SNIPPET: Excerpt from a letter written by Mr. Gerald COOKE in the July-Aug 2002 issue of "Ireland of the Welcomes" magazine published in Dublin: "As small boys, my brother and I used to spend the summer holidays (from London) on our Uncle John's farm, a 25-minute walk from the Swiss Cottage. Both my parents were from Cahir. While my father was raised, lived, and worked in the town, my mother was born and raised of farming people who owned acreage in the countryside outside the town. Because they came from different levels of society it did not sit well with my mother's parents when Mam and Dad looked like they had eyes for each other. They ran away to England to be married, where I was born two years later and my brother, John, three years after that. As I understood it, because my mother had married "beneath her," there was no contact between her and her parents during those five years. In the summer of 1945, when my mother and father felt they could not go any longer witho! ut at least a visit to the place of their raising, they planned a return to Cahir, if only for the summer holiday. One of my mother's sisters was also to be sent down to say that all was forgiven and that we would be welcome at the farm. We visited Ireland and spent the summers at the farm outside Cahir every year until I was 15. Being raised in the metropolis of west London, my mother would not let John nor I outside to play with the other children in the streets, thus we were relative prisoners in the small two-room basement apartment. But in the summer when we went to Ireland she turned us loose to roam through the fields and countryside, amid farm animals and machines. What freedom! Sailing homemade plank boats on ponds to far-away places. Hunting for eggs and taking daily rides in the "horse and box" into Cahir to the creamery. Mowing and saving the hay. Cutting the wheat and barley behind a horse-drawn reaper and binder. We dug for potatoes and helping with herding an! d dipping sheep. The monthly fair was another delight. At daybreak far mers would herd cattle, sheep and pigs into town where man and animal would stand half the day waiting for buyers to come and offer a good price. On Sundays we would drive in the pony and trap to the chapel for Mass. And everywhere, always, there were warm, friendly people. Back home in England, our mother would take us to the library after school. We always looked for children's storybooks about Ireland written by Irish authors, of which there seemed to be plenty. In the evenings while waiting for Dad to come in from work, we would sit huddled around an iron range fireplace. Our mother would always sit with us and take a turn reading aloud. I remember one book was "The Turf Cutter's Donkey," by Patricia LYNCH. As I grew older, my father taught me to fly fish for trout along the banks of the river Suir just as he, a young man, had done before leaving for England. We would! buy flies from Eugene HEAVEY in the Swiss Cottage and walk down to the riverbank through the park, wher! e we would catch trout and carry them home hanging from a sapling. Places are a lot like people, each has a beauty that is very special and unique. And Ireland has a beauty all of its own." (Family photos appear in magazine).