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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to the podcast version of Sunday Masalini, which differs from the radio version for rights reasons. We hope you enjoy the program.
The evening before my daughter Fia's ninth birthday, I recorded a short video of her soloing a football across the living room floor. I suppose it was my feeble attempt as a parent to resist the passing of time and as someone who's chronically forgetful, a way to make sure I could pin down and remember this everyday moment of fun in her life.
Fia was looking forward to her birthday because they were due to start Gaelic football in school and because her classmates were going to sing happy birthday to her. She still hadn't forgiven last year's teacher for forgetting to do this. Her presents included a green and yellow football she insisted on bringing to school that day.
She used to give her teacher a note telling her that I'd need to collect her a little early as she had an appointment with her ear, nose and throat doctor to check on her grommets. I mention in the note that it was her birthday as a reminder to have the class sing Happy Birthday. When I cycled to school later to collect her, it was lashing rain and I could tell something was wrong.
We didn't play Gaelic football, she told me, and I lost my ball. She'd been playing ball tag with some kids and had accidentally kicked it over the wall at the back of the school.
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Chapter 2: What moments define the father-daughter bond in this episode?
It was impossible to get it back, she said, and some of the kids had laughed. By the time we reached the ENT doctor, we were drenched and she was miserable. To cheer her up, I asked her if it was nice having happy birthday sung to her by her class. She burst into tears, suddenly realising that her teacher had forgotten. She declared it the worst birthday ever. I sat beside her.
How about we go and look for the ball when we're finished here? I found myself saying. She nodded sadly but had no faith that we'd find it. Neither had I. What was I thinking? We returned to the school, and when we went out the backyard, Fia pointed out the spot in question, a high stone wall with a rusty fence on top of it, entangled with decades of bushes, tree branches and thick ivy.
I saw immediately that she was right. Finding the ball would be impossible, but we had to try. Are you seriously telling me you kicked the ball over that wall, I asked. She nodded, smiling proudly.
We followed the wall around the back of the school, up some steps, along a driveway and through a gate that led out onto a busy road, hoping the ball would be in one of the back gardens of the houses that backed onto the school. We walked down the driveway of the first house into its back garden and shouted, Hello! through the open door.
A dog barked from inside and then ran out to confront us, revealing itself to be a friendly Dalmatian. Its owner, Terry, followed, and when we explained our predicament, he led us to the back of his garden to search for the ball. There we were greeted by high trees heavy with leafy autumnal branches, a canopy of green and yellow designed perfectly by nature to conceal Fia's ball.
Our search was in vain, but Terry was lovely and his dog was sweet. Undeterred, Terry phoned his neighbour Ruth, who immediately opened a wooden door between their properties and invited us into her garden to search.
It was the same story at the back of Ruth's garden, where we climbed in through the branches onto a muddy embankment and looked over the wall to see that we had found the spot from which Fia had kicked the ball. We were close, but where was it? Then Fia found two other balls, a leather one and a plastic one, that had obviously gone missing down through the years. Ruth insisted she keep these.
Fia was delighted. Her ball might be missing, but this was a proper adventure. When we called to the next property, the kind gentleman led us right through the house and out into its back garden, at the end of which was a wooden gate that was difficult to open. Finally, I yanked it free and Fia burst through. And there, lying on the ground, was her green and yellow football.
I don't know if I have ever felt happier. I know I can't stop time, but Fia's ninth birthday is one I'll never forget, thanks to her missing football.
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Chapter 3: How does a forgotten birthday impact a child’s emotions?
The land that had become the park had been bought with a bequest from James Hood Brook, whose will stipulated that the park should be a place where the working man could enjoy on the Sabbath day his pipe and a pleasant walk. or rest after the labours of a severe week's toil.
The park, opened in August 1901, was laid out as a typical Victorian park with an oval fish pond and park keepers who would shout and scold if an excited child put a foot on the grass. The library sat at the top of the three sets of stone steps. It had originally been an orphanage for boys, then a museum, before becoming a library and exhibition space with a cannon on the lawn at the front door.
