When I was a small kid in the 1970s there was a little shop up the street in our little suburb of Drimnagh in South Dublin, Ireland. We called it 'the kiosk' and it sat in the roundabout in front of our church.The kiosk sold everything from cigarettes to ice-pops, popcorn and toffees, chocolates and shampoo, the list goes on and on. You never actually got to go into the kiosk, they served customers through a small window at the front of this funny little building, it didn't look much bigger than our kitchen (and our kitchen was not big believe me) but I yearned to see inside, I imagined there was a secret trap door in the floor which would lead you down a metal spiral staircase to a large basement, alas I never got to appease my curiosity.
My friends and I debated furiously as to whether there was a toilet in the kiosk, I contended that there had to be a loo in there, how could they last all day without going? My older brother Gerard told me that there was no toilet in there and they filled empty lemonade bottles with their piss, I somehow doubted this, I mean you should have seen the size of the opening of the lemonade bottles, it was very small opening and some of the staff in the kiosk were ladies and well, it wouldn't be easy logistically speaking!
The kiosk was run by Mr.Carter, he was a blind man who always wore a white housecoat, he had odd colour eyes, one of them looked like my large milky gullier marble, he seem to know absolutely everybody who came to the little window to buy something, Mr.Carter was incredible! It was agreed that he was as blind as a bat; but each and every time I ambled up to the kiosk shop window and asked for a orange ice pop, a Time bar or a packet of Indian Popcorn, he would immediately ask me how my mother was or my brother Derek, it never ceased to amaze me 'Me Ma is fine Mr Carter, so is Derek' I would utter in a bewildered tone.
Mr Carter was ably assisted at times by an elderly lady called Nancy,we called her Nancy Carter but she wasn't actually related to Mr.Carter as far as we knew, Nancy was a little more prickly than Mr.Carter, her patience was not open ended and she often scolded us for taking too long to decide on an orange ice-pop or a golly bar. She smoked like a chimney and constantly drank from a small red lemonade bottle and on certain days,when you approached the little serving window,you got a stale stench wafting from the little kiosk window, but all the kids liked Nancy, she was Ok and sometimes she would give you a nice smile and a wink.
In our local area Mr Carter was an institution, he was like a wise old sage living in a little hut up the street, he was always on hand with some nuggets of wisdom about the weather, mass times, funeral arrangements, when to take cough sweets for that husky throat and who was recently sent to or released from jail. Mr Carter knew everything about which girls were going out with which boys, what the English soccer scores were on a Saturday, which shampoo and conditioner you usually bought and what flavour block if ice cream you were sent to buy from the kiosk. His penchant for recognising your voice, matching it with your name, linking you with your siblings and family members and then offering up various nuggets of priceless information based on all of this data was absolutely stunning. This man was a walking memory bank with the ability to recall data in the blink of an eye (albeit a blind one), he had a mind which processed data like a dual core processor, long before dual core processors ever existed.
Sometimes my older brothers would send me up to the kiosk for various items with varied results, they asked to purchase a long stand, Mr Carter, on hearing my request would smile a wry smile and ask me to stand to the side of the window while he continued to server other customers, after a long while he would call me back to the window 'Young Carroll, tell your brothers there are no long stands in stock today', it was only after four of five times of falling victim to this ruse that I realised the joke was on me and both my brothers and Mr Carter were in on the trick!
There followed, over the course of a couple of years, several instances of me being caught out this way by Mr Carter and my brothers, they sent me for some really dodgy items ; a bucket of steam, a packet of button holes, a tin of black and white shoe polish, a rubber hammer and then a glass hammer and various other completely preposterous nonsensical items. Mr Carter played a blinder (excuse the pun) throughout these skits, he really belonged on the stage, his face never cracked a smile as he told me that he had just sold the last Sky Hook a few minutes earlier to one of my pals but if I hurried I could catch up with my pal and borrow the Sky Hook if I really needed it.
