Have you ever been mistaken for someone famous? Not likely to be an issue in my case, bar the odd Stephen Hawking jibe. My uncle Pat, or “Uncle Zeb” as he will always be to us, was different.
He could easily and justifiably be confused with Santa Claus, Ronnie Drew, John Sheahan or one of the lads out of ZZ Top. Comparisons were definitely made with the first three and the last one would’ve fitted perfectly too. As would a Hippy or a Viking!
Ma’s eldest brother was a unique character. Very much marching to the beat of his own drum. Pat Geoghegan was born on 4/3/43, the eldest of Patsy and Nora’s six sons. Two years younger than his ‘big sis’, as he always called her. The easy-to-remember birthday fitting in perfectly with was a simplistic yet wonderful life in its own way.
Some of my elder siblings are of an age that they remember him without the mane of grey hair and the beard so big and free-flowing it should’ve required planning permission. I often tried to visualise him without it, but then it simply wouldn’t have been him.
Pat and his wife Phil – or Ciss as she is much better known – were the epitome of a hard working country couple when I was growing up. Pat drawing blocks out of CPI while Ciss seemed to work every hour God gave her in the ReadyBake factory which produced Butterkrust bread.
I think the cement plant in Lucan was closed before yours truly had checked into the world. Or if not very shortly afterwards, but Pat was lucky in that he had his own lorry. Two of them in fact. So when drawing blocks was off the agenda, the lorries could be put to use transporting some other commodity.
Timber. And lots of it. Not only did he transport timber, he cut it, mounds of it. Making a nice business for himself, bagging logs and selling them. These were the days before mobile phones, or even landlines in some cases. Our own included. So it was a case of business by contacts built up and word of mouth.
Then, there was the sort of country barter system which thankfully, in farming circles at least, remains to this day. You do me a good turn and I’ll get you back with one in time.
In this case, that meant ‘Spud’ and Nora buying vegetables from Tommy McDonnell – maybe some of the lads did in time as well – while Tommy’s parents, Frank and Betty, Lord rest them both, were two of Pat’s regulars for a load of logs.
Of course we were ourselves too. I have some great memories of those years. Simple times, yet treasured ones. Even more so now. As far as can be recalled, Pat used to have his own two lads, Ken and Gary, with him when the timber business was at its peak for them. Not only that, but Ciss would be out in one of their sheds splitting and bagging whatever logs the lads had cut.
For nearly all of the time I can recall Pat at the timber, he was more or less based in The Hermitage in Lucan. Both the site of the Golf Club and what is now The Hermitage Clinic. My older siblings can also remember him cutting timber in Carton House and that they got a spin with him in the lorry when he was drawing timber for da and his brother Billy. That was another case of the farming barter system at play. They had a few acres of land taken off a local man and the ‘rental agreement was that they would cut and clear some timber off the land.
Anyone that has been digesting my material for long enough will be well aware of my life long love affair with machinery. Mostly tractors and farm gear yes, but absolutely chainsaws as well. That was all down to Pat. He seemed to have to have a collection of them.
Mostly Stihl, a few different models thereof indeed, but he also had a smaller saw, a red Echo. I adored that saw, mostly because it was less noisy than any of the others. Which, given my aversion to sudden and loud noises, was huge. Pat and the lads knew I loved the Echo, so much so that they built me one.
Not a real one, but a step above a toy too at the same time. If that makes any sense. I think/hope its still in one of the sheds here and if it can be located it will form part of a project which I wll write more about and hopefuly get stuck into as soon as one is in a slightly stronger emotional state.
They gave it to me one Christmas Eve. Which was the most fitting as, for as long as can be remembered in those years, every December 24th himself and the two lads would arrive over with a trailer load of logs. By then the lorries had been parked up, not gone, just parked up. Everything that had an engine in it was kept. It could be re-tooled and put to use in other ways. Hoarding before it was a big deal? Yeah, but it just seemed to be how it always was.
With the lorries retired from service, the timber convoy consisted of a green Hunter and a couple of trailers which he’d built himself. They were big contraptions compared to the car trailers of the time. The Hunter was a species all to itself too. Resembling a cross between a tractor and a Sherman Tank. So hybrid was it that I often wondered had he built it himself!
Whatever about being a hard worker and finding ways to make ends meet, like everybody else, he had his hobbies and pastimes too. Just that they were different to most peoples. As far as I could make out anyway. Whereas for some people it was GAA or golf or athletics or hunting, for Pat and the gang it was Stock Car Racing. Which, as far as can be gathered, was the forerunner to NASCAR.
Wherein – and again this is only my read of it – competitors built their own vehicles or at least modified them. I can only assume that was where the fascination with collecting cars, tinkering with some of them and dismantling more of them for parts came from. It would make a soul think the likes of Car SOS or Salvage Hunters or Rust Valley Restorers would have had a field day over there.
The other aside that tricking around with the cars brought up was the fascinating world of CB Radios. Now, whether Convoy was in the cinema at the time or not I don’t know, but there was definitely a surge in the popularity of the CB scene.
It was also where he got the nickname that stuck with him until he drew his last breath on Saturday last – Uncle Zeb – his ‘handle’ on the CB. When I was growing up, myself, Paul and Des (my two brothers) shared a room, in which Paul had a CB for a long time. One of my great regrets is not getting into it.
You know, I might just have another go at it again in his memory. The chainsaw has already been ordrred. Yes, you did read that correctly. 10:4 Uncle Zeb. Have a small one up there with da and the lads. The chainsaws are greased and ready to go. Over and out.
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