26/01/2021
Picture on the right
by Graham Cooper 🌼
Arriving in Cork 29th January 1979 ,
living in Union Hall I went into the house for my first day in Ireland , I could not believe it , in the kitchen stood a motorbike, right in the middle and underneath an oil thumb full of old oil. The spare parts of the motorbike where in the fridge, yes, where else would you put them ??? the bread and food was hanging from the sealing in a plastic bag just incase the rats would want some food. Three Month Dirty cloths discarded in a corner screaming wash me please and I knew than that was not a holiday, there was no washing machine even so I tried to look around the house for one . I would have to roll up my sleeves and get right into it.
The house was OK , 3 bedrooms upstairs and a bathroom, a living dining room a kitchen and parlour downstairs. Normally it was a holiday house and we had only a few Month until we would have to move out and find somewhere else to go because tourists would arrive and they would pay more money for the house. We paid 5 pound a week and it sounds little but the wages that time was not great if you got a job at all.
That evening we went out to meet all the friends Uli had made in those past 3 Month when I still lived in Berlin.
Even the names where unreal for me , Graham Williams, Little John , Sally & Colin Barnes with baby Holly, Toni who was a friend from Berlin and I was wondering where she was,
she came to see me. Norbert Schaum, also a friend from Berlin came down from his mountain in Rossmore where he had bought a house with his wife Hanna. It was lovely to meet them all.
We went into the Tavern Bar which is now Dinty's Bar and spend the evening there with friends. It was hard for me because I had not a word of english but lucky Toni and Norbert spoke german .
It was quiet a hard time for me, I did not speak or understand, I did not know anybody and I was always an outgoing person, I left all my friends and family behind and I could not have any contact with them for a long time. It was not easy, 43 Years ago we had no telephone or internet and the communication was limited because of it. Shortly after I arrived there was a post strike and that was very hard for me as I had sent a lot of cloths and personal things by parcels. The post strike lasted 6 month and during that time it was not only hard for me but for all the people in Ireland. People who had money in the post office or when the pension did not come .
We where so lucky to live in Union Hall because at the time Mr. & Mrs. Fuller gave everybody credit so they could buy their food and whatever was necessary. I must say without them we all would have not survived. I really thank them from the bottom of my heart for their continuous help and their always friendly manner towards me . We had quiet a laugh in their shop when I went shopping because of my lack of English I had to explain with hands and feet what I wanted and I remember buying a brush from Stuart one day and I was brushing the floor without a brush which was not there to make him understand what I wanted , oh we where in bits laughing, another time I needed mushrooms and asked Eve for champignong's which is the German word and she collapsed with laughter. I always loved going in there it was adventurous. A shop like we never had in Berlin, you could buy anything in there. From a tiny screw to timber for the fire or ci******es , butter , bread or if you wanted to build a shed or a house, Fullers had everything plus a kind word when you where feeling down and if you lived far they would drive you home .
In that picture which I actually borrowed from the internet, made by Graham Cooper, is Fullers shop as I remember it and the funny thing about this picture is that I still remember the guy who drove the pony and trap or cart. It was either Michael Collins or his dad from up the road by the old schoolhouse. He came down every day to do the shopping.
Thank you to the Fuller Family 😍👏👏👏
I took this part out of my book which I wrote a while back but never published yet.
Evita Sadlowski
