SNIPPET: A charming story by Maureen CHARLTON appeared in the Dublin Swan Press poetry book, "Duet For Two Dubs" (1997). Ms. CHARLTON has written extensively for the stage, has been a frequent broadcaster, has written several books of poetry and is founder of "Martello Magazine." Perhaps her story will bring back memories .... "A long time ago in those faraway days before television and videos and discos and bowling alleys, when pocket money was doled out not in pounds but in dearly earned pennies, the chief amusement available for many a suburban child during that seemingly endless span of time between the end of June and the beginning of Autumn was to go to the seaside. Northsiders could sample the delights of Dollymount, Clontarf or the majestic grandeur of Howth. Geography is destiny as Dr. Freud might have said and as it would take a vodka and valium for a true Southsider to cross the Liffey, we Mt. Merrion kids had to content ourselves with the Blackrock Baths. We chose the Baths rather than the open sea as the vagaries of the tides were an annoyance and a mystery to us. Some days you would have to trudge two miles before even getting up to your waist in water. No walking to eternity along Sandymount Strand for us! Four old pennies got you into the Baths with its three spacious pools of varying depths. The highest diving board in the country was formidably poised over the deepest pool and we looked on with a mixture of terror and admiration when a virtuoso of diving skill made a descent. Splash! Awesome in its audacity and courage it was a circus turn. In that amazing flight through the air what would happen when that swallow like silhouette went under the water? Would it crash to the bottom never to turn? What a relief when after a few seconds a reassuring head bobbed to the surface. The ritual of going to the seaside was always the same. After dinner every day we retrieved our very often still damp bathing suits from the line in the garden, grabbed a bath towel from the bathroom rail, rolled them into a great sausage and away with us. The seldom sighted No. 17 bus which now ambles its eccentric way from outside Blackrock Railway Station to Rialto and Dolphin's Barn was then not even a twinkle in the eye of C.I.E. or whatever it was called at the time. And so we 'legged' it down leafy elegant Mt. Merrion Avenue past the spacious houses demurely set back from the road and the high stone walls with trails of Albertines and Victorian rambles peeking enticingly over them. Viewed through the long corridor of time those daily excursions blur into a happy monotony but there is one particular day that is forever locked in my memory. That morning I had been brought into town where in Bradley's, a children's clothes shop in Nassau St., my mother had bought me a new pair of shoes. Oh what shoes! What a pair of beauties! Glistening black patent leather, pristine, without a single crack. A T-strap on the instep with a black bean button fastening on the side and a blue bird stencilled on the toe cap. Even Imelda Marcos with her vast repertoire of shoes could never have possessed such an enchanting pair. We arrived at the Baths, paid our entrance fee and adjourned to the Ladies Changing Rooms which had in former times been presided over by the legendary Mrs. Byrne who had acted in the capacity of chaperone and security officer. In the soggy cabin with its damp slatted floor we undressed, leaving our belongings on the seat and went off to disport ourselves in the pool in which we felt safest and where our feet could always touch the bottom. On returning to my booth after about two hours, I found to my dismay that, although my clothes were still there, the wonderful shoes had gone. Oh if only Mrs. Byrne had still been there. There was no redress, nobody to whom I could report the crime. Gone too with the shoes was the money for ice cream which I had rolled up in a handkerchief and stuffed into one of the toes. Oh the misery of it! I would now have to face the walk home in barefooted dejection and without even the consolation of an ice cream cone or bag of jelly babies. But my best friend Marie proved herself to be a 'brick' (as a girl in one of the Swiss Chalet books would call another if she did something really generous) and decided to take off her shoes and give me more support. So together barefooted, we walked up that long Avenue home. Surely greater love than this no girl has than that she lay aside her shoes for her friend."