Jack And Lilly Blackpool 1951

This is a great photo of Jack and Lilly. I have never seen it before. I was five at the time it was taken.

Jack had a window cleaning business in the late fifties. He would come home from the night shift in the Irish Press, have his breakfast, then take his ladder and bucket and all the gear and go off to the swankier parts of town to clean windows. He was very conscientious about his work and he was well liked by his clientele. He was also very proud of his honesty. He would often have to go inside these homes in order to clean the inside of the windows. I remember him telling me one day that he would never touch anything. he specifically said that even if he was dyin' for a smoke and didn't have any cigarettes and there was an open packet of ciggies around he wouldn't take one. I don't know why he told me this but that is the way he was.

Also, he was the true Dubliner. He talked like a Dubliner, walked like a Dubliner and dressed like one, down the the newspaper sticking out of his jacket pocket. He had a ready grin and a very jaunty and jovial manner. He always seemed to be in good mood, except of course if you were his assistant window cleaner.

I worked for him for a while. I was his assistant and I also had a bike and a bucket and a ladder. We would go out together and he would do the top windows and I would do the bottom ones. It was horrible work to me. I really did not like it and I was not very good at it. I am surprised Jack had so much patience with me.

When we started doing a house we would get warm water from the client's tap and we half-filled our buckets. It didn't take long in the cold Dublin climate for this water to turn very cold. It would drip down the arm and the clothes and go right up to the elbow as I reached up to clean the window. I was left with a freezing and wet right arm by the end of the day.

I was not very interested in what I was doing really. I was much too young to be in a job that required effort without the added stimulus of learning something new or advancing myself. I was also freezing most of the time. I don't think Jack was overly pleased with my performance but I just could not muster up the spirit to do better. I didn't have the moxie to just get on with it and stop thinking about the job. I was earning a few bob, wasn't I?

One day, it was really freezing out; we were in a very residential area of Dublin on a job. To my young eyes anyone who lived in anything other than a corporation house was part of the aristocracy.

This particular house was a very plush house. I was relegated to the bottom windows and I got my water and put up the ladder. It was a very cold wintry day and it was just getting dark. This was the last house of the day. I started to put the initial coat of water onto the window. I then looked in the window and I was taken aback by the scene in what was a beautiful sitting room, well furnished and very comfortable looking.

The fire was lit in the grate and it looked like it had been lit for a while. It had settled into a warm amber glow with some spluttering and flickering flames. The lights were out in this room so the only light was from the fire. These gentle flames lit a carpet of amber glow directly in front of the fire, then receded and licked the walls in a lovers caress so that the room seemed to be in motion from shadow to glowing amber. The scene was mesmerizing to me. I must have stood for a full m minute drinking in this portrait of warmth and lush comfort.

In front of this fire was a cat. It was a Persian cat and it lay in the warmth as cats will do. As I watched, the cat stretched itself from nose to tail and then relaxed in a furry ball. I think I heard a sigh of contentment from this beautiful animal as I looked at this fairy tale scene.

The irony of the situation was not lost on my young mind. It was as if I was observing life from a far off place.

I was shivering with the cold, I was wet and miserable and I was watching a cat mocking my condition.

I stopped cleaning windows soon after that. I was grateful to Jack for giving me the opportunity to work with him but he was faster on his own. My heart was definitely not in the job. A more pragmatic approach would have been to just get on with it , clean the darn window and go home but, there you are.

One thing I got out of that time was that I learned the name of the cloth used to clean windows. It was and is called ' scrim'. I know that I will come across it one day in a crossword puzzle and I will know the answer. I will then know that my time was not entirely wasted all those years ago and that from every experience there is always a little nugget of knowledge to be found.

A more important lesson learned was to just get on with the job and stop whining. We can't always do things we love and there are people worse off than us no matter how bad things are.

I have always admired Jack for his hard work and his tenacity and always felt a little guilty for not having made more of an effort.