March 2004 Archives

Piazza-style shopping in Rathcoole

Talk in recent Kerr’s Corner columns about the Angel of Rathcoole statue at the Diamond prompted me to look up contemporary newspaper reports.  I can remember a lot of controversy at the time, but there seems to have been nothing in the local papers.  There was, though, extensive coverage of the new Diamond shopping centre.  The extension to the Diamond opened near the end of 1966 and brought public lavatories to the estate.

 
The new part of the Diamond brought a supermarket, the Minimac; J S Kyle – ‘an ultra-modern chemist’s shop’ and most prominently, The Cosy Homes, then ‘Newtownabbey’s leading house furnishers’.  The Cosy Homes Rathcoole Superstore occupied the site later taken over by the VG supermarket.  It was on two floors and carried a wide range of household furniture, curtains, lighting fixtures and everything a house needs to turn it into a home.  At the time a lounge suite cost 59 Guineas.  Remember when large purchases were priced in guineas?  At the time, of course, my favourite shop was The Squirrel, which was the best sweetie shop for miles around. In those days half a crown went a long way!

 
People who have actually lived in Rathcoole over the past forty or so years ago will be surprised to read that the Diamond brought Continental ‘piazza-style shopping’ to the estate.  If that was the idea, it came too early for Rathcoole.  According to the East Antrim Times in 1966,  ‘The shopping centre presents the best possible argument for shopping at home away from the hustle and endless queues of Belfast.’  In practice, it degenerated into a boarded-up and vandalised windswept wilderness.  Apart from the temporary loss of the Angel, few will mourn its passing.

Thursday, March 18, 2004

Old Belfast Street Directory

Welcome back to Kerr’s Corner. The other day I picked up a copy of an old Belfast street directory. This City of Belfast Street Directory and Bus Guide was published by the City Directory Company; ‘Northern Ireland’s leading publishers of Directories, Guide Books, Brochures, etc.’ It’s not dated, but an advertisement for the car hire firm, Moley’s Motors of 49 Victoria Square, advertises ‘new Farina-style Austin A40’s and A55’s, new Morris Oxfords…’ for hire. I checked out these cars on www.motorbase.com and discovered that the Austin models and the Morris Oxford were all produced between 1959 and 1961.

The guide lists all the streets in the city and curiously enough, the ‘Rathcoole Estate (Served by UTA Bus from Smithfield Depot).’ Where ‘Streets progress alphabetically from the Shore Road entrance.’ Most taxi-drivers and long-term residents of the estate are well aware of this fact.
City Streets are listed by where they intersect with main roads. Ballysillan Road is at 771 Crumlin Road and Ballysillan Park is at 252 Ballysillan Road. This can be useful if you’re trying to locate the site of streets, like Moyola Street or Hardinge Street, that have long since been swept away by redevelopment.

The compiler of the guide had a somewhat sardonic sense of humour. Of St Anne’s Cathedral, he writes, ‘The citizens of Belfast (or those of them who from time to time have had a say in these matters) appear to have a particular aptitude for erecting their most noble or most spectacular buildings – except their cinemas – in the places where their nobility or spectacle are least likely to be seen. That is why it is one of the pleasant duties of this Guide to draw your attention to this new Cathedral which is still in the process of being completed.’
Since then, the creation of the Cathedral Gardens at the College of Art and the Writers’ Square facing St Anne’s have improved its setting. They still haven’t finished it, though! There’s still no spire on the top.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the guide is the range of adverts. Who now remembers Duff’s Restaurant and Grill in Callendar Street or the Piccolo Coffee bar in Wellington Place? Certainly not me. We will look at some of these old adverts in a future Kerr’s Corner. In the meantime, you could do worse than look out the Glenravel Publications series of books of pictures of life in our city in the twenties, thirties and forties. Check out their stall every Friday morning in St George’s Market

MORE ON THE ANGEL OF RATHCOOLE

I’m grateful to Mark Langhammer from Newtownabbey council for an update on the Angel of Rathcoole, the large female sculpture that used to hang on the wall of the old VG supermarket in the Diamond.  Mark tells me that like myself, ‘I spent a bit of my youth looking up at this thing and wondering….  But grew to like the bloody thing.’  He - like me and many others - had thought that it had been done by the same sculptor who did the two similar figures on the Ulster Bank at Shaftsbury Square in Belfast.  However, after doing some research into the statue he found out that it was made in 1966 by a man called Stephen Toogood.

 
Mark goes on to say that; ‘when the Housing Exec were planning to pull down the shops, I did intervene - got the Angel safely stored, and set about finding a home for it.  To cut a long story short, a small grant from the Council's Arts fund will see the Angel restored - looking out at the Diamond in the same direction, from the gable wall of the Rathcoole Churches' Dunanney Centre.  I'll check on timescale and get back to you but, in short, the Angel is saved!’  Great news! When I get the details, Kerr's Corner readers will be the first to know.

 
Thanks also to James McDonald for pointing out that the banana flats were in Derrycoole Way and not Rathcoole Drive.  I actually meant to type Rathmore Drive, but you’re right, Mr McDonald. Please keep your letters coming to kerrscorner@ulsteronline.org.uk

 

 

Popular Culture:  Football fanzines

 
I WAS talking to a couple of friends recently on the subject of football fanzines.   Zines, as they’re more popularly known, differ from the glossy promotional bumpf put out by the big clubs themselves.  They’re put out by fans for fans and are usually full of match and team analysis, gossip and humour: often at the expense of their chosen team’s local rival.

 
The conversation began after one of them had come back from Glasgow with a copy of a Rangers FC zine called NUMBER ONE.  It looked great – a full colour cover and over fifty glossy pages.  John remarked that NUMBER ONE must be one of the few remaining zines on the go.  Only a few years ago it seemed as if every football team had one or two zines attached to it.  Where did they all go?  I suspect that they may have been replaced by fan websites.

 
I certainly remember some local football fanzines.  The Linfield zine, The Blues Brothers was unique in that it also followed the fortunes of two other teams playing in blue, Chelsea and Rangers.  Where Cornerboys Collect was another, though I honestly don’t remember which team it supported.  It might have been Crusaders, but I’m sure somebody out there knows. The Wee Red gave its allegiance to Cliftonville and Our Wee Country supported Northern Ireland.  Do you know of any others? Drop me a line at kerrscorner@ulsteronline.org.uk  In the meantime anyone interested in getting hold of a copy of NUMBER ONE can have one by sending a cheque/Postal Order for £2.50 to (made payable to Number One Fanzine):

 Number One Fanzine, PO Box 9025, Larkhall ML9 1YB, Scotland.  Tell them you heard about it in Kerr's Corner.

 
Volume One, John Clancey’s bookshop in The Haymarket between Royal Avenue and Gresham Street, used to sell local fanzines.  Unlike the soulless Waterstones chainstore, Mr Clancey likes to give small presses a shop window for their publications.  Poetry and local history feature strongly here. It’s worth your while dropping in to see what’s in stock.

When I dropped in the other Saturday, there were booklets from Glenravel Publications, Glenwood Publications and Rushlight Publications.

 
Glenravel Publications published a terrific large format booklet, Terry O’Neill’s Belfast a few years ago.  Many of these articles first appeared in Belfast Magazine, which is also stocked by Mr Clancey.  Centred mainly on the New Lodge and Sailortown areas of North Belfast, Terry O’Neill’s reminiscences ring true for many folk of his generation.  As some-one who has worked in and around the port myself, for nearly thirty years, I can identify with these stories.  I even knew some of the characters he writes about in his articles.

 
Since 1972, Joe Graham has been producing his own little historical and cultural magazine, Rushlight. Lately, he has branched out into videos, DVDs and a website.  The latest issue runs to thirty-two pages.  Great value at only a pound!  Copies can be had from Volume One, the Inisfree newsagent in Castle Street or the Academy newsagent at Antrim Road end of Hillman Street.  Check out the website on www.rushlightbelfast.com

 
Mr Graham has been asked by the St Kevin’s School Commemoration Committee to compile an oral history of St Kevin’s Boys’ School on the Falls Road.  The old school is due to come down later this year.  A two-day exhibition is planned for the school in the last week of April.

 
Another recent publication from the Shankill-based Glenwood Publications stable is Walk on By, a photo-essay book dedicated to the Orange marching tradition.  Lots of interesting pictures and two fascinating looks at this tradition from the perspective of a Dutch-Laotian visitor and an Ulster exile currently living in England.