'Hiring Fairs and Market Places' by May Blair, published by Appletree Press

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extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair.

COUNTY DOWN

[In this extract, Paddy Taggart continues to reminisce about his experiences of being hired as a young man...]

Well anyway, the next man I hired with was Willie Quinn up the Antrim Road in Lisburn. He had a poultry farm an’ then he bought lan’ and started up dairying and kept a boy and girl. I was treated alright there – a dacent man. The houses where you hired, it all depended on yourself. If you were nasty or bad with them, they would get real nasty with you. It’s just like meetin’ the police on the road. If you get nasty wi’ them they’ll get nasty wi’ you. The money that I had for that six months now was £13. That was about 1933.
They all grew spuds, cabbage, turnips and that’s what the boys and girls were fed on that time. A woman wouldn’t be runnin’ to a butcher’s shop every day. Many a time I took salt an’ spuds for my dinner and a drink of buttermilk.
Anyway it come up to the time that I would be leavin’ an’ Quinn said, ‘I’ll give you ten bob a week.’ And I said, ‘ I have promised to go till a man at Moyrusk an’ I’ll be gettin’ brave wages off that man.’
That man sent for me, and that was Tommy Dickey. I went up the Sunday before, and the father was sittin’ on a bucket turned upside down in an outhouse. He had a baird [beard] on him down to there [indicates a spot near his waist] and I asked him, ‘Is this where Tommy Dickey lives?’ And he jumped up and he says, ‘Tommy Dickie doesn’t own this place. I’m Thaney Dickey and I own it.’
I says, ‘Is Tommy about?’
‘Tommy is about, but maybe he wouldn’t be able to do your business. There’s a fella’ to come here to see him. He’s lookin’ to come to him for the next six months but,’ he says, ‘ I don’t think you’re him.’
‘Well,’ says I, ‘barrin’ he has two comin’, I’m him.’ So Lord, I think I see Tommy comin’ splayin’ down the street, an’ he says, ‘How are ye doin’ Paddy? Was he goin’ to hit you?’
‘Oh no,’ says I, ‘but he let me know that he was the boss here anyway.’
‘Och,’ he says, ‘give him no heed,’ and neither I did. Mrs Foote was there (his sister) and she was a great turn, but bate up wi’ pains – married to Tom Foote. Boys, I’m tellin’ you, Tom was some grower of strawberries!
Anyway Tommy says to me, ‘I’ve had desperate hard luck wi’ boys here. As a matter of fact we have had no boy for the last six months at all. I’ll tell you what happened. I went to Newry and I hired a fella from Hilltown an’ he came down here alright and the second day he went down to a field to face [trim by cutting back growth] a hedge and when he got his ten o’clock tea he disappeared after it. Then the following Thursday I went to Newry again and I hired a boy and when I had hired him and all, a man come over till ’im and asked ’im what he was gettin’. He says ‘Thirteen poun’.’ An’ the man says, ‘If I’d seen you sooner, I’d a give you fourteen.’
And he says, ‘You’re not too late yit. I’ll take fourteen.’ So Dickey lost him. The other man knowed this lad you see, and he gave him fourteen. So Dickey toul me, ‘I’ll give you fifteen.’
‘I’ll be here on Thursday week,’ I says.
‘We’re a bit stuck for a man here and I want this place white-washed an’ cleaned up, for it wasn’t done this couple of years,’ he says. An’ the oul man turned out to be great crack. So I stopped wi’ Dickey six months an’ I lived in a loft outside. That was the usual. You would put a bit of a boord [board] in a corner and they gave you a bit of a blind and that was your wardrobe. I put it up myself. You had a wee lookin’ glass. It was the same everywhere. I hardly ever slept in a house.
Then dang it, I got word that Hugh Stockman wanted to see me and I went up this Saturday night. I had just about a fortnight to do at Dickey’s and when I went up Stockman was choppin’ sticks on the street in the dark. He had a hurricane lamp. And he shouts at me, ‘Who’s there?’ And he says to me, ‘You’re wi’ Dickey. I wonder would you come to me next term.’
I says, ‘I’ve already toul Dickey I’m l’avin’ [leaving]. I’ll change to anywhere. I always worked at the cattle trade.’ Dickeys, d’ye see, daled in cattle too. The oul fella daled in cattle and Tommy daled in horses. Tommy would go to the Moy fair and he might buy three or four horses, maybe buy a young horse and break it in. Ah, Tommy was a tight fella.
