Going to the pictures

Mrs Youcantbeserious and I had the youngest half of our grandchildren brood all to ourselves out in Irishtown for a couple of weeks over the summer. No need to tell any of you how things have changed in regard to entertaining children now as against the olden days. ‘Limit their access to iPods and TV,’ we were instructed by the parents. So, they came with all these gadgets and knowledge of technology that makes an old guy like me look like a stone-age buffoon. As it turned out, this array of stuff is not what impressed me about the kids. What intrigued me most of all is how some things have never really changed and how the simple activities are still the greatest fun and entertainment of all.

Finding an old skipping rope in the shed (a relic of my squash training days!) started a skipping spree. I finished up cutting lengths of rope into skipping lengths so that nobody had to wait – 86… 87… 88 echoed around the yard; then, ‘can you skip Grandad?’ 1… 2… 1… 1…!

I rediscovered that all boys need since time immemorial is a ball… any sort of ball. We had Spaniards playing hurling and soon thereafter the neighbours’ boys were in a football came with them, ‘goalposts’ were installed and that became the primary part of two weeks of joyful shouting and laughter, with the odd falling out of course! ‘Grandad, you are the worst referee that ever refereed a match!’ I did manage to pull one back with the last throw in a game of bowling!

Here we are this far down the page and I still haven’t mentioned what I sat down to write an article on – going to the pictures. I just could not believe that when the children were here… despite iPods, TV, Netflix, YouTube and so on, that going to the cinema is still a big treat. Mind you, the cinema of today is a different picture to where I watched my first film.

Different types of shows came to Drumcree in the 1950s. A marquee would be erected in either the ball alley, Harry Reilly’s field or in the Protestant school. It was an occasion of happiness and excitement, not only for us brats, but for the adult population as well. Sometimes it might be theatre or plays like ‘Murder in the Red Barn’, a circus with swing-boats and juggling acts, or then again we got the ‘pictures’. The admittance fee was six old pence or a ‘tanner’ for young bucks like me. The one I remember most was a week-long series of George Formby movies. George with his ukulele (‘I’m standing at a lamppost…’) stuck in my mind forever. When I see the Mullingar cinema I took my grandkids to in comparison to that old draughty tent in Drumcree, it is as a very different world – but I know where the greater magic was!

My mother was an avid reader and well informed for the time that was in it. When an exceptional film came to Mullingar, she and her friends would hire Kitt Lee to take them to the pictures. Two such classics I remember were ‘Gone With the Wind’ and ‘The Quiet Man’. Mammy would spend the following week narrating the story of the movie for us kids at home.

Then, when I was about 14 years old, the new cinema opened in Castlepollard. Hallelujah! It was now only a nine-mile bicycle ride to go to a real picture house and enjoy all the trimmings that went with it. Over the next couple of years, that was a godsend, as the dating game was about to kick off.

‘Would you like to come to the pictures?’ became the standard chat-up line over the next few years. A clumsy tackle in the back seat of the cinema was both expected and an entitlement. Now, there the rules of engagement were very different from most other games. In rugby or GAA, for example, where a head-high tackle is a red card offence, it was the opposite in the cinema. A high tackle is all that was allowed and anything below the collar bone warranted getting the line!

The cinema was another part of my life that I had forgotten about and I am so glad to see it survive. While accepting the fact that the convenience and comfort of watching a movie at home is undeniable, there is nothing to beat the sound system and the atmosphere in the cinema. You are freed of any disturbance that may distract you at home and so your focus is solely on the movie. There is something about a roomful of strangers coming together, a communal aspect where the reactions of those around us help everyone to become fully absorbed in the story.

Now, after whetting my appetite I’m about to pop the question to Mrs YCBS; ‘would you like to go to the pictures?’

Don’t Forget

Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.