We loved to play in there but there was a hazard in the shape of ‘Old Bill’
Because all the iron gates and railings went to the war effort, we had easy access to the school and we loved to play in there but there was a hazard in the shape of ‘Old Bill’, the father of Mr Conaty the caretaker.
Woe betide you if he caught you, and for an old man, he was very quick. He once caught a lad, took him into his workshop and pretended that he was going to chop his fingers off. He carried a cricket stump and he once chased me, and I was getting away when he threw the stump which hit me between the shoulder blades. The pain and the sharp loss of breath was something I have never forgotten.
There is a lasting memory to ‘Old Bill’, the Pigeon Club hut was originally a wooden St John’s Ambulance hut. He build the stone hut and took down the wooden walls without taking the roof off the old hut.