12:23 am by admin.

One of my first memories of working in Alexanders was something that happened to my cousin Alan and I while working for my dads then boss Alfie Johnson. Now Alfie was a portly red faced gentleman, and I use that word in it’s purest meaning, with a tendency to be a bit gruff.
Alan and I were both around 14/15 years old and my dad got us a Christmas job cleaning and scrubbing and generally running around doing just what we were told to do. We were both a bit in awe the whole thing. It was, to us, a mad house, people were boning big lumps of beef, others were rolling big joints of meat. Pigs were being cut up, sausages were being made and of course the most important thing of all, turkeys were being cleaned.
Now one of our jobs was pulling the sinews out of the turkeys and considering there were well over 200 of the beasts we were glad we had two sinew pullers.
They were a weird contraption and not easy to use because ours were wall mounted so we had to hold the dead, floppy, 20lb bird under one arm and try to load the feet into the guides one at a time then pull like fu crazy

Anyway I think you get the picture. By the time we were finished it was about 1 O’clock in the morning and we were knackered looking forward to our beds. After all we were just a couple of young innocent spoilt kids. I think that’s exactly what Mr Johnson thought because he hit us with a dynamite job, possibly to teach us that hard work is just that, hard.

“Just one more wee job lads” he growled, “I want you to count the feet into those sacks then count the turkeys and make sure the numbers match” . “What !!! ” we said in unison, ” But why?”.
“Well” he said if the feet match up with the birds we know that no-one is nickin’ them, ’cause they cost a lot of money”. Seemed a reasonable thing to do ( I know , I know but we were only kids for crying out loud).

So we knew there were, say, two hundred birds so four hundred feet was our target. “A wee tip” he said, “count them in pairs it will be quicker”. Armed with the tip of an expert we got stuck in. I think we got to about 50/60 pairs and getting more and more cross eyed by the minute. He hit us with the killer blow. ” Hey, I hope you’re putting them in actual pairs lads, I want two feet from the same bird you know, if a jobs worth doing it’s worth doing right.”
Well, we couldn’t take it any more and  we grabbed a sack each and tossed the contents on the floor at his feet. It was all we could do to stop the tears from flowing.

Just then we looked up from the alcove we were working in to see the whole staff, including my da, looking at us. Silence descended and then Alfie, the bugger, burst out laughing which was the signal for everyone else to do the same. “God you’se are good value for a wind-up”, my da said and they all started to give ua a hand putting the feet into the sacks,without counting.

Posted in Stranmillis Road (The Alexander Years), Belfast, People | No Comments »

09:40 pm by admin.

When I first got the idea for this page I tried to research on the internet and I could not find anything significant about The Stranmillis Road. There were lots of bits and bobs but no real info.Oh there was plenty of rental accommodation, food places, beauticians, estate agents but about The Stranmillis Road as a place, nada, naught, zilch.

I got very frustrated and a bit arrgghh!!! because the Stranmillis I knew was a different place altogether. It was a place where people knew each other and looked out for each other, in short it was a little village and one with more than a bit of a bohemian feel to it.
” Why the interest in Stranmillis? “I hear you say, well I don’t mean I can actually hear you, but you know what I mean. Lets face it I would need really big ears to hear you from Castlereagh, although my nose is a fair size but my ears are quite normal if somewhat hairy.

Anyway back to the plot. I worked in my fathers shop for 25 yrs as a butcher. He was called Eric and the shop was Alexanders, hence The Alexander Years in the page title, maybe I even sold you your weekend roast. If it was tough you must have bought it from Dankys .

Thinking about those times and the people who passed through the portals of Alexanders, some famous and some infamous made me realise I was looking in the wrong place. It is those people I need to hear from, not the internet. Being a bit slow to catch on I suddenly twigged, I have my fair share of memories to share as well, DOH!!

Intro done so I’m away for a wee cuppa but there is lots more to follow. One thing I really would appreciate, to be honest I would be overjoyed if you too would off load your memories and stories, oh yeah especially stories, so I can put them in print.

You can put them on here as a comment or send them to me via e-mail which I will be setting up just for this blog, to be published in a day or two.

Posted in Stranmillis Road (The Alexander Years), Belfast, People | No Comments »

09:19 pm by admin.

Paddy is one of those people who you happen upon on rare occasions. He is a genuine, honest , take me as you find me guy. We first met Paddy through my son’s inviting him to a fancy dress party we had one Halloween.
The theme was Harry Potter and surprisingly everyone turned up in character, even if by accident. I went as Snape, my wife went as McGonnigle and we had a Harry Potter and Herminie. Along with a Dumdledore and a Dementor we had Paddy. As the night wore on and a few’ lemonades’ had been taken, I sat down to chat to Paddy ” Great outfit”I said to which he replied “Thanks but I was told just come as I was and if anyone asks tell them your Hagrid, I’ve never seen Harry Potter.” and that was how I met Paddy.