You have probably heard the joke (never uttered by me save for reference purposes) about the blind man who walks past the fish market and shouts out 'Good morning girls'? Well every evening at about ten minutes to nine Mr Carter would start his daily ritual of locking up the Kiosk, this entailed him affixing a large steel bar across the steel shutters at the front of the little shop, he would emerge from the side door of the Kiosk with the metal bar and proceed to feel his way around the outside wall until he reached the front windows. There was usually a small group of lads hanging around at the back of the kiosk and they always showed Mr Carter the utmost respect, 'Good evening lads' he would say as he locked up, 'Good evening Mr Carter' came the chorus back from the group of lads, no one ever called him Bill, it just wouldn't be kosher, his name was Mr Carter! When the shop was fully locked Mr Carter would emerge sans the white housecoat and shout to the boys hanging around at the back of the shop 'Goodnight lads, Goodnight Doyler, Goodnight Paggo'. Most times neither Doyler or Paggo were there but everyone played along, yes indeed Mr Carter was a paragon of respect, he simply commanded it!
Around this time in our area there were a spate of handbag snatches, the victims were mostly old ladies, the snatchers Modus Operandi was the same each time, he would hide in a bush or behind a tree in the front garden of a house and patiently wait for his prey to amble by, he would then jump out behind the old lady with a monstrous roar and grab her bag from her hands and scuttle off down the street. Most of the old ladies were rooted to the spot in shock each time it happened, after a while they would realise what had happened and a cycle of fear and upset would ensue, it really was a terrible time for the old ladies in our area. Sometimes they were upset because they had a little bit of money in the handbag, sometimes they cried because their favourite lipstick was in the bag, Mrs Brown cried because she had the severed leg of her dead dog Bingo in her bag, she carried it around everywhere for the past 2 years, it gave her comfort and it also smelled a but but hey it kept her happy. Mrs Doyle had a relic of St Oliver Plunkett in her bag which had brought her great luck over the years, in a small pocket in the inside of Mrs Rattigan's bag there was a old photo of a soldier, it was her husband Gerald who had been killed in Normandy during the second world war, when her bag was snatched she seemed to suffer the loss of her husband all over again, yes indeed these were tough times for the local blue rinse set, God love them.
Fr Burke announced during mass on Sunday that all handbag snatchers would go straight to hell, he practically guaranteed it 'Please spr
ead the word to your friends and family' he roared in his thick guttural County Clare accent 'the fiend or fiends who are perpetrating these heinous acts will suffer the flames of hell', this was a scary priest and he meant every word, his big hairy arms were famous all over Drimnagh, finely honed from picking potatoes when he was a young man on the family farm, arms now reserved for putting young local lads into head locks when he caught them talking at the back of mass on Sunday morning.
I felt sorry for the handbag snatchers, if they were ever caught by Fr Burke they were completely screwed!
Everybody in Drimnagh was talking about the bag snatcher, who could it be, was it someone from the area, could it be someone who actually knew these old ladies, someone who had grown up amongst us, it couldn't be could it? My Dad said the snatcher was breaking the commandment 'Thou shalt not steal', Mr Hunt the local grocer said the snatcher should be tarred and feathered, one of our local Sisters of Mercy, Sister Rosaleen, visited lots of older people to explain how to try avoid falling victim to the snatcher. Sr Rosaleen has spoken to the local Garda Sergeant and he had given her some advice, she had written it down and made some photocopies for the local older ladies and the general public:
Tips for the ladies of the Parish:
1. Don't carry large amounts of cash in your handbag
2. Don't carry jewellery or anything which has a high personal value in your bag
3. If the snatcher grabs your bag just let it go, don't struggle as the snatcher may get violent
4. If you need to go out please go out with your friends, there's strength in numbers
5. Finally, let's try to be on the lookout for anyone selling second hand items such as watches or jewellery
6. If you have an older lady living near you please make sure they know about the bag snatcher and please help them understand what steps they can take to protect themselves
Sr Rosaleen asked some of us altar boys to post these pieces of paper into some letterboxes to get the word out there to the local ladies, I got Mourne road from the kiosk down to Brickfield park, Barry Browne got a chunk of Galtymore road, his brother Paul got the other chunk, and so lots of us spent our Saturday morning stuffing letterboxes and hopping over railings between houses to get the job done, when we finished we felt good, Sr Rosaleen said God was always looking down and he would be very happy with us, we would have preferred some Dime bars and a packet of Tayto crisps from the Kiosk but Sr Rosaleen told us she would also say a prayer for us instead!
