Has something happened to George Galloway? I remember listening to him talk in Mandela Hall at Queen’s University, shortly after the invasion of Iraq: he was stunning. In front of a huge audience he spoke for nearly two hours without notes and I don’t think there was a person who wasn’t mesmerised by the passion and clarity of his delivery. And there can be few who haven’t seen that video clip where he faces a prestigious US Senate Committee who have summoned him, and he demolishes them. Totally, completely, single-handedly demolishes them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more effective political speech.
But a couple of nights ago he was on the BBC’s Big Big Debate, where with others he faced a vast audience of 7,500 young people along with a number of other politicians. He got some applause for some of the points he made, but it was as nothing compared to his performance in the past.
He was wearing that ridiculous hat, worn at an even more ridiculous angle.He argued against the ‘divorce’ of England and Scotland by citing the fact that he’d had two divorces and they were messy affairs. He looked tired and was unable to bat away a charge by an opponent that in the past he’d talked about a distinction between rape and ‘bad sexual etiquette’. Galloway presents himself as a committed socialist, yet here he was with a Tory for a debating partner and citing a comment about North Sea oil from a vastly wealthy oil authority. He also found himself declaring that the Labour Party, which he has denounced roundly on many occasions, would win the next General Election in Britain and the welfare cuts of the Tories would end.
I may be missing something but this seems to fit into a pattern of behaviour. I saw him at Conway Mill, where he promised the Ballymurphy families that he would see to it, through his 250,000 followers on Twitter, that their story would soon be known to the world . “And you can hold me to that!” he concluded. I use Twitter virtually every day, yet I haven’t seen a single statement from Galloway about the Ballymurphy families. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t made them but if I, who am looking for them, see none, what odds that people who are not looking for them will come upon them?
Most baffling of all is that this man, who I understand is in favour of a united and independent Ireland, is doing all he can to prevent the independence of his own country. At times on the stage in the Big Big Debate he looked old, even a little forlorn. It was a bit like looking at Muhammed Ali as he is today and comparing him with the sharp-tongued, sure-footed champion of the 1960s.
Unlike Ian Paisley, George Galloway is still with us. But something inside him appears to have died.
Perhaps, like the late IP, he has had his Damascus moment?
He’s an ageing man who’s just had the tar knocked out of him by a maniac. Perhaps he might be forgiven looking tired and a bit past it. He’s an old Labour man at heart which, unfortunately, makes him a unionist on the Scottish issue. Wrong in my opinion but he always fights his own corner rather than jump on an issue for popularity sake. Oddly enough, this leads to him being called an opportunist. We’ll miss him when he’s gone
I have had the great pleasure and for me it was an honour of going to Gaza on a convoy with George Galloway in September/ October 2010 on the Viva Palestina 5 Medical Aid Convoy and found him to be very honest easy going erudite and passionate against injustice ,very much a man of the people.,Ive heard him speak many times since and i canvassed on his behalf during his successful election campaign in Bradford and will do so again.I attended his talk in the Ulster Hall recently were he was at his inspirational best,.George is a fantastic orator and can hold the audience in the palm of his hand. HIs strength is in his sincerity in what he believes ,his social conscience ,socialist politics and moral compass.When he speaks people usually sit up and listen..I too heard him speak in Conway Mill and on the Big Big Debate which failed on so many levels to educate inspire inform or motivate.The format did not suit Mr Galloway and I feel he misjudged his audience.Perhaps going for sound bite politics in order to get his point across was wrong.I was utterly surprised n whehe seemed to echo a conservative who talked about the great professional british army when he spoke of defeating fascism as a single nation.While he is correct it didnt go down well. Always at his best in full flow uninterrupted and talking to the converted who are in the main the people who go and hear george speak.I for one am a great admirer of Mr Galloway who i hold in very high esteem.A poor performance from a a man who is out on the hustings every night battling to maintain the Union.My great sadness is either way the people of Scotland will see no real tangible benefit to any new found freedom just more failed education health and economic woes for the poor and vulnerable and more largess and greed for the new rich.Now if they were voting for a norwegian or danish style of government where by the needs of the people appear to be put before the banks investors and the IMF then id be exicted!
Hi Jude ,
Maybe he’s had enough turmoil recently and is keeping hid head down a bit. He got a right physical thumping a few weeks ago which left him battered and bruised. Maybe he’s having a “fallow” period and , as you would no doubt say is “cooling his jets”.
