Memory Monday: Son of a Gun – JX

This song holds one strong and unforgettable memory for me.  I was 12 years old and setting in the back seat of my older cousin Davys car with my other cousins and head banging to this all the way up to Belfast on a night out with the church youth.  I think we actually played it on repeat the whole way up the road.  It was one of those times as a 12 year old kid who grew up with older cousins that I was allowed up on a night out and I found myself pretending to be a little bit older, while they were pretending to be a little younger. It is in my dolly mixtures playlist, where I put all my little favourites that just don’t fit anywhere else!

Artist: JX
Song: Son of a Gun
Album: JX
Released:  2 April 1994

Memory Monday: A Little Birthday Card

I have a treasure trove of memories stuffed away in a box under my bed.  Mostly small trinkets, old letters, stones, sea shells and the like.  The sort of stuff that is a memory of a day or occasion that and that can instantly bring me back to a place long ago.  The item I want to tell you all about today is a little birthday card that I received for my 16th birthday, I have uploaded the photos below.  It was given to me by Jenny Laverty, now Jenny Doherty my brother’s wife, Cheryl Pollock, now Cheryl Pollock-Henry, Jenny’s cousin Claire McCaw and Martina Ferris.

The birthday wishes on the card I think are easily read and tell their own little story of what was going on in my life 16 and a half years ago, literally half a lifetime ago! It is the sort of we card that’s easily lost but not for putting it some place safe and I’m truly glad that I did.  I can’t remember much of my birthday other than my cake consisted of 16 jam doughnuts, which was good because no one else liked jam doughnuts!  So much has changed since then, things that at that age you would never of thought possible.  Jenny and I are not only still very good mates but also my sister in law!  Where the next 16 years will take us is anyone’s guess, its seriously epic to think of who where where then and who we are now and what we will always mean to each other.

Memory Monday: Our Adventure…The Last Crusade?

I have been having a look through some of my old belongings that have been in storage for the better part of a decade now and stumbled upon a few old stories that I wrote when I was a kid.  When I say kid I mean twelve maybe thirteen and when I say stories I mean real stuff that happened when I was younger.  This is a sort of precursor to my journals that would come later in my teenage years and develop more into my adult life.  This is one of those stories.

Our Adventure…The Last Crusade?

One night of my summer holidays the gang Gerard, Brendan, Neil, Chris, and I all decided to have another adventure.  We went and packed a bag full of food and drink before setting off into the wild unknown.  We started at the fields near Chris’s house.  We walked up close to the building site where we found a long concrete tunnel in the ground.  We sat inside the pipe and Brendan got a rope out of his bag and tied it to my waist and I headed down into the pipe.  Gerard stood behind me as we walked down into the pitch black.  He kept talking about IT which was freaking us both out.  With no end to the tunnel in sight and the entrance becoming a smaller point of light behind us we walked back into the open air again.  We walked further up to the building site where we got into a house to eat our lunch.  As we left a man came up shouting at us saying that if we came into his site again he would kick the shite out of us.  We said we would burn his site to the ground and called him a baldy bastard, he then chased us so we climbed up an electric pylon as far up as we could, which was pretty dam high.  The man then left in his car so we ran away quickly as we could.  We walked up the fields laughing and carrying on, having a good old mess about.  We walked through a field with cattle and another with a bull in it.  The bull started to chase me as I was wearing red, it was kicking its feet and bucking about like mad.  I had to jump over a fence to get away from it, falling into a ditch a good six feet down but it was better than being trampled on.  We walked home soon after stopping to put sheep bones on a fence to make it look like it was standing up.  It was a really good fun day!

It really is funny reading back on this story, what a bunch of little shits we were.  The building site house we just got in through the garage and we didn’t break anything but the cheek we gave that man was awful, even if he was threatening a bunch of kids. The wearing red and the bull chasing me is true but I think it was just because we pissed the poor beast off by being in its field. The tunnel though was a frightening experience.  I am mortally scared of clowns and the tunnel was like ITs lair.  Expect more stories soon!

Memory Monday: What type of person I am

I recently have been rummaging around in a box of my old things and found an old year 8 (First Year) English work book from school.  I wondered why I ever would have kept such a thing until I opened it and read the gold contained inside.  This is just one of the extracts!

What type of person I am
by Scott Doherty

I am a normal school boy age 12 and I live a normal life. I have brown hair and eyes with a healthy complexion and an oval shaped face.  I am 4’6 feet tall and 5.5 stone with an energetic slim build.  I have scars on many parts of my body like on my arm and on my leg.  I never know when to be quiet.  I like sports such as swimming.  I am quick tempered, annoying, stubborn and moody.  I am funny, helpful and friendly.  I get annoyed when people accuse me of things in the wrong and I have a loud voice.  I am smart and polite and athletic.  I like climbing trees and walls.  My favourite time of day is night because you can go to bed.  I like TV and videos, action, horror, Si-Fi and thrillers.  I like girls who are older than me because I get on with them better.  I like small children because I can make them laugh.  I don’t like an untidy room but I don’t like to tidy it so my mum does it when she is in a good mood or when I am made to yyuch!