Over the next couple of weeks there were three more bag snatches, Mrs Byrne was walking up Sperrin road after bingo on a Tuesdays evening, the snatcher was hiding under a car, he let Mrs Byrne break away from a group of her friends so finish her short walk to her house, the snatcher was getting better at this, he was literally gone like the wind, Ma Staunton and Mrs Cooper suffered a double snatch down on Keeper road when the snatcher jumped out from under a load of black bin bags that were outside the boxing club, before the ladies knew it he had both handbags under his arm as he sprinted off towards Brickfield park.
At this stage the local Gardaí where really starting to feel a high level of frustration and embarrassment, they didn't have one single lead to go on, no witnesses came forward and all they had were multiple descriptions of the back of the snatchers head and he always wore a hat so they didn't really know his hair colour either. It was all anybody talked about at the local shops, at mass each day and up in the ladies club where local women met every Tuesday in the local parish hall.
Each day I was carrying out my usual duties at home, I went to the local shops every day for six pints of milk and a sliced pan of bread, sometimes a dozen eggs and on Saturdays I was always instructed to get a silver side of corned beef, two heads of savoy cabbage, a pound and a half of O'Gorman sausages, a half ring of white and a half ring of black pudding, I also did my daily run up to the kiosk for various bits and pieces such as orange ice pops, blocks of ice cream, bottles of cream soda and sachets of shampoo and conditioner for my big brother Brendan. Up at the kiosk Mr Carter was in his usual omnipotent form, all knowing, wisdom bestowing Mr Carter. I needed a packet of King crisps for my sister Jacqueline, the crisps cost 8 pence and she had given me a 10 pence piece and told me I could keep the change. I approached the kiosk window and rummaged in my pocket for the 10 pence coin, 'Hello Mr Carter', 'Hello young Carroll' came his reply, as astute as ever. We chatted a little about the weather and of course the bag snatcher still being at large, I then asked him for the packet of King crisps and a time bar (this was my reward from Jacqueline), I reached into my pocket and handed over the coin into Mr Carter's big fleshy hands. 'Ah young Carroll, now I didn't come down in the last shower' 'What's wrong Mr Carter?', he then showed me the coin I had just given him, it was my prized silver half crown, one of my pieces from my prized coin collection. 'That's a lovely silver half crown young Carroll, but we don't use those any more as you well know' Mr Carter continued in an extremely confident fashion about the coin 'Now young Carroll, I have a couple of those half crowns in my own collection at home, one is dated 1936 and is actually 75% silver and you have to handle it carefully as it will wear down over time, I just acquired it recently, the other one is dated 1953 and is 75% copper and 25% nickel and was known as the cupronickel variety, there is an image of an Irish Hunter horse on one side of the coin and and the Irish harp on the other side, your coin in my hand is a cupronickel type', Mr Carter continued ' I get a lot of people, either purposely or not, handing in old coins over the counter of the shop to buy stuff, mostly you pesky kids' Mr Carter flashed a wry smile!
I wondered at the man's detailed knowledge of this and other coins, I stood there listening for at least ten minutes completely transfixed, I loved collecting different coins but I had never known that Mr Carter was a coin collector and an absolute expert. Later that evening I told my Dad about the coin incident with Mr Carter, he pointed out that because Mr Carter was blind his other senses were probably enhanced, for instance his hearing and sense of smell would probably be much sharper than ours and also his sense of touch, after all he handled coins and notes all day in his shop, my Dad said that if Mr Carter didn't know a shilling from a two pence piece the Kiosk would go out of business pretty quickly!
Meanwhile time was moving on with the bag snatcher problem, there had been absolutely no progress in terms of catching him, no leads no descriptions, nothing!
One Sunday morning I was on altar boy duty for 1130 mass, Sr Rosaleen sat in the second row of the church and at one stage of the mass gave me a knowing wink, after mass was over she popped into the sacristy to talk to us; 'Now boys' she pronounced, 'I need you to go visit some of the victims of the bag snatcher to see if there are any odd jobs we can do for them; grass cutting, going to the shops, we will do any jobs they need done, we need to make these ladies aware that we are supporting then through this traumatic time'.
Sean Murphy muttered something under his breath, he was not happy with this as it meant he would probably miss soccer training, other than that we all agreed to do as Sr Rosaleen had asked 'Good boys, all of ye, ye are all going to heaven' she tooted as she skipped out of the sacristy, folds of her robes and her rosary beads flowing and rattling behind her.
