1958 Season Ends
(Recalled by Pat "Haggis" Gentles - Feb 2004)

The summer of 1958 drew near to its close. When it ended in the second week in September we were flying to Ireland to do a two-week tour of that country, mostly playing music for dancing. Ken Mackintosh's band finished their season 2 weeks before us. On a Sunday morning we boarded a private plane from the Isle of Man to take us to Belfast in Northern Ireland -the English segment of Northern Ireland

We found to our horror that the boarding house we had chosen which sounded rather nice on paper was a hole in the wall, and it was filthy. We were given a room on the fifth floor, which made things worse with all the things we always had to carry. On the second day Wendy had washed her hair and when she plugged in her hair dryer it blew and no other outlet would take it. So Wendy was disgusted and she said "Come on Pat let's gather up our things and get the h-- out of here.

It was 11-15 at night and I asked her where she planned on us going. She said there was room where one of the trumpet players's was staying and she knew where it was. So between us we decided to pack everything there and then and leave very quietly so that we wouldn't have to pay any money cause the landlady didn't deserve it. So that's what we proceeded to do. Having packed all our things we started to slowly walk down the five flights of stairs hoping that no one heard us especially the landlady, we didn't want an ugly scene when if she saw us she would ask for money we were not willing to pay. We made it down three flights when we heard someone climbing up. We rounded a corner holding our breaths and low and behold there in front of us was our landlady. She had some clothes or something in her arms and she looked at us - we froze-

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Arriving in Northern Ireland

 and she said "and where might you two girls be going this late at night". At once I piped up and said "the Movies" and she said that's nice and carried on up the stairs. Wendy and I stared at each other then proceeded to run down the rest of the stairs and out the door. We couldn't believe she hadn't seen the luggage we were carrying and our heavy coats. We ran into the street and dissolved in laughter. We decided she must have had a sip or two of the Irish answer to whatever ails you - Whiskey. After leaving the Belfast area we then toured all over the Irish Free State. We went to the castle and kissed the Blarney stone. We played a couple of days in Dublin before winding down the tour in Galway, where we took the chance to walk on the shore of Galway Bay. It was midnight and the lights from the ballroom danced on the waters creating beautiful colours dancing over the waves. It really was lovely.

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