Irish Author and Journalist - Danny Morrison

It Was A Very Good Year

For me the best night of the year is New Year’s Eve when we say goodbye to the old and ring in the new. Not that we can actually draw a line through the past, all those indiscretions and boobs, or can retrieve those words which were knife wounds. But we can metaphysically consign those embarrassing episodes to a folder called Bad Memories 2002 - though, actually, upon reflection some of them weren’t that bad and might need shifted to Magic Moments 2002.

Yes, there were bad times and good times and in-between-times in 2002.

Although it wasn’t funny at the time when the engine of our jeep, containing all our tents and belongings, exploded in a pall of smoke on the M6 just outside of Birmingham last June on the eve of the Glastonbury Festival, thinking about it now brings a wry smile to my lips. There we were, five hairless hippies, zooming along on our way to Stonehenge, man, when I, who had taken my turn at driving, noticed the temperature gauge soaring. My brother Ciaran told me to pull up. When the engine cooled a bit he discovered that there was very little water in the radiator, despite it having been serviced before we left Belfast by a man who called himself a mechanic, and who is still on the run.

Not being cissies we weren’t carrying any water but my brother-in-law, John, said that someone he knew had in an emergency put beer in the radiator. So, after much argument, they broke open the dump and put eleven tins of my Carlsberg into the engine. The poor jeep could hardly stand never mind trot. Anyway, Ciaran decided to drive and after a few miles and a few bars of ‘San Francisco’ the cable to the accelerator, which had probably been melting since Liverpool, snapped and the engine revved uncontrollably. It began roaring and started burning oil. A mushroom cloud of black smoke erupted and we all leaped from the jeep and scattered, waiting for it to explode and a fire break out.

There are some words that you can only fully comprehend and appreciate when their definition is demonstrated before your very eyes and apoplectic is one of them. Ciaran was apoplectic. He had turned into the engine. Steam was coming out his ears. His nostrils flared like clams on speed. It took all four of us to calm him down and assure him he hadn’t ruined our holiday (which we had been planning for ten years) and it wasn’t his fault (for buying a crap jeep and getting it serviced by a window cleaner). Yes, the cylinder head had blown.

As it turned out, we telephoned our niece and a friend who were in a car some eighty miles ahead of us. They turned back, we ditched the jeep and with one car we managed to shuttle everybody plus baggage to Glastonbury and pitched the tents at around four in the morning. What can I say about the next few days? They were extra-terrestrial. Everybody was on the no-wash. Everybody was happy. As far as I was concerned the best act was - believe it or not - Rolf Harris who sang ‘Waltzing Matilda’, ‘Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport’, ‘Sunrise’ and ‘Two Little Boys’. His ‘Stairway To Heaven’ lasted about twenty minutes.

I stumbled into a New Age tepee for therapy. I was the only man among a dozen women. I had to take off my boots because the signals can’t get through if you’re wearing rubber or leather. We were told to put our hands on the temple of the person sitting next to us. This I did. We were told to close our eyes. This I did. We were told to concentrate and the thoughts of the other person would transmit to us. This I didn’t. I gave a bum name and address. When it was my turn to speak I said the first thing that came into my head.

“What did you detect, Ciaran?” I was asked by the witch.

“I feel that Rebecca is troubled by something from her past… her school days, perhaps…and that she is still searching for… for…”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking!” enthused Rebecca.

The next part isn’t a lie. I told the witch that I needed to go to the bathroom. The next part is. I told her I would be back. When I got outside the tepee my gang, who had been hiding behind the flaps listening, was in stitches and I was quite miffed that they weren’t taking seriously these powers of mine that Glastonbury had brought out and that I never knew I had.

Looking back, 2002 was a great year. I can’t understand all the brouhaha. What are a few documents or files but a test of a friendship. Years ago their capture would have been brilliant IRA operations! Over the summer we had lots of rain that kept the fishes happy. Every time Edwina Currie said goodbye she sang: “There’s no love song finer, but how strange the change from John Major to minor.” We got rid of the hated Assembly. We married off Daniel O’Donnell at last.

And I had two more grandchildren, Claire in May and Lorcan in November, who will be visited by Santa Claus on the 25th December!

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