Patrick Butler - This Construction Life

First published 2019

Copyright Patrick Butler 2019

The right of Patrick Butler to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Published under licence by The Self-Publishing Partnership,
7 Green Park Station, Bath BA1 1JB

ISBN printed book: 978-1-83952-036-5
ISBN e-book: 978-1-83952-037-2

Cover design by Kevin Rylands
Internal design by Andrew Easton

This book is printed on FSC certified paper

Printed and bound in the UK

PATRICK
BUTLER

Contents

Chapter 1

THE BEGINNING A DIFFERENT WORLD! SEEMS LIKE CENTURIES AGO

I have to go back in time a bit The story starts in the 1970s in Ireland. 1974, to be exact.

It was a year full of uncertainty, donkey jackets and flares. Disco was in its infancy. Then there was world unrest. Middle Eastern meddling and division. Oil embargoes led to shortages of fuel at the petrol pumps. It was the year of lining up. The Irish population lined up in their cars to get fuel, if there was enough to go around. The fuel was being rationed to breaking point. The Garda were having to intervene to avert civil unrest. People lined up for long periods and were rationed even basic building materials like cement. Production of cement depended on oil. More like a Communist country than a democratic one. Something to do with the United States backing the Israeli government in the Arab-Israeli War. It still rages on today! The oil cartel, OPEC, tried to punish the United States for taking the Israeli side. This really affected the Western world. Ireland was no exception. We bought our oil internationally. Britain had problems, too. The British Army were on standby to man the oil tankers to deliver fuel if the civilian blockades didnt stop. Real serious stuff!

It was also a year of strikes by many unions in Ireland. Living standards dropped due to the economy stalling. Inflation was partly to blame. People were striking over pay and conditions. The previous decade of the 1960s was an energised decade. In the 60s everything was rebellion, free love, fun, harmony and the attitude we can do anything we want. The era of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, showbands, rock n roll, Top of the Pops, mini-skirts and drainpipe trousers. The decade of great music, fashion, sunny days and good times. The decade of the television. This box in the corner of your living room changed everything. The power of that medium was electric. The 60s for a young teen or 20-something were times full of enthusiasm and fun.

This global phenomenon of great music, psychedelic times and this amazing energy. Britain was at the forefront of it. Ireland looked up to big brother Britain for trends and style. Our nation loved the cool trends that emerged from Britain in those decades. The attitude of the young was: We dont have to uphold the conservative ways of our fathers and mothers. We will do what we want anyway. They were right! Live for the moment and have as much fun as you can while your conservative parents are not looking. This was my parents era. They tell me it was a fabulous time.

Then the 1970s arrived. The age of open drug-taking and the psychedelic living of the 1960s had come to an abrupt end. It was a time of upheaval, not to mention the Troubles in Northern Ireland. There were political, social and religious divisions. Political dialogue was frayed between the Irish and British governments. It was a complicated problem. In Northern Ireland, people who had allegiance to the Crown were not willing to give up power and those with no power were hungry to get a balance, voting rights and job equality. Complex! Peace in Northern Ireland was a distant hope. A tough time for all people who lived there. A real scary time for anyone living on the island of Ireland or on the border, for that matter. Reality had just stepped in and taken hold with force. We lived in the South and didnt have to bear the full brunt of war. It was, however, a tense period. Unemployment was high and bank robberies were on the rise. Sometimes driven by terrorists. The terrorists from both sides of the divide didnt stop there. They used to kidnap rich business people for ransom money. These years were not boring by any standard. The evening news almost always had a headline story of people being shot or bombed in Northern Ireland. But it was reported on so often it was sort of normalised. The place where all this trouble was going on was about 200 miles away from where we lived as the crow flies, and there was a border between us. It just seemed it was far away. I cant imagine the pain of living in a place with so much trouble.

Ireland in the 1970s
THE BEGINNING A DIFFERENT WORLD! SEEMS LIKE CENTURIES AGO

In the South of Ireland money was delivered to the banks by armoured truck with an Army and police escort. Real guns were cocked by Army personnel at the doors of banks to ensure safe delivery of money on a Thursday or Friday. The Army was a real active domestic service at that time. A troop of Army Land Rover Defenders and a police escort of the Brinks armoured truck were normal. You would arrive at the bank just after lunch on, say, a Friday to collect wages and then this big entourage would arrive. You were aware they were present but you accepted it as the norm. A little tense but normal!

You also had to have two people when going to the bank to collect the cash. At that time, people were paid their wages in a wage packet that contained cash. The bank would not give you a large sum of cash without a second person present. We accepted this as normal procedure. By todays standards you would think that it was more like Venezuela than Ireland. One thing is for sure, money did go further in those times for us kids. Having said that, inflation in the mid-70s was rising and peoples pockets were being squeezed, hence the unrest. Money did have a certain amount of buying power.

That was the year I was born, 1974. A hard year economically and politically. Waterloo by Abba was no. 1 in the charts. Born on a Saturday. They say Saturdays child works hard for a living. That is exactly what happened!

I am convinced that this very statement is a fact. I was destined to be a hard worker. The family were pupils of the school of hard work. A trait that was enforced by the family rules. A family business with rules. I suppose I was very lucky. Lucky to be born Irish. Lucky to get that tough schooling. Lucky to have that get-up-and-go.

Thats the thing I am most grateful for in life. I was born in Ireland. A great country to be brought up in and educated. Ireland has a good-quality education system. An Ireland not free from its own set of problems, but good at educating its young! Whether people felt they had to emigrate or not, Ireland no doubt was the mother country with many great and wonderful attributes. Home! This is where I started out in life and this is where I first met characters.