February PhotoChat

Society member Terry Eakin kindly gave me the loan of a fascinating album containing photographs from the 1960s of a picnic on the main Copeland Island. Here is a selection of them.

  One of the boats looks to me like the White Heather, the other clearly being the Miss Dorothy. Jean Roberts tells me that her sisters are two of the budding athletes competing for glory.
  If anyone thinks that a young version of themselves appears in one of the photos, just email me and I will send you a large copy.

There was a time when the Commons was truly common land and all Donaghadee residents had the right to grow their own food there. Sadly that option has now long gone and I have to buy my potatoes in plastic bags.
  However there are traces of the old cultivation still visible. Potatoes were planted in lazy beds, where the seed potatoes were laid in a row on top of the ground with some fertilizer (manure or seaweed) and then two rows of turf were cut on either side of the ‘bed’ and flipped over on top of it. Traces of the lazy beds can be clearly seen in the low winter sun.

  In case anyone jumps to conclusions, this is NOT the origin of the term ‘common potato’.

Since the Health & Safety Gestapo have removed the benches on the back of Donaghadee Pier in winter, as they consider them to be dangerous, this is what I have to do when I want to have a quiet sit down to watch the shipping pass by and contemplate the wonders of the deep.

 
  Now can any genius from Health & Safety explain to me how it is safer for me to carry a deckchair up the steps on to the back of the Pier and perch on it, rather than be able to sit on a secure fixed bench?

Ivan Strahan

As always, comments and contributions from viewers will be welcome – just email me at ivan.strahan@gmail.com.