“A child is born “, was how the telegram from my father announced my arrival to a disinterested world. Apparently, I was born in Cambridge UK, with no identity, sex, mother, or family to speak of. Nobody’s child. A minor omission in my father’s rush to announce my birth, somehow set me on my lifelong wandering, a gypsy’s path. No surprise therefore that when as an adult I eventually did travel, I seemed to be perpetually loaded with guilt. Like a gypsy, I sought some essence of my identity. Travel was inherent in my blood, but so too apparently, the accumulation of ‘useless stuff’.
Several years after my birth in Cambridge, and to my disappointment at the time, my parents emigrated to Ireland. My fondest memories were of feeding the chickens in the backyard at our home in Argyle Street. We departed Liverpool, destined for Dublin in the 1950’s on a steamship – the MV Munster. Owned by B&I (British & Irish Steamship Company), the MV Munster essentially was a cattle ship. It was said by many that the cattle in the lower decks were better treated than the fare-paying passengers.
In those days it was an overnight voyage across the Irish Sea, with the added spectacle of drunken passengers and rowdy behavior. Empty bottles and broken glasses swayed back and forth in the downstairs lounges as waves of spilt Guinness ebbed and flowed across the deck. Crossing from Liverpool to Dubin, or vice-versa, was never a doddle. Few cabins were available to sleep in, and lounge chairs quickly became makeshift beds. Either way, my parents were too poor and could not afford to rent a cabin for the overnight journey. To avoid the noise, the singing, and the inevitable vomiting, I decided to sleep up on deck, underneath the stars. Wearing a woolen beret and oversized overcoat, I lay on several wooden boxes covered with layers of tarpaulin. Despite a fitful sleep, I managed to stay warm.
“You didn’t sleep dere did ya”, a young crewmember asked me before we docked in Dublin. “Why”, I responded. “You just slept on a bunch of coffins. A group of Irish people were killed in a coach accident last week”. “Jesus”, welcome to Ireland.
My Uncle Peter Larrigan, who later ran off to join Chipperfield Circus as an animal trainer in the 1950’s, met us at Dublin docks. Highly intelligent but wild and rowdy, Peter helped my father load all our Earthly belongings onto a horse and cart, and then escort us to my grandmother’s home. I have a youthful remembrance of my embarrassment that Peter did not have a van, but I was not in control of our transport or social standing. We were poor. Peter in later years became very successful and set up his own equestrian school in the U.K. Both he and his daughter Tanya Larrigan, own a riding school, from whence they have trained horses amongst others for both Paul and Linda McCartney. Check: https://tanyalarrigan.com
My parents often regretted their move to Ireland. It became compulsory therefore that each summer our family went on holidays to London, Liverpool, Cambridge and occasionally Hitchen, Herts. It seemed to me that we had more relatives and friends in the UK than in Ireland – aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, in-laws, outlaws and the like. As a kid, I felt my home was nowhere. However, I particularly remember holidays in Wallasey, Cheshire in 1958 and ’59. Who could forget the thrill of taking the Mersey Ferry to Liverpool? Perhaps I may have inadvertently met the Beatles while walking along Pier Head, or near the Royal Liver Building. By 1958, the Beatles had already formed a group that would change the music world. I wish I’d met them back then.