Mrs Stockman – she was a Bradbury from The Maze. Her brother had a brickyard there: Johnny Bradbury. Hugh’s father owned the Racecourse Farm but when Hugh got married he bought a house and land on the Antrim Road in Lisburn, but he still daled in cattle. Anyway Stockman used to say to me, ‘I’ll be away now in Cavan next week, Paddy. If anybody’s lookin’ me I’ll not be home ’til Friday night.’
A man called McGurnaghan come to me and said, ‘The first wee heifer you get, tell Hugh to send her out, and I’ve two springin’ heifers here for him. God, this wee heifer come in – she was a lovely wee heifer, not too big, and she was calved. And Stockman says to me, ‘I gave £18 for that heifer. Tell McGurnaghan she’ll be nineteen. If she’s not suitable have her back here on Monday night and I’ll take her to Allams on Tuesday.’
So anyway I set off (to McGurnaghans) wi’ this wee heifer on a rope. McGurnaghan took an awful time walkin’ roun’ her. I says to him at the last, ‘Do you want to draw [try milking] that heifer or not?’
He says, ‘She’s not here (his sister) to draw her, an’ she would want to see her milked. I don’t think I’ll have her.’
‘Then,’ says I, ‘If you don’t like her there’s no use in botherin’. There’s no use in you an’ me lossin’ [wasting] our time.’ I’d both seen him and heered him and I’d come to the conclusion that he wasn’t interested. Says I, ‘Who knows what time that sister of yours’ll be home. I think we’ll call it a day.’
At the heels of the hunt Isaac Logan bought her. He was another dealer – daled in store cattle – and he toul me to l’ave her up with another farmer called Dan McCann.
McCann says to me, ‘Do you work for Stockman?’
‘I do,’ says I.
‘I was lookin’ a couple of dropped [newborn] calves,’ says he.
‘If you come the morra there’s four or five thonder,’ says I. Dammit he landed up the next day and he says, ‘I think I’ll look at these calves.’ He went into the house that they were in, and he says, ‘What price are they?’ Says I, ‘The heifer calves is twenty-five shillin’s and the bull calves is a poun’ and you can take your pick.’ He went into the house and chased them out (to get a better look at them) – three bulls and two heifers. ‘Will you take five poun’ for the lot?’ says he. Says I, ‘I will not. It’s not enough.’
‘What will they be?’ says he.
‘There’s two heifer calves there and they’ll be fifty shillin’s and the bulls’ll be poun’s apiece [each].’ says I. He looked at them again and he thought and he says, ‘Aren’t they dear?’
‘Now,’ says I, ‘If you think they’re dear, don’t you take them because,’ says I, ‘they’ll be sowl [sold].’ And wi’ that another man walked into the yard and says, ‘Have ye’ any calves?’’ And McCann spoke up and he says, ‘No, they’re sold.’
Says I to the second man, ‘Don’t you go away for a minute now,’ an’ we went into the byre and there was a cow calvin’. So I says, ‘You’re not far aff your pad yet. There’s a cow calvin’ there. You’ll not be able to take it wi’ ye the day but if it’s a livin’ calf you’ll get it.’
Then McCann said, ‘What way’ll I take these?’
‘Have you any bags?’ says I.
‘ Aye,’ says he, ‘but they’re only ‘hundred’ [hundredweight] bags. You couldn’t put them calves into ‘hundred’ bags.’
‘Now,’ says I, ‘If you have the bags I’ll put them intil it.’ So he went till the car and he came in wi’ five or six ‘hundred’ bags and I put them in an’ tied them roun’ the neck. He says to me, ‘I worked wi’ cattle for ages an’ I never seen a calf in a bag before.’
‘Well, I tell ye,’ says I, ‘If I had a shillin’ for every one I put intil a bag, me an’ you could have a quare night’s drinkin’ the night. I’ll tell you that.’ He says, ‘I never seen them in a ‘hundred’ bag before.’
‘That’s the way they nearly all l’ave here,’ I says. So we put them intil the car, a couple in the boot and some inside on the back seat. They couldn’t come to any harm. He would be home in twenty minutes anyway.
I was at Stockman’s thirteen and a half years. Stockman was a real cow daler. He even bought for a dealer in England called Myles Broadbent. I left there then and went to John Mercer in Hillhall, then Charlie Stewart in the Moira Road, Hill Stewart, Clifford Boyd in Hillsborough, Wrights in the Old Hillsborough Road – I suppose I was thirty years round Lisburn and Hillsborough – travellin’ round Flatfield, Hillhall, Broomhedge, The Maze. There’s not a part of it I don’t know. You know I done a helluva hirin’ in my time!

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