I took my slip of paper from Sister Rosaleen containing the name and address of the lady I was to visit, Betty Murray was her name and she lived on Benbulben Street, I headed off down Mourne Road to visit this poor old lady, fully signed up to the task at hand, a restoration of human faith!
I tapped on Mrs Murray's green door, the brass knocker and letterbox were gleaming and I could see me face reflected in them, I was moving my face back and forth to distort my reflection like I always did with my Granny's tablespoons, she opened the door and I just about managed not to fall into her hallway. 'Well who have we here?' her voice was warm and intelligent sounding, 'Hello Mrs Murray, my name is Alan, Sister Rosaleen sent me over to see if you had any odd jobs I could help with?' I puffed out my chest with pride as I rattled off the lines that Sr Rosaleen had drilled into us earlier.
'Well, young Alan, you had better come in then' Mrs Murray opened the hall door fully and waved her arm in a sweeping motion which seemed to tug me into her house.
As soon as the hall door closed behind me I could sense the warmth and wonder of this old Lady's home, in the narrow hallway the embossed papered walls were filled with photos and prints of various sizes and content; family photos, photos of pets, pictures of the seaside, there was also a framed print of the Irish Proclamation of Independence as read out by the Easter Rising volunteers back in 1916 outside the GPO. There also hung a framed print of Padraig Pearse, the exact same pose as was in the print that I had won in school a couple of years before, his head turned to the side in civilian clothes. This was my type of house packed with my type of stuff, I just knew it, I had hit the jackpot with Mrs Murray!
Over the next hour she told me all about her family and especially her husband Bert who had died five years earlier, she told me how Bert was just 17 years old when he volunteered to join the Easter rising, he had cycled between the GPO and other rebel posts with notes and communications regarding the rising and the movement of the British Army around Dublin city. She told how he was stopped a few times by British soldiers in places like Stephens Green and Beggars Bush, he had shown them the bread and milk he had in a sack and told them he was off to visit his sick mother, they let him carry on with his endeavours.
Mrs Murray took down some old cardboard boxes from beneath the stairs and set them on the kitchen table, I was careful not to knock over my orange cordial drink and the rich tea biscuits she had given me. She kept handing me photos, pieces of old newspapers and various medals and coins collected over the years by her beloved Bert, I was in heaven, this stuff was brilliant. I sat there for an hour sifting through the various nuggets of history. Mrs Murray was delighted that a young lad like me was interested in her husbands old stuff, somehow it made her feel alive again.
We never discussed the bag snatching incident until I was leaving her house to head home, the mood of the visit had been so pleasant that neither Mrs Murray or me wanted to spoil the atmosphere. As she was leaving me out the door she asked had I enjoyed looking at the old coins and medals, I said it had been great and she told me to drop in any time to have a look at them again.
I headed out down her garden path and then remembered that I had wanted to asked her a question about Bert's old stuff, 'Hey Mrs Murray' I said 'Which is your favourite piece?', Mrs Murray stopped in her tracks and her eyes welled up with tears, I was horrified, what had I said to upset her, it had all been going so well up to this point! 'Well, young man, my most prized possession was a Silver Half Crown coin from 1936, Bert gave it to me years ago as it was his favourite coin and I had treasured it ever since, they are very rare now but it was a lovely looking coin' then an incredible thing happened, we both said the same thing at the exact same time 'there is an image of an Irish Hunter horse on one side of the coin and and the Irish harp on the other side' Mrs Murray was taken aback as she stood at her hall door, 'Why yes, you are quite right, but how do you know about these old half crown coins, have you seen one recently?' her tone was more sober and serious as she cocked her head to one side and eyed me with some degree of suspicion. 'The night my bag was snatched I had my silver half crown in there, my precious gift from Bert, the snatcher took it all and I haven't seen it since'.
My mind was reeling, I was in a spin, I tried to speak but no words came out, I turned and ran out of the garden as fast as I could, I didn't look back, I ran up Mourne Road, I thought my heart would burst I was running so hard, I ran past Mrs Moyne's house, Mrs Dowling's, our house, I kept running, I was getting closer and closer to the church...