I didn’t watch the entire Big Big Debate the other night . I just said to myself…time for bed .they’ll talk all night here and we only have to wait until next Thursday and it’ll all be straw in te wind anyway.I do enjoy his debating skills when he’s on form, agreed. He has every right to his opinion on Scotland , of course just like the rest of the Scots. The rest of us are only outsiders in this debate, which makes me wonder what the hell the Orange Order are thinking of by sticking their noses in. They’ve created enough nonsensible chaos in Ireland without creating more mayhem for the “No” brigade .If anything , their presence will do the “Yes” campaign a power of good. Go figure!
About the hat….well it’s a nice enough hat .In the present age of horseless carriages ,and low roofs there’s no a lot of them used . I do like a hat worn well, mind . My grandfather on my father’s side was a great man for a hat back in the day. My other grandad was a flat cap man. A proper fedora type of hat like Leonard Cohen might wear, was the fashion back then.
It looks well if the man has a good sense of style. That Bogart bravado. It takes a certain bravery in our more parochial towns to pull it off with elan, these days and you probably have to work hard to even find a good one to buy.One of my daughters is a great one for hats.I picked her up at the airport last year and she was sporting a neat little ribbon-bedecked bowler that she’d picked up in a charity shop. Very droll, I thought…I do like a nice straw panama hat in the summer myself. Mostly only in the garden though… One thing though , slouch it as decorously as you like , but you’ve always got to remove the bugger when indoors. Someone should tell Georgie boy that it’s only good manners.
Paddy
A hat is a bit of an affectation really, unless it is the straw hat in summer.
Like tattoos they suggest to me someone trying to appear interesting
“Look at me, I’m a character”
As for GG, as others have said he may still be recovering from his recent trauma. He may even be on medication following it, so perhaps he gets the benefit of the doubt.
His performance in Bradford is not good though as typified by the resignation of all 5 Respect councillors last year.
Ah c’mon Gio ..let’s not get ripped into a bit of style …that way lies madness and mundanity. We’d all be running around in loincloths if not for a bit of bravado…. It all depends on the wearer surely and how best the clothes suit. Maybe we’re all saying “look at me , I’m interesting “..all the time…every time we get a haircut or grow a beard or stick on a classy pair of boots. or go to the hairdressers or pick a shirt that doesn’t make us look like a sailboat….what do you think?
paddy
I’m with Diogenes of Sinope on this.
I roam the streets in a burlap sack.I would live in a jar if I could.
Though I would draw the line at public onanism!
That’s a relief, gio…
Burlap ..eh …now where would a fella get some burlap these days ? It might be the latest thing…make it into a three button suit…..
paddy
Parsons & Parsons always provided the best bespoke burlap suits “for the gentleman cynic about town”
Sadly never the same after Parsons fell out with Platt and Polly. He always did have a choleraic disposition did Parsons.
Do you think they could still knock out a burlap stetson …or is that pushing it a bit?
There is another contrast as well, USA, Europe and even Cameron is very keen on the Independence of the Ukraine rom its big neighbour, Russia. No talk of Banking collapse, because the west will do whatever they can to piss off ‘Ivan’. What a pity they can’t offer the same support to Scotland.
Paddycool you can find your preferred colour at burlapstore.com (sorry I couldn’t let your question go unanswered. )
Problem solved then, Virginia .We’ll have to order some up for michael c and get it made into a groovy monkee hat….!!!
Would the vicious beating he received in the last few weeks have anything to do with it?
I doubt your tongue would be as sharp after that experience
Maybe George is still feeling the effects of the battering he took from a moronic thug the other day? I enjoy listening to him, his debates with the late Christopher Hitchens were amazing. I too was surprised by his outspoken opposition to the independence of his country, he has said it is because Scotland would revert back to being the bigoted little anti Catholic place it was for centuries. However he is making the same argument as the Orange apologist Ruth Dudley Edwards and that can`t be right.
Perhaps we can persuade him to make a speech, like Clarence Darrow, in his own defence?
The moment would seem opportune if we wish to influence the Scottish referendum in the way he states.
And just as opportune during the post-referendum autopsy.
Isn’t it terrible when your heroes turn out to have “feet of clay”?Despite his undoubted rhetorical brilliance in the past,is there not a bit of the charlatan in him which tends to pander to whatever audience he’s addressing.His apparent temporary interest in the Ballymurphy families and their campaign seems to bear this out.
Disappointing, A, but not terrible. I realised a long time ago that humanity is an imperfect product.