And inside, dim light, deep silence and shelves of books that seemed to stretch as high as the sky. My father's library ticket allowed him to take out ten books and every now and again he would take me with him and let me get a book or two from the children's section.
These visits entailed what felt like endless hours of standing, trying not to fidget as he peered along the shelves, watching as he lifted down a book, read the back cover, put it back, moved slowly along the shelf, took down another and maybe this time added it to the pile under his arm.
Is it a trick of memory that makes me think I can see him puffing on his pipe during the book selection process? The smell of the pipe smoke sweetening the musty smell of the library. The day I saw my father crying marked the final loss of his sanctuary. The army on their arrival in 1969 had already taken over part of the library building. and removed a lot of the shrubbery from the park.
The pond was filled in and visiting the library was no longer the escape it had been. When it was firebombed, the building was left to decay until it was completely derelict. For a while the library was housed in port-a-cabins in a cabin off Infirmary Road, but I don't think my father ever went there.
Instead, he created his own personal library service with the owner of the secondhand bookshop at the bottom of Carlisle Road. The small shop was not as grand, but here he could browse and discuss world affairs or the greyhound and horse racing until he settled on the three or four books which he bought.
Some of these he kept, but most of them, when he had finished reading, would be traded in for a new batch of books. Lately the park has been restored, the pond restocked and a cafe and children's park opened where the library had been. Sitting there recently was it only wishful thinking that made me believe I could catch the sweet scent of walnut pipe tobacco.
They ask me how I knew my true love was true. I must reply.
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Chapter 4: What adventures unfold during the search for a lost football?
He taught me the lingo of the shop, ottoman, antimacassar, divan, wingback, chippendale, queen anne. I tried to tell the difference between mahogany, oak, beech and deal, but that was beyond my nine-year-old brain. Many a table had a thick glass cover to protect its precious wood from scratches or the ever-present hot teapot in customers' homes.
I wrote pretend receipts using ink blue carbon paper in a little receipt book, tearing out perforated pages to give to make-believe customers, my dolls, who sat patiently on a low dresser. My dad had a secret price code, which I never really worked out, but I know it consisted of the words faith, hope and charity, with certain letters representing specific numbers.
I liked to chalk a price coat over and over on the underside of bentwood chairs, wiping them clean with an old rag before a customer showed an interest. I could also make rubbings using tracing paper and a pencil on the seats of bentwoods because the wood had such interesting carved patterns.
I could hear the clatter of glasses next door in O'Connell's pub as men drifted in and out around lunchtime before the holy hour kicked in. I was envious we didn't get a holy hour. Across the street was the mysterious Salvation Army building with its slogans and posters. Who were they saving and where was their army?
As the wind whipped down the canal and in the door of the shop, my dad would wrap his jumper around me as he wryly read aloud the Salvation Army quote, Thou shalt not perish.
When Dad decided to move his business to Thomas Street in the 70s, he told me one of his loyal customers agreed he'd be better off moving, saying, Mr. Rhone, sure Richmond Street has become an Aidan Street, because of the proliferation of new restaurants setting up there.
In the decades since then, parking restrictions have come in and shopping patterns have changed greatly, but Christy Bird, eventually run by his grandson, continued to trade on Richmond Street until late 2025, when they reluctantly closed down.
Back in my father's shop at the end of our working day, it was time to take in the pieces of furniture from the pavement outside and stack them on top of each other before locking up. In all of this, I was merely my dad's shadow, unable to be of real help, but feeling important in just being there. Best of all, I liked that on these special days, I was all his and his world all mine.
Now I watch my granddaughter shadow her dad in all he does. Fixing a bike, hammering a nail, stirring a pot, picking out a tune, tapping a laptop. Or as she sits proudly behind him on his bike, clutching his jumper with her small hands. I know, she'll remember this in 50 years' time.
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