A walk down Memory Lane

‘Red’ O’Hara...

“This happened during the Second World War, I lived above Neil Carlin’s pub in Cross Street, down where the old health centre was.

During the war we always had an invasion of American Navy or Air Force coming into the pub on a Friday and Saturday night. I remember there was a chap who called himself Red O’Hara, and he was a great big chap and he was always in uniform.

He used to drive up to the pub in a jeep and screech to a halt.

On his shoulder he had a monkey...this is true...and the monkey used to have a little chain on him. And he used to go into the pub and drink all night, and for every drink he had, he had a tiny glass and he used to give the monkey a drink in the tiny glass. If he had a cigar the monkey smoked a smaller cigar and at the end of the night the monkey would be sitting on his shoulder, and it would be full drunk, and it would fall off but the chain was linked to him, and it would climb up the chain and sit back on his shoulder.

As children we all looked forward to Red O’Hara coming down because when he came out of the pub he would put his hand in his pocket and it was full of change and he would throw it all into the air and we were all diving for the money.

We used to run when we heard the jeep screeching to a halt...I remember he had a mass of red hair.

That is one of my greatest memories.”