IT WAS a trip down memory lane for four former residents of Crawfordsburn Orange Hall, when they visited their childhood home at the weekend.
The four daughters of John Bryson – caretaker of the hall – were all born in the caretaker’s accommodation at the Orange Hall, and lived there from the early 1930s until the late 1940s.
Now in their 80s, the sisters were delighted to regale Lodge members with tales of their happy upbringing in the village.
In all, nine people were accommodated in the small three-bedroom ground floor flat at the Orange Hall – John and his wife Evelyn along with daughters Eileen, Dorothy, Pearl, Ivy, Phylis and June and son Chester, who sadly passed away in 2009.
They all took turns fetching water from a pump up Main Street, and the sisters vividly remember the backyard and outside toilet. Bath night on Friday evening meant the appearance of the tin bath and more water needing to be drawn from the pump. Their father, along with Lodge members, were instrumental in getting mains water installed.
Lodge night saw them bringing buckets of coal upstairs for the open fire, so the room could be heated for the meeting.
The rent charged for the accommodation was £1.10d per month in old money. Their father grew vegetables in the back garden, but space was kept for the hens at the top of the garden. The clocking hen sat on her eggs, under the stairs, waiting to hatch and it was the three older siblings’ job to check on her regularly to check she was laying.
They remember going up the hill to Ballymullan school and headmaster Mr Stevenson, who persuaded Eileen to help out with his adopted daughter for 10 shillings a week. This employment lasted for some time until John found out that she not only looked after the child, but beat the mats and cleaned the house. John told her to tell Mr Stevenson that she was stopping work and that 10 shillings didn’t rear her. He was annoyed, though, when she did so, telling Mr Stevenson exactly who she was quoting.
The afternoon was an opportunity for the ladies to re-live the pranks they played on their neighbours almost eight decades ago. These included tying string to door knockers, before hiding across the road and pulling hard in order to knock and bring the neighbours to the door.
What was known as the Country Club until a few years ago was the ‘Chalet’ in the 1930s and 1940s. They would hide in the dark and make shuffling noises to scare the patrons, in their finery, making their way up to dance.
A highlight each year was the sandwich preparation on July 11 in the upper hall, then getting the leftovers when the men had been fed on their return from the Twelfth walk. They also remember a pipe band from Portadown leading the Lodge on parade.
John not only served as caretaker, but was also a member of the Lodge and indeed its Worshipful Master in the years 1943 and 1944.
He found work in Belfast and, at short notice in 1949, moved the family to Mount Merrion, although he still kept up his membership with Crawfordsburn Temperance Chosen Few LOL 1091 for many years after, as his son Mervyn – the only member of the family not born in Crawfordsburn – recalls. He remembers coming down with his father to the Lodge.
In fact the notice was so short that Eileen, who was at the time employed in Patterson Butchery in Bangor, had to stay with a cousin whilst she worked her week’s notice.
They missed Crawfordsburn and remember how they cried when they looked out over Mount Merrion from their new residence.
The Bryson family clearly have fond members of Crawfordsburn and the Orange Hall. No wonder they finished their visit with a rattle of the drum and singing ‘The Sash’.