I am still laughing at this there is so much to comment on!  It seems we were given homework to write about the type of person we are.  There is no date on the page but judging from the other dates before and after its sometime in mid to late October 1993.  That is mental!  In the twenty one year’s that’s have followed not much has changed, other than becoming a little taller and a lot heaver.  I also still can’t spell “Quiet”, in the book its spelt “Quite”.  If any of you get texts from me I will tell you I have to actively think about this! More to come soon!

Memory Monday: Our Day up the Train Tracks

I have been having a look through some of my old belongings that have been in storage for the better part of a decade now and stumbled upon a few old stories that I wrote when I was a kid.  When I say kid I mean twelve maybe thirteen and when I say stories I mean real stuff that happened when I was younger.  This is a sort of precursor to my journals that would come later in my teenage years and develop more into my adult life.  This is one of those stories.

Our Day up the Train Tracks

One night of my summer holidays the gang Gerard, Brendan, Neil, Chris, Pudsy, Philip, Gaz, Steven and I all decided to take a walk up the train tracks.  We each packed a lunch and a ruck sack and headed walking up the playing fields towards the main road that lead to the Loughan.  We walked up the road and when we got to the chip van we stopped for lunch.  After lunch we snuck down the hill that lead onto the train tracks and walked through the long tunnel.   There was only one way in and one way out and if the train came we would be stuck so we felt the rails before we went inside to check if the train was near.  Thinking it was of we went in to the long dark tunnel.  Walking further up the track we started to sing Stand by Me as our adventure was much like the one on the movie.  We all came to a dangerous place where thorns had grown up along each side of the tracks so if the train came we couldn’t just jump off to the sides like we could have before.  We felt the tracks again before proceeding through the trap.  Not long after the train came so we all ran towards the bridge knowing we could climb up under where it arched.  Pudsy jumped up first along with Gerard, helping me to lift Philip and Chris up while the others climbed up the opposite side.  At the very last moment I swung Gaz up to Pudsy who caught him before jumping up the wall myself.  The train almost hit me, it was so close and the others on the opposite side didn’t know if I had made it at all.  We spent the rest of the day walking up in more safer parts, laughing and flattening penny’s on the track as the trains rolled past.  The trains never came close like they did after the bridge incident.  It was very lucky as any one of us could have been killed.  After a little break we decided to walk home along the main road as we thought it safer over all.  The whole day was amazing.

I have to say that I do not advise anyone to play on the train tracks, this was very dangerous 20 years ago when you could hear the noisy trains and see the black smoke from the diesel powered engines from a good ways off never mind todays hi tech silent running and much faster trains.  Please do not try this one, we were very silly and very lucky.   I do remember this day and as dramatic as it sounded it was really that close we all had a fright. Expect more stories soon!

Memory Monday: The Garden Jumpers Chase

I have been having a look through some of my old belongings that have been in storage for the better part of a decade now and stumbled upon a few old stories that I wrote when I was a kid.  When I say kid I mean twelve maybe thirteen and when I say stories I mean real stuff that happened when I was younger.  This is a sort of precursor to my journals that would come later in my teenage years and develop more into my adult life.  I would sit down and quickly write about a story about some adventure that we had.  This is one of those stories.

The Garden Jumpers Chase

One night of my summer holidays the gang Gerard, Brendan, Neil, Chris and I were walking around as normal having a chat and laughing with each other. When we bumped into a group of older boys whom for some reason or another wanted to beat us up.  We did not have the numbers to stand or the fighting skills to win, we did have the smarts to run, so run we did.  Heading down a back ally towards The Ledge which ran from the shops to Avonbrook but as there where people in the gardens we would have been caught so Gerard Brendan Neil and I jumped the fence into an empty back garden thinking Chris was following down behind us.  As we got across the garden we froze hearing a banging and scraping on the wooden fence behind us, looking to see if the other gang had followed us we managed to see Chris’s head pop up followed by a foot shouting “help me boys I cant get over”.  Just as we returned to help him half a dozen pairs of hands grabbed him and pulled him down off the fence as he yelled “Run boys save yourselves”.  Chris is the youngest of our friends and we knew than none of the older boys would have touched him.  Chris could always turn the water works on and it was us who they were after so we ran on and left him in the safe knowledge that he wasn’t going to get hurt. True enough by the time we had made it through the long line of connecting back gardens, hopping fences from one to another, Chris had met us on the other side.  Chris told us that the group had followed him and where not far behind so Gerard and I continued on to The Ledge 2 which ran along the second line of houses from Avonbrook to Maybrook while the others split up and took small back alleys.  The Ledge 2 is hard as it runs right close to gardens with dogs in them and the only way off it is to run over a flat roofed garage at the end but Gerard and I Made it through in the end and safely made our way home.

It’s so funny to read over this maybe 20 years after it was written, I have no idea who it was who was after us that night but it was not like we were in any real danger.  It was a game they liked to chase us we liked to run.   I do remember this night so clearly though, Neil and i have recently talked about it.  The silly stuff we done as young teenagers the fun we had together, expect more stories soon!

Memory Monday: Beach Camp 2006

Memory Monday begins with this video of the beach camp night summer 2006.  Johnny, Gavin Philip and I went up the east strand camping in the sand dunes.  I stayed up all night and made this video at dawn.  Not much has changed in 8 years, Johnny, Gavin, Philip and I all still enjoy camping and campfires although I do have a little less hair. I am counting this little video as “Make a Youtube Video” on my 32 Things so please  Enjoy!