Author - Bernard Burbridge-Gale. Books spring up out of many unexpected nooks and crannies these days and none more so than this volume of reminiscences of Bernard Burbridge Gale entitled “Fermanagh Remembered.” Bernard, now aged a very sprightly and alert 86 and living in Oxfordshire, grew up around Kesh and Ederney, attended Kesh Primary School among others in the locality and worked with local farmers and had a spell in Scotland before joining up for World War 11. In Germany after the war he met his future wife Emmy and on being demobbed he came back to England where he became a successful poultry farmer. On retiring he took an increased interest in his family history and developed this into a 232 page book of which a large part is of Fermanagh in the 1920s and 1930s. This book is a powerful reminder of the endemic poverty of those decades which Bernard's family shared when long hours and backbreaking work brought meagre rewards. Most of us live in a very pampered, cosseted, society today when we read of the realities of life in those days. But this book is anything but gloom and doom. All through this book runs a thread of realism, a simple philosophy of getting on with life and taking difficulties in one's stride and illuminating it is a love of Fermanagh, its bountiful and beautiful Lower Lough Erne and the kindly and caring people he grew up among. Bernard's father, James, came to the newly created Northern Ireland , ex-WW1 soldier intent on joining the newly created RUC only to find that being on the wrong side of 40 years his services were not required. With his wife Florence and two boys, Victor and Bernard he came to Fermanagh in 1926/7 to work on the new bridges which were to link Boa Island to the mainland. He leased a cottage at Rosscor near Belleek and then moved to Lusty More Island where his father took him to Drumnaginaghan School on Boa Island by boat and bar of the bicycle. He had a spell in Clonelly School as the family moved again and eventually in Kesh School when the family moved to Gubbaroo Point. By now his father worked on the Council at the princely wage of £3 per week. Gubbaroo Point was a 50 acre, isolated, outlying farm of the Castle Archdale Estate on the shores of Lough Erne and largely overgrown with trees and scrub. It was a lonely place especially for Bernard's mother who spent long hours on her own when her husband went off to work and her boys to school.

 

The job was that of a caretaker with little to do but the main attractions were, a free house, free timber firing, a free in-milk cow and the annual gift of a joint of beef from Castle Archdale to their tenants. Despite the isolation, this section of Bernard's life reads like a chapter from “Tom Sawyer.” Snaring rabbits, fishing in the bountiful and unpolluted Erne and caring for their stock of a goat, a cow, a pig and a donkey plus all the berries and hazel nuts that they could eat. The latter item of stock was bought for £1-10-0 in Irvinestown fair after a walking round trip of fourteen miles. The kindly neighbours and others are remembered like Joe Belford who brought a horse cart load of scallops to be sold in Irvinestown fair and then would not accept any payment. There is Charlie Muldoon the postman, Miss Gray of Ederney the Kesh P.S. Headmistress who cycled four miles to her school each morning, Mr. Askwith of Advarney house near Ederney who gave Bernard his first job at £14 a year plus a cast of many many more who are all recalled in these pages. But above all Bernard has chronicled his devoted mother and father who without complaint accepted their lot and who gave unstintedly of their love and what they had to their two boys. The one big regret of Bernard's life was the decision to allow his son Roy a critical heart operation which was unsuccessful. He writes with great pain on this period of his life. Overall the book is an excellent read and of particular Fermanagh interest recalling as it does the hard life of the 1920s and 1930s. It brings to life again the people of that era in Fermanagh and many will see their friends, neighbours and ancestors in these pages. The book is available from Commons, Belleek, County Fermanagh Phone 02868658327 at a cost of £11 plus £4 P&P. or from Kesh Co., Primary School, Kesh, Co., Fermanagh 0044(0)2868631441

John B. Cunningham 9-4-2004