ANGELINE KING
  • Books
  • Blog
  • Agnew Project
  • Writing
  • About
  • Books
  • Blog
  • Agnew Project
  • Writing
  • About

Angeline's Blog
​women, family History,
Folklore, Ireland.

The Children of Latharna

25/4/2016

37 Comments

 
A story to warm the cockles of your heart:) 
Picture
Photographer: Gavin Ferguson
PicturePhotographer: Anne Montgomery

I was sick, sore and tired of the games that Harry and Gary played on the street. I was sick, sore and tired of BMXing, I was sick, sore and tired of A Teaming, I was sick, sore and tired of band sticking and I was sick, sore and tired of footballing.

‘I’m bored.’ I said to my mum.

‘How could you be bored? It’s summer. You’re off school. The street’s full of weans. Away out and play like the rest of them.’

‘They only want to play on bikes and all. I’m bored of bikes and all.’

‘Jenny’s on her own over there. Away and play with Jenny.’

My mum’s eyebrows were curved like question marks and she had a semicolon smile. She knew that I was not sick, sore and tired of Harry’s sister, Jenny.
​

Jenny goes to the Andrew’s school of dancing at the Town Hall. Each Saturday, I’m there alone on the boy’s side of the hall. Jenny is there on the other side surrounded by thirty girls.

It’s wile hard to be alone at dancing without stories birling through my mind. 


I do the three-hand reel with the girls. There’s a jellyfish of a girl on my left with arms and legs that wriggle in all the wrong directions. There’s a swan of a girl on my right with strong arms and graceful legs. The swan girl is Jenny


Read More
37 Comments

The Band Stick

3/4/2016

3 Comments

 
Picture

Another wee story: 
​
I live at number one Greenland Grove and wee Harry lives at number three.


Harry is the best in the world at everything. He’s the best at BMXing, the best at kerbsy, the best at British Bulldog, the best at football and the best at up-against-the-wall-tennis.

He’s the best at pots and pans drumming, the best at marching, the best at playing the dummy flute and the best at tossing the red, white and blue band stick.
​

Harry has asthma, but he’s still the best at everything.

Last year, Harry’s band stick turned in the air five times. It wheeled and and it whirled and it cut through white woolly clouds like a shear, and all the children in Greenland Grove watched with tilted heads and bleating hearts.

I was sitting in Harry’s driveway footering with my red, white and blue duct tape when Harry said to me, ‘Gary, I’m going to enter the band stick competition and this year, and I’m going to turn it six times.’

Six times, I thought. You havenae a hope, I thought. I said nothing and I concentrated on my band stick.  
​

My band stick is made from my mammy’s kitchen brush. Harry had to use an old yard brush. He hoked in the shed for an hour for it. Last year, there was a carfuffle over a missing kitchen brush. We both got a good clip in the ear for that.

Read More
3 Comments

    History & folklore

    Ella Gingles of Chicago & Kilwaughter
    Agnews of Ulster & Galloway - Poets & Sherriffs. 
    Jean Park of Ballygally 
    Fiddles and Melodeons
    Martha Taylor's diary
    Jean McCullagh at 104
    Ballymena & the McConnells
    Arms in Irish Dancing
    Catholics & Protestants in Irish dancing

    Dancing in Victorian Ulster

    Poetry & Prose

    Selection of Original Poetry & Prose
    Response to a Seventeenth-Century Poem about Poetry
    ​
    The Children of Latharna
    The Band Stick

    The Bully up the Brae


    By Date

    April 2025
    October 2024
    March 2020
    September 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2016
    February 2016
    September 2015


    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly