OPPOSITES ATTRACT
Many of the events in this article took place in the 1940s so they must be viewed in the context of that time. There were no TVs, computers, mobile phones, Facebook and a whole lot of other IT paraphernalia that can disgorge knowledge at the press of a button. We depended on our eyes and ears to learn the secrets of nature.
I remember when I first heard the words 'company keeping'. It was in Ballyporeen church during a mission run by the Redemptorists. They were known as 'the Reds', due to the fact that they spewed fire and brimstone in a religious sense. I was about ten years old at the time.
The children of the parish were ordered to attend for a few nights towards the end of the mission. Several people warned us 'ye'll get it from the Reds tonight'. The church was packed to overflowing so all the young people were ushered into the sanctuary and sat on stools. I expected to see a tall, gaunt, ascetic priest emerge from the sacristy. In this, I was disappointed as a rotund man of impressive girth appeared.
He started slowly and gently, but that was only the calm before the storm. When he was 'on full throttle', his whole body shook and quivered from the top of his tonsured head to his toes. The irreverent thought crossed my mind that if he was filled with cream he would churn it to butter.
Talk about fire and brimstone! The preacher gathered momentum as he got into his stride. He gave a lurid description of hell. The tormented souls were tossed into the air like weightless sparks only to be dashed once more into a sea of flames and from this, there was no chance of ever escaping.
The preacher seemed to have an intense hatred of dance halls - 'a danger to morals and occasions of sin' he called them. He worked himself into a frenzy, his whole body quivering and his eyes burning with zeal as strange words exploded out of his mouth like bullets from a point 22 rifle - ‘debauchery', 'loose women', 'passionate kissing', 'lecherous embraces', 'fornication'. It seemed to me that he also hated women. "The cause of all the trouble was company keeping," he roared.
As he shouted the last two words, he brought his fist down full force, with a resounding crash, on the cover of the book he was carrying. The sound was so sudden and unexpected that I jumped several inches out of my seat and nearly went in my pants.
I need hardly tell you that he put the frighteners on me. So, I made a resolution there and then that I would give company keeping and women a wide berth. Needless to say it would not be the first or last resolution I didn’t keep.
I wonder why on earth such a marvellous and satisfying experience as company keeping was made the cause of shame, regret and guilt. Love is a most wonderful gift. Poets, writers, philosophers, have all written about love - some with a jaundiced eye. Oscar Wilde wrote, 'When one is in love one begins to deceive oneself.' Percy B Shelley was more benign. He wrote" 'Familiar acts are beautiful through love'.
There were, of course, many people who ignored the vehement denunciations of priests as the following story shows.
Primrose Gilhooley lived in a remote spot beyond Riasc, in Poulmadda. She was in a bad mood. She was fed up of being alone, on cold black nights, staring into the fire. She said to herself the weather was getting cold and the blood is thin, 'I must try a bit of company keeping. I'll put an ad in the marriage section of the Ballygobackward News'.
She got pen and paper ready to frame the ad. She thought about it long and hard before putting pen to paper. Her ad read as follows:
Riasc,
Poulmadda.
I own a small farm. Am sound in mind and limb. Not afraid of hard work. Own 1 dog, 1 cat and 1 tractor. No incumberances. Like to meet settled gentleman with view to above.
Primrose Gilhooley
She waited anxiously for a reply. It came a week later. It was from a man styling himself Horatio Hackinabush. It read as follows:
The
Poulmucka.
Dearest Primrose,
Pullaboones,
Read your ad. Interested in meeting. Tell me time and place and enclose a photo of the tractor.
Yours,
Horatio Hackinabush.
Ps. I'm sexy. PPs. Very.
"Go bhfoire Dia orainn," said Willie Joe to his friend Olly, "but didn't Primrose marry that train of a man." "Well," said Olly "there's no accounting for taste as the man said when he kissed his wife."
There came a time when I, myself, became interested in what Brendan Behan termed 'females of the opposite sex'. I was extremely lucky that Patricia choose me as her boyfriend way back in January 1961. At the time, I only knew her name; that she was beautiful and that she was a teacher. Patricia loved to dress elegantly and did so with aplomb. I felt honoured and privileged to be her boyfriend.
We were two totally different personalities. Patricia was outgoing, gregarious, sociable, confident and beautiful, while I was shy, diffident, reserved, somewhat introverted and no oil painting. But there was instant chemistry between us. I suppose it was the scientific law which states that opposites attract. And so began my personal odyssey with company keeping.
For the next two years before we married, I spent most of my free time company keeping with Patricia. I regard that time as the most wonderful period of my life. We were young. We had no responsibilities. We had a car and a few pence in our pockets. We were as free as the air. We sat in her kitchen; went for drives in the car; went to Cork, Dublin and many other places; went to pictures, shows and dances; worked together in the Isle of Man and other places during the summer holidays. We enjoyed every moment together.
I'm sure Patricia had no qualms about what we were doing. I certainly did not. We were two ordinary warm blooded human beings so we took many a 'sos' from talking and had warm, tight hugs. And that didn't bother us either. Patricia had a huge capacity for enjoying life to the full and made no apology for doing so. No wonder I considered her unique.
One lovely attribute Patricia had was she gave you 100% attention when having a conversation with you. You felt you were the only person in the world at that time. I found it wonderful and enjoyable just to be in her company. We had lots to talk about. We spoke about the job; our time in college; working in England during summer holidays; in fact about everything and anything.
Communication is the bedrock of any relationship. I'm glad to be able to say that we continued throughout our lives together in similar vein to the way we started and we enjoyed every moment. If we hadn't been company keeping, how would I have found out that Patricia was the lady I wanted to be with for the rest of my life?
This article is really a celebration of Patricia's life and a thank you to her, who was the pride and joy of my life for 58 glorious years of brilliant and delightful company keeping.