A creative memoir of growing up in the Irish countryside during the 1950's, a time now long gone and almost forgotten. This was an era when turf fires blazed on wide hearths and oil lamps cast forbidding shadows across bare floors. Shanks mare or a rickety bicycle got you to where you needed to go and dogs slept on the streets of small towns. School was a place to learn or have knowledge beaten into you on the whim of a frustrated teacher. Struggling souls begged mercy from an unheeding God and children prayed for the grace of a happy death. Church and state combined to rule and their authority was rarely challenged. There wasn't much to cheer about in 'the good old days' but the promise of better times ahead gave encouragement to those tempted to despair. Survival depended on dogged perseverance. 

'When you stop swimmin', you drown', my father often said. Some did and some didn't.