The last shall be first: ‘Unlike Ian Paisley, George Galloway is still with us. But something inside him appears to have died’.
George went ….Whataway?
Perhaps, Esteemed Blogmeister, the clue lies within the word itself: ‘ Galloway’. Which in the Leprechaun, at least that version which is stilt spoken by the kilt-wearing wee folk, means ‘Foreign Gael’ or ‘Gall Ghael’.
May be, the inherent contradiction has eventually proved too burdensome to bear?
In ‘The 39 Steps’ the great Hitchcock fillum of the John Buchan novel, the fugitive Richard Hannay, after bribing a milkman to loan him his uniform, boards the express train in St. Pancras Station and breaks for the Border.
Galloway is his destination of choice, having considered it nice and remote. Whatever about being nice it would be sad if old George G were to be cast out into the Great Remote with nothing but a tattered milkman’s uniform on his back. Even the m. of human kindness has a tendency to curdle, once it has passed its s.b. date.
And then there is the very number in the title of that fillum/novel: 39. Always something suggestive of the incomplete about it, unlike, say, 40 Shades of Green. Perhaps it is time for old George G to declare 40 as the new 39? One more step is all it will take, Georgie P.
And as for the Reverend: ‘Unlike Ian Paisley, George Galloway is still with us’.
Ah, and here’s the rub, was the R.I.P. ever really with us? P. Warbeck can but speak for himself and in his own (admittedly, vastly limited) experience only ever drew a blank. Even, if ‘ever’ equals ‘twice’ in this instance.
By way of background: the daunting North Face of Mount Paisley always held a certain allure for the inner Chris Bonnington in PW. Hence his first attempt to ascend that intimidating challenge, that compound of Alpine rock, crevice, gully, crag, the perpendicular,ice and edelweiss.
It was Easter 1966. The official pageant to celebrate the heroes (subsequently rebranded as ‘terroes’) ‘Seacht La/Seachtar Fear’ which is Leprechaun for ‘Seven Days/ Seven Men’ had just played to packed houses and local residents (with hatches battened down) in Croke Park and was now in Willie Nelson if not Horatio Nelson mode. It was on the road again.
This time we were Belfast bound in general, and Casement Park in particular. One say’s ‘we’ for a callow Perkie the Thespian was in the role of third prole from the back in the Citizen Army of Wee Jimmy Connolly, late of Cowgate, Auld Reekie.
Hailing as he did from a family of notable pretenders, the callow Perkie was more than happy to accept the challenge of a different role in the Laganside Ground: that of fifth Franciscan from the front. Whether that represented a promotion or not is best left to others than PW to adjudicate.
One was struck by the Red Hond which fluttered in the nightime breeze behind the wee Ardoyne Fife and Drum Bond as they marched around the ground. Red Hond being synonymous with the Whistleblower after whom the Ground had been named: Roger C. (See under A for Atrocities, and B under Belgian Congo).
And as the line of solemn Franciscans shuffled with cowled and bowed heads with steepled hands piously joined, a wee mon, possibly called Molochi, who was operating one of the floodlights on a makeshift rickety platform roared down with a local take on a stage whisper:’Hows about ye down below: have ye the right time’.
And with that a dozen sixth century brown sleeves moved in unison – possibly out of habit – to reveal the ‘right’ time from a variety of cheap and cheaper watches from the twentieth century.
The only thing which marred an otherwise entertaining evening of floodlights, pageantry and Fenian bloodymindedness (see H for Hond, above) was the non-appearance after a much-touted multi-decibel protest megaphoned appearance outside the grounds by the Reverend Ian P. While one’s inner-Chris Bonnington was disappointed in a vinegary way it must be chronicled that he was doubly determined to have another go.
That daunting North Face of Mount Paisley which was NOT there (the promise of its very Thereness being the paramount reason for that first reconnaissance trip) would not be lost in a cloud of Evangelical Rhetoric or not, the next time. Perkie was not one to succumb a second time to attitude sickness.
Which was the fragile week between Christmas Day and New Y’s D of that same year, 1966.
With harness, helmet and hope PW this time led a much slimmed down Expeditionary Force, consisting, not of ‘Seven Men/ Seachtar La’ but of his trusty Sherpa. Known to a wider public (one almost wrote, pubic) as Simnel, but to a more intimate circle as ‘Lambert’, Perky trusted him implicitly.
