JOLLY GOOD FELLAS

Of the persons who lodged with us, I especially remember three. For
a brief 3-year spell, when we were about 8 years old, my parents took
in lodgers to make ends meet. Willie, Raymond and Danny still remain
fresh in my mind.

Many other families took in lodgers, likewise, in our street. Some
people preferred short-stay, bed'n breakfast people, e.g., people
passing thro' the harbour en route to Ireland. My parents, however,
didn't like this hotel-type arrangement and preferred longer term
guests, who almost became part of the family.

Our lodgers, mainly, were construction workers in the Montfode
"scheme," the neighbouring housing estate then being built. These
people were skilled tradesmen--joiners, bricklayers, etc.--with hard
muscular, tattoed arms (which I compared, with dismay, to ours and my
father's). They were often of Irish extraction--common in the building
trade--, were bachelors or had left their family back home in Ireland
or England, and were leading an itinerant life "chasing the big money,"
moving from construction project to construction project, average
duration 9 months.

The lodgers were decent, hardworking people. Summers they would work
all the daylight hours they could get (with overtime, double pay),
returning grey with exhaustion at 11 pm. Whenever they were finished
early, I remember they always would wash scrupulously in the wash
basin, shave their brown, sun-burned skin with a wet, safety razor;
brylcream their hair; put on a white shirt and their best, dark suit
and go down the town to drink in the pub.

Willie was the oldest of our lodgers. He was Scottish and a bit of a
rarity, in that he was a comfortable, homey type. He rarely went out
and spent his evenings in our favourite armchair, listening to our
radio (we had no TV then), smoking his pipe and reading his evening
newspaper.

In retrospect, I gasp at the lack of privacy that we and, also, these
humble, uncomplaining fellows had to endure in our small house of 3
bedrooms. We had my Grandmother in one room, my parents' double bed
along with my and my (twin) brother's double bed in another room and
one or two lodgers in a double bed in the third room. This had always
to be kept "sotto voce," for the Town Council, our landlord, frowned on
tenants sub-letting their property.

Willie's mildness incensed my Granny, because he always plomped into
her (the best) armchair and we couldn't very well ask him to relinguish
it.

Even my father wanted this chair on occasion, but old Willie just
blandly puffed away in ignorance. (Perhaps he knew all along but
decided he had paid for it and should sit put.)