL, PATRICIA,THEN THERE WAS PADDY LAVERY FURTHER UP CHAPEL HILL ALL GONE NOW AS FAR AS I KNOW

Barney, Mark Lavery was a friedn of my Uncle as both were in the RAF together. Mauri

Yes Mauri i do remember Mark Lavery back then in his air force uniform he probably was Paddy Lavery,s son other sons of Paddy was Micheal and Patrick.during the times of the air raids when we would have took to the fields when the sirens sounded the alarm,looking out from the our back bedroom window you could see the flashes of bombings of belfast in the skies,there was air raid shelters in Pump Lane and Antrim Street and other places back then which you will remember better than me i think as i was born in 1935

Barney, You are only five years younger than me and yes I remember the Air Raid shelters all over the town. We had a couple behind Lismara Terrace amd another couple at the corner of the Longstone and Tonagah Park, people used them to store their junk and they were also used on Sundays for pontoon schoos when it was wet.

Did you know the Fletchers who lived facing the Golf Club,Cyrill etc and the other Fletchers who lived up beside Collins shop, Bobbie was in the Marines during the war and then was in Belfast Harour Police after the war, Eric drove the Lagan Valley Hospital ambulance, Thompsie was the golfer but also drove a van for one of the biscuit companies and Billy used to prop up the bar at the Robin Nest. Mauri

Yes maurie i knew all the Fletchers Mervyn/ Cecil/ Sammy/ Kenny
Thomson Fletcher also he caddied when i was doing that,and turned out a fair golfer to as well he did,I think Eric was youngest of them, an elder brother also drove the ambulance cannot recall his name at all now,
I do not know if those 2 Fletcher families were related,another family who lived in Mill View who i forgot about were the Duffys,Billy was the father of them better know as (Yellow)due i think to him not going up to head the ball,but they were the healthiest family you could meet at that time

Barney, Bobbie was the eldest Fletcher of the family beside Collins shop. Eric was the amubulance driver Maurice now that I recall was the youngest and there was also a daughter Olive. The Fathers of both families were brothers if I remember correctly. Mauri

Mauri i think that Fletcher family finished up liveing in Tonagh estate, The Green was last place they were liveing in as far as i can recall

Yes Barney, The house they lived in along with a couple more were demolished for the extension of the Niagra restaurant as I am sure you sre well aware off. Next house down belonged to Billy Wills the taxi cab owner who has probably passed on a long time ago. Mauri

Barney, Sorry made a mistake, the next house down belonged to the Shields family who had a shoe repair shop in Gregg Sreet, there were two boys and a girl in the family, Jim was a bus conductor who started his own Photography studio and Billy who joined the Ennisillen Fusiliers then settled in England. Yvonne the daughter never married as far as I know.
Billy Will's house was the next one after the Shields. Mauri

Hi Maurie Regarding Jimmy Shields,Many's a time I stood in his shop/shed in Gregg Street as my Father use to get his shoes made and repaired in his establishment, he would have been well known as my Grandparents just lived a few doors up on the opposite side, that wasn't yesterday, Regards Ted