Since then we have met Paddy on numerous occasions and have got to know him fairly well.We discovered that he is an artist of sorts because to call him just an artist is to sell him short . By his own description he is an Explorer, Inventor and a Plumber at least that is what it says on his calling card.

Although this piece is about Paddy I must at this point out that a lot of his work is done with his friend Nicky Keough, who I hope to speak to in the future.
Where to start, to do this in chronological order just won’t work, so it seems appropriate that it is done as and when something comes to mind.

The Bin Boat.
October 2005 saw the launch of, probably on of the strangest boats ever to grace the water. When i heard about it from my son I said ” Wise up , you can’t sail a boat made of that sort of stuff” but I was wrong. Not only did they sail but they showed it off at an art exhibition called ‘ The Nature of things’ . Nothing too out of the ordinary there except that it was a long weekend in Venice at the Venice Biennale and they sailed the boat on the canals. Wonder what the local Gondoliers thought of that
Oh, I’ve just realised I haven’t told you what it was made of, how remiss of me.So just in case you wanted too cook one up yourself I have the recipe

3 baths
2 industrial wheelie bins
1 wheelbarrow
1 washing machine
3 road signs (large)
1 Mr. Lister engine (larger)
3 oil drums (large) divide with yolks .

Add music gradually
Mix stubbornly in shed with radio four on medium to high
Stick with yolk
Serve on wheels until nearest river.
I believe this recipe is open to interpretation

Another thing he was involved in with Nicky Keough was the Disco Bin. It is literally what it says on the tin. A Disco In a Bin. Shown for the first time in 2004 it soon had people gathering round to see what it was. With the capability of moving round the streets it sure caused a stir. Not only was it shown in Belfast, the streets of San Sebastian and a few other places had the somewhat strange pleasure of seeing The Disco Bin.
One invention we had the the pleasure ,and I use that word loosely, was the Mobile Music Machine.
My son was moving to Bristol with his family so he decided to have a barbeque.His ex employer John from Helen’s Bay Organic farm very kindly let him use a field he was resting. Anyway we all turned up and started to have a drink or two and got the fire going and the grub cremating. “Paddy’s doin the sounds ” we were told by my son and sure enough Paddy arrived on que.
Out from the back of a van (no, not the back of a lorry) he pulled, with help, a contraption that looked liked an exercise bike gone wrong.
It consisted of two bikes side by side on a stand, in between was a collection of music machines. I think there was a CD player,mixer,tape player etc; and it was all hooked up the the alternator of a car. There were other bits and bobs I understand nothing about but it played all the music we could feed it.
The only drawback for me was I had to take my turn pedalling to charge the thing up. Well it wasn’t long before the drink died in me and when I got off my legs said goodbye but Paddy is all about involvement and effort so you gotta make the sacrifice.

Paddy is involved with numerous projects and no doubt will be involved with many more, he works out of The Lawrence Street workshops along with other artists who like himself believe in that art is for Joe Bloggs. He is also a contributor to The Vacuum, an avante gard magazine that really needs to be read to be believed.

Recently he has exhibited in The Naughton Gallery at Queens University, a piece called The De-Elevator. This is what the review said

‘Paddy Bloomer, (born Banbridge, 1976) also works with metamechanics, the term often applied to the work of French artist Jean Tinguely (1925-1991), perhaps the best known of the 20th century?s exponents of mechanical kinetic art. Bloomer is part of the tradition that Tinguely described as the use of ?assemblages of industrial detritus to burlesque effect”. He works out of the Lawrence Street Workshops in Belfast and describes himself as an artist, explorer, inventor and plumber?. Often collaborating with fellow artist Nicky Keogh, previous projects have included an exploration of Belfast sewers, a bin disco, an alternative portaloo and the construction and sailing of a gondola made from skips, bathtubs and other recycled materials as part of The Nature of Things: A Long Weekend, Northern Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 2005′.
The De-elevator, a site-specific, interactive machine initially envisioned as a large scale gramophone, continues Bloomer’s exploration of innovative uses of mechanical principles and alternative energy sources. The piece uses clockwork mechanisms and harnesses the potential energy of the gallery visitor. The outsize escapement mechanism provides a platform for Bloomer?s trademark industrial whimsy using found and re-cycled elements.

Paddy also does bike tours along with Austin Brown. These are no run of the mill tours. You never quite know where you will end up. Prizes are given out for things like ‘The noisiest bell, the most unfashionable bike’ well you get the picture.

I could go on for ever but I won’t but if you want to find out more about paddy just Google him there is lots about him on’t tinter web

Posted in Northern Ireland, Belfast, People | 1 Comment »