Pop!

I was inordinately proud of myself in that black and white photograph. It stood on top of my father’s surgery desk. It was a cut-out. In it, I smiled unselfconsciously; a small boy wearing short trousers held up by braces, a white shirt and sandals. I was holding a prize winner’s cup bedecked with ribbons on the handles. I imagined my father telling all his patients, ‘That is my son Michael.’

Even when my brother was born, I was delighted that it was my picture that still held pride of place. We lived on Patrick’s Hill, the Harley Street of Cork. Coming out the front door, I remember looking down the hill towards St. Patrick’s Street. Every shop had brightly coloured, striped canvas awnings shading their display windows. I would skip down the steps to McCurtain Street in great excitement if I heard a pipe band passing. There was not a single traffic light in Cork at the time. Cattle were driven along the city streets to the ships on the quays, to be exported ‘on the hoof’.

Winters in that house were bitterly cold and, despite a hot jar in bed, chilblains were ubiquitous. I could not recall the detail of how I won the cup but that never bothered me until one Christmas. We had a visit from an Irish-American cousin of my mother. A big, outgoing man who apparently “ran” Grand Central Station in New York. He sat me on his knee and admired the photo. I was acutely embarrassed to be unable to tell him how or why I had won the cup. He brushed my embarrassment aside saying, “Let me teach you a new song from America – Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer.”

I was delighted to be the first boy in Cork to sing it as a party piece.

After that visit, I was curious and asked my mother to explain how it came about I had won a prize at such an early age.

“Ah, but you didn’t Michael. That was a school attendance cup, won by your cousin, Kevin. We got you to hold it and took that picture.”

My bubble was truly burst!