It was the Sherpa Simnel, for instance, who had ascertained that Mount Paisley was located on the Beersbridge Road at the time.
-Whatdoye want to know thon for? Wan’a plont a wee bomb under The Big Mon?
It was Mrs. Eileen Paisley who answered the door. She was charm itself and apologised for the absence of her husband. But she assured PW that he would, indeed, be more than happy to be interviewed in the morning on one’s return. PW was the roving reporter, it must be said, of his student magazine at the time, in a Liffeyside college not unknown to Esteemed Blogmeister at the same time, indeed.
The name of that magazine may well have been called, not inappropriately, ‘The Social Climber’.
Alas, the next morning saw the drawing of yet another straw remarkable only for its brevity. The Not Thereness – the most horrific words in a mountaineer’s lexicon – of Mount Paisley was beginning to develop into epidemic proportions.
In the driveway of the suburban house in the sedate Beersbridge Road stood a clunky tour bus, a study in Evangelical blue. The front door was opened by a clunky tour bus driver, stern of visage, and navy blue of uniform.
-The Doctor is not at home.
Before the door was abruptly shut, the accent being divided by the ‘not’ and the ‘slam’, one’s inner Chris Bonnington had just time to glimpse the framed picture in the hallway just above the hefty left shoulder of the dour door slammer: ‘A panoramic view of the Ulster Volunteers, 1911.’. Or it might have been, 1912, such was the speed of the slam.
What to do?
While a downcast Perkie was at a loss, his loyal and trusty Sherpa – Simnel/Lambert – was not. If ever a Sherpa had a one-track mind it was this Sherpa. Directing his disappointed boss (that’s a debatable point) to the flower bed to the right hond side of the door and out of view of the eyes of whatever occupants now manned the wee house, a notable event in the history of Ulster horticulture took place, and which the Royal Botanic Gardens in Belfast are as yet unaware.
A fabulous flower bed of winter crocuses, snowdrops and – not forgetting the irises ! – tended by loving Presbyterian hands were subject to an unexpected Papist blessing.
-Urination once again.
If only the Gallowglass Ceili Band had a tune to that.
But, of course: the proprieties must be preserved at all times. It is the Warbeckian way.
So, best leave it to the Pope to have the last word:
-To, err, is human, to, erm, divine.
Pope, Alexander.
Alas,
Brilliant again, Perkie! A big hond all round!
Jude, I think we’ve reached the point whereby some visit here as much for Perkin’s musings as your views on current affairs… much thanks to you both kind Sirs 🙂
I used to admire Galloway when he appeared to champion the causes of the oppressed etc but his determination to effect the independence outcome has perplexed me? Maybe he is being cute and is undermining the better together campaign by backing it(I doubt it) or he is just an opportunist? He is fast becoming the David Icke of politics ie although he may issue statements of fact he undermines them(deliberately?) by sprinkling bullshit over them. And thus discrediting everything.
Surely the opportunity for George to put the boot into his opponents in Westminster is to start shouting from the rooftops about the child abuse cover ups his opponents are involved in? I have never heard him utter a word about any of the numerous abuse scandals the political elites were/are involved in. On the contrary he joins up with them to fight against independence. Two cheeks of the same ass?????; )
Paddy ,you have confirmed my worst suspicions by admitting to wearing a panama hat. I have alluded in the past to you having a somewhat middle class view of the world and you have now literally “put the hat on it”!
I thought you told us last week that”class”was some nebulous state of mind, michael …Tell me where a hat of any make , design or description comes into that .Tell me where a pair of shoes comes into that for that matter.Michael , you really have some very weird ideas about style …My daughter studied fashion design , so if she wants to wear a bowler and I want to stick on a Panama when the sun shines…what class are we in ..?. Maybe we should all wear knotted hankies like Monty Pythons Gumbys and all clog dance to make ourselves all self-consciously “classless”.
So are you first class or second class, michael …and how will we be able to tell? You reckon that class depends on the clothes you are wearing…is that it? Glad to see you’re paying attention , mind.
When Galloway cringingly ‘lapped up’ the imaginary ‘cream’ from Rula Lenski’s hands on the gutter TV ‘Big brother’ show, he set the metaphor for what the rest of his ‘opportunist’ life would morph into, – the proverbial lackey of the establishment, given range to be controversial,- nevertheless harnessed as ‘controlled opposition’. And if that were that, then so be it ! They’re ‘two a penny’.- But no. George the jester has managed to extend the credibility of his masters by becoming the disgusting ‘turd in the punchbowl’ that undermines all of the honest campaigns that truthseekers and the oppressed had hoped he would champion.
