When the ‘Examiner’ carried much more than news!
We wrote in a previous YCBS about the happy part that comics like the ‘Beano’ and ‘Dandy’ played in most of our young lives. My Aunt Betty, who lived in London with her husband, JB and son, Sean; used send us the comics. But there was more to this conveyance of comics than met the eye: There was a darker underbelly – which we shall come to in a moment.
A footnote to this story is that my greatest asset around Johnstown School playground was the fact that I was a comic broker … where I traded and loaned the ‘Beano’ and ‘Dandy’ with friends -as well as to appease foes. Nothing is simple, and the downside to being an illegal trader in Johnstown, was the fact that Master Lawlor hated comics with a passion! ‘Promoting violence and revenge – and alien to our culture’, our teacher said. The offending alien propaganda would be confiscated and I would be in the bad books for a day!
Now, if only the Master knew the origin of the innocent-or-not comics and how they would have been contaminated in transit. This is where we unveil the dark plot …
The comics would be clearly identifiable when postman, Joe Masterson, stopped at our gate. But what nobody but the sender and receiver knew, was that rolled tightly inside those two comics; was the banned newspaper; ‘The News of the World!’ This newspaper at that time dealt almost exclusively with scandals, affairs, adultery court cases and that word that couldn’t be mentioned in Ireland; …’sounds like’ … what comes between 5 and 7!
The ‘rotten rag’ as my father called it; (despite the fact it was the only national paper he read!) would be carefully hidden by Mammy from us children … in between the times it was sourced out to like-minded adult friends and neighbours. (I know Father Monks will be horrified by this revelation!) I discovered its hiding place and I secretly read the ‘filth’ when the coast was clear. Maybe this is what happened to me!?
The postal service is a two way system; and … oh the shame of it now … but my parents engaged in an illegal act going in the opposite direction as well. This is where the ‘Westmeath Examiner’ comes into the frame. No … no … our paper was never like the ‘News of the World’ – clean as a whistle and with our ‘Longford and Meath reporters;’ but allow me explain, please:
Britain was hit hard by food rationing during and after the war. Some of you may be surprised to learn that food rationing in England continued until 1954 – and meat was the last commodity to be de-rationed.
Apart from a scarcity of white flour, tea, cigarettes and items like bicycle tyres; we were much better off in Ireland over this period. Food was not scarce – and this is where my parents could repay Aunt Betty for her life-long generosity to my family. They would send bacon to England; but as with Master Lawlor and the ‘Beano’, it was against the rules! Half the time, the meat would be confiscated en route and nobody would ever know who brought home the bacon! One Christmas a full ham was dispatched; disguised ingeniously by my mother and complete with a brazen lie on the Customs Declaration Form. The ham never arrived at its destination. But we had a 4 out of 6 success rate with the salty bacon!
We were rich in bacon because we killed a fat pig every year. The sides of bacon would be cured in salt and then hung up from a ceiling. Anyone reared in the country loved salty bacon – and none more so than my Aunt Betty.
People today cannot fully appreciate the importance of ‘Examiner day’ each week back in those times. It was our link with the great big world out there and when my brother Willie and I started playing underage hurling and could read our names from our county paper; it took on an added affection which never waned.
Aunt Betty liked the ‘Westmeath Examiner’ as much as she loved salty bacon. Can you see where this is heading? Yes, my mother hewed thin slices of bacon from the flitter hanging from a hook. Using butter-paper, these slices were carefully placed between the ‘Examiner’ pages and addressed to; 5 Kensington Park Gardens, London, England.
I never thought of asking my aunt how much of the paper she managed to read – surely by now saturated in salt and fat. What I do know is that Auntie Betty and her family was just as excited on receiving the ‘Westmeath Examiner’ … for what were inside; just as my brothers and I were as gleeful to see the comics coming … and of course the depraved adults for what was inside also!!
Don’t Forget
Everybody dies famous in a small town. (Miranda Lambert)