Just as I was about to collapse I reached my destination, I had to gasp to try catch my breath, leaning against the green kiosk railings to steady myself, my breathing slowed down and I approached the Kiosk window, Mr Carter was busy inside rearranging bottles of cough sweets and bullseyes, 'Mr Carter' I called into him 'Young Carroll?' he replied straight away as accurate as ever, 'Mr Carter, I have something to ask you, you said you had recently gotten one of those beautiful Silver Half Crown coins?' I said in a calm measured tone 'Yes I did young Carroll, a 1936 minted coin in fabulous condition, I was just giving it a little polish last night at home, it is sitting up on the mantle piece as we speak'.
I had a lump in my throat and my palms were sweaty, I could barely speak, 'Mr Carter, can I ask who you got the half crown from?', 'Well that's a funny question young Carroll, but the answer is even funnier, it was handed into me by a young lad called Gary Rankin, he is a grandson of Mrs Murphy's, he lives in Manchester but is over here for a few months for a break, or so he says', he continued and I was rooted to the spot listening ' he handed me in that coin and asked for 4 loose cigarettes and a box of friendly matches. When I told him it was actually a old half crown coin he ran off up the road, of course I shouted after him to come back for his coin but he shouted back over his shoulder that I should keep it'.
It all made sense now, I thanked Mr Carter and headed home to tell my Mam and Dad what had happened, when my my Dad arrived home from work an hour or so later he told me that everything would be OK, I was extremely worried that Mrs Murray thought I was the bag snatcher and that she would tell the police but my Mam told me that the truth always comes out and I should stop worrying.
After my Dad was finished dinner he went out to the back garden to smoke his tobacco pipe amongst his rhubarb plants, I sat in the kitchen waiting to see what was going to happen next, just then my little sister Rose ran in to the house shouting that a police car was outside, my stomach was churning as Dad walked in from the garden and got his jacket, he grabbed me by the hand and we headed to the front door to meet the two young Gardaí, they didn't need to speak, my Dad told them we were ready to head to the station with them. A crowd of kids gathered on our street to see us driven away in the back of the Garda car!
When we got to the station they brought us immediately to a meeting room in the station and they were all there, Mrs Murray in her housecoat, red headscarf and matching lipstick, Mr Carter looking very distinguished in a heavy overcoat and a trilby hat with a little feather in it's band, there were several Garda chatting to them and when we walked in they all fell silent. I felt all eyes were boring holes right through me, my cheeks flushed red and my legs felt as if they had suddenly turned to rubber, it felt like an eternity until Mr Carter shouted 'three cheers for young Carroll, the hero of the day' and with that there was a fairly civilised and quietly executed three cheers from those assembled in the room.
The station Sargent stepped forward and shook my hand with his huge hands 'Well done young Carroll, we picked up Rankin an hour ago as he was walking down Sperrin Road, we asked him in for some questioning and he immediately buckled and confessed to everything, the entire episode of bag snatches and also a couple of burglaries'.
I was so relieved at the news, I looked at Mrs Murray and she had a tear in her eye 'Mr Carter has my precious memento from Bert and he will return it to me tomorrow, all thanks to your good self, fair play to you young man, you are a little gem'.
So while Rankin was sitting in a holding cell somewhere in the building the Sergeant offered the adults a cup of tea and some Ginger Snap biscuits and I got a glass of red Lemonade, a packet of Tayto crisps and a five Pound reward from Mrs Murray, it was a nice ending to the drama.
So Mrs Murray got her coin back and the police were able to distribute a lot of the stolen items back to their rightful owners. Normality soon returned to the streets of Drimnagh for the old ladies who had been living in fear of the handbag snatcher and there was a real feel-good buzz about the place again.
A couple of weeks later I was sitting in our back garden playing with our snap dragon flowers as my Dad was trying to salvage some of the slug ravaged Rhubarb 'I still can't understand how Mr Carter does it, I mean he knows a lot more than most people and he can't even see' I said to my Dad.
He sighed, sat back and took off his gloves 'I heard an old proverb once from the holy land and I think it sums things up well, it says
"A blind man can often see better than a seeing man who is blind" and Mr Carter certainly proved that to be 100% correct!
And with that he went back to his Rhubarb!
Alan x
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