In 1955 my mother, my sisters and I went back to Belfast, Northern Ireland for a visit with my grandparents and all of our other Irish relatives. I was 11 years old. We were away all summer and had a wonderful time. We faithfully wrote letters to my father. This is an excerpt from one my mother wrote. Pegs was our golden retreiver.
June 7th 1955
Dearest Daddy and Pegs,
Here I am again and a little bit overdue at that, but as you know we've been having a hectic time. It's about 9 o'clock now and Cheryl is drawing up dress designs. She got tired of knitting. Valerie and Joan are still at theirs.
It rained all day today and this afternoon they played up in the attic with big hats and high heels and shawls with fringes plus Grandma's old dresses and handbags....
One of my favorite memories of that summer were the days we spent at a real thatched cottage in a little seaside town called Donaghadee.
We swam in the icy water and made sandcastles on the beach and collected little snails called willicks. We would collect as many as we could in a little bucket and take them back to the cottage where my auntie would boil them up. We'd pick them out of the shells and eat them with bread and butter! Yum! Sort of poor man's escargot, I guess.
We had those rosy cheeks that all little Irish children are famous for and were probably healthier than ever that summer.
Reading those letters has jogged my memory. I'm so glad somebody saved them. Good times and good memories.
THE THRIVING CITY OF BELFAST 223
ReplyDeleteThe people remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy only
until afternoon. There are no railway trains or street cars
running in the morning, and you cannot find a cab or a jaunting
car on the street. No boats arrive or depart from the
docks on Sunday, and when I took a walk along the river
front one Sunday I found the men who were accustomed to
work there all sitting around eating " willicks," or periwinkles —
a sort of water snails which are picked up on the beach of
the bay and are peddled about by old women and small boys
like chestnuts. You can buy half a pint of them for a penny.
The peddler has a paper of long pins in his basket and gives
one to each purchaser to pry the snails out of their shells.
That seems to be the Sunday morning occupation. But Sunday
afternoon everybody comes out for a good time, the streets
fill up with promenaders and the cars are crowded with
excursionists.
Cheryl: The preceding is from a book entitled "One Irish Summer" by William Eleroy Curtis (pg 223)
A great memory....the Willicks were delicious on thin bread with butter...yum yum.....Your youngest sister, Joan...xxoo
Well, thanks for that clarification on the spelling as well as the excerpt! Now I remember that the willicks were also called periwinkles. Good stuff! I'll have to get that book.
ReplyDeleteWow...you have such a rich history. I have one of my own, sort of...but it doesn't feel as 'traditional' as yours sounds. :) Thank you both so much for sharing.
ReplyDeleteJust a note to say that I corrected the spelling of "willicks" in this post. Might as well have it right!
ReplyDeleteI'd love to get photocopies of some of the letters so I could do a little writing around them . . . poems, stories, etc. -- but using the letters as inspiration . . .
ReplyDelete