MEMORY LANE: Poetess and photographer from Co. Leitrim, Mary GUCKIAN writes: "I grew up on a small farm where life was busy and at times exhausting, with cycling to school, doing my lessons, collecting food from the local store, helping out with my six younger sisters and brothers. Time flew and my teenage years passed rapidly. At seventeen, I went to work in a town 35 miles from home. It was here I began to have more time for myself as the official working day finished at 5:30 p.m. After eating my dinner, cooked in the digs, I began to get involved in local events that were open to outsiders. Most of my working colleagues were in the Legion of Mary so it was natural that I should join when lobbied by them. A meeting took place one evening each week, and another was spent visiting the sick at the local psychiatric hospital and the County Home for old people who were bed-ridden. Many of the patients did not have visitors and therefore were delighted with the company! I also learned First Aid at Civil Defence and attended craft classes in embroidery and tapestry. Before long I also began to attend the local dances that were held on Friday nights. I had no idea about dancing but having moved into a flat, the girls I shared with, gave me some lessons on how to move around the floor without tripping my partner, or standing on his toes. On my first trip to the dance hall, I discovered I had to overcome the hurdle of standing in the cold hall, waiting to be asked to dance. This took a lot of getting use to, for up to then, work consumed my life and I never knew what it was like to stand around and wait. Every minute of my time had been occupied, whether it was using a few free minutes to take up my knitting, or making garments for myself and my family, and even for my cousins, of which there were plenty, all younger than myself. Even after I left home, I was never idle in my spare time, as I continued to make my own clothes, having purchased a sewing machine with savings from my first few pay packets. The waiting situation was made worse by the fact that in order to get a seat on the bus, I had to go before 9:30 p.m., which meant I was at the hall very early. The band spent about an hour preparing the sound and the microphones, and many of the men only arrived after they had spent some time in the local pubs. Standing around waiting was certainly a huge culture shock and all sorts of thoughts went through my head. What if I didn't get asked to dance? How would I respond if someone did ask me? These dances, however, soon became a part of my life and I began to enjoy hearing different showbands play, and listening to the words of their songs. At the end of the working week I looked forward to hearing "The Capital Showband," "The Royal Blues," "The Melody Acres," "The Drifters," "The Miami Showband," and the "High Lows." Listening to the music was satisfying, and even if men were scarce, as many had emigrated in the fifties and early sixties to England, it was the songs and the tunes that made life pleasant. Reared without a radio until I was thirteen, I heard little music before then. Bridie GALLAGHER and Ruby MURRAY were two women I heard sing on the sponsored programmes when I was at home: one of their most popular tunes was "The Boys from the County Armagh." Sometimes in the evening my father might sing "Three Lovely Lassies from Bannion and I am the Best of Them All," or "The Old Bog Road." Once he picked up a leaflet at a fair with words of "The Croppy Boy" and "The Wild Colonial Boy." We did have a gramophone at home, which was taken out a few times a year. Tunes like "The Stack O Barley" were played from the records, which came from America, through my Uncle Willie. John McCORMACK also. The other place I listened to singing was at the Church, at Sunday Benediction, where people sang such hymns as "Tantum Ergo," "Faith of Our Fathers," and "We stand for God and for His Glory," very enthusiastically. "The Leitrim Observer" regularly printed the words of songs, and I enjoyed reading them, and cutting out the words for pasting in my old copybooks." Excerpt, "Road to Gowel," Swan Press (Dublin) 2000.