And whilst George sits mocking our stupidity doing his ‘silly hat’ routine espousing claptrap, the serious issues get lost in the manufactured fog of ‘baffoonery’ and the criminals who are in charge of us, peddle their ‘horseshit and lies’ in their controlled media bubble.
And to think He once had the ‘chutspah’ to describe the equally repugnant Christopher Hitchens, as the only creature he’d ever known to metamorphize from a ‘beautiful butterfly into a slug’
‘Kettles and pots’ spring to mind.
I also wonder ……Is it something to do with being ‘Irish catholic’ – that I’ve seen the last day or so, the enormity of ‘ageing grovellers’ (and I’m no spring chicken) who need to ingratiate themselves with their ‘masters’ and finally become ‘house-niggers’?
Tradition has it that a barefoot Norseman, part of an invading force cried out in pain when he stepped on a Scottish thistle and alerted the Scots about the presence of Norse invaders. A Scot with a rickshaw had his own prickly message for the “imperial masters” when they descended on Glasgow during the week. George has often been regarded as a thorn in the flesh of the body politic. Patrick Kavanagh once remarked that the absence of thorns is one of the signs of decay in a bush. Consider what the financial guru’s contributed to in this part of the world. In 2000 Ireland was one of the richer countries in the world with a poverty rate below 6%. Today, foreign investment bankers, investment consultants and anonymous bureaucrats dictate how the Irish people will repay millions in euro debts. The Scots will have their chance soon, if they so choose, to tell George et al that they are talking through their hats.
Paddy,you certainly took the bait there! Thing is I can say without contradiction that apart from TV ,I never saw a panama hat in my life! The flat cap and “monkey hat” would be the uniform round these parts!
That’s a “duncher” and a “Monkee” hat ,there michael……named after one {namesake} Michael Nesmith of said band “the Monkees who were both a popular Beatle- copying television series and also a very popular rock band in the 1960’s .
. Michael’s little woolen hat became a fashion style and mothers throughout the land knitted Monkee hats and bought them for their baying offspring.They sold like hotcakes from that time on… I had one myself as a teenager … i’m not sure what class Michael Nesmith saw himself as but he was a classy songwriter and musician…a very droll and satirical guy….. and went on to promote the whole idea of the music video.
You’ll also be pleased to know that his mother invented “Liquid Paper” which in pre- computer days was a very popular correction fluid for typists. it made her a fortune. Michael …after Monkees fame became a record and film producer. He produced the cult film “Repo Man”…look it up ..it’s very good .. and has also written a few books .He’s also a bit of a philanthropist.I don’t know what “class”….Michael would say he is . He’s lost all that rockstar hair now so i’d imagine he’d be glad of any kind of hat if he took a dander around your parts….Just thought you’d like to know that , michael.
What about Danny Morrisons hat?!!
I like its shape but not its texture…
Hi Guys,
Have just read all the blogs, so here is my tuppence worth. I went to the Ulster Hall to hear GG, I firstly was amazed at his little skinny legs, I was not impressed by him at all, Fra Hughes is easily pleased.
He opened up with Paster Peter, and his shariararara law, I was not impressed with his lack of respect for an old man!
By the way as each week has went by, I think the Pastor was spot on.
Was I glad he got a good dig in the mouth, absolutely cock-a-hoop, he was probably talking when he should have been listening!
He later put on FB a picture of himself with his wife and son. I posted was that your daughter and grandchild, silly old git, we are exactly the same age, she looks to be a Muslim women, best suited to his type, since they have no rights and are treated so badly.
He keeps denying he has not converted to Islam, and he told a few white lies at his show as well.
Lastly to all of you’s I am 100% sure Scotland will not break the union, and I will take great delight in telling you’s all again on Friday, hope this has not made AG blush too much.
Norma.
He wears that hat to hide his baldy napper, he is having a mid life crisis with that young wife.
Norma
I have to agree with you when you suggest that ‘there’s no fool like an old fool’ and given your approval of ‘The Pastor’, I guess that makes three of you !
I have to admit I feel no sympathy for Galloway whatsoever, but I’m quite amused to hear the criticism directed at him. Because he is a loose cannon, he always will have a tendency to step out of line, and go off script. Controversial is his prose, and he will continue to do so.
‘Sir, I salute your courage, your strength and your indefatigability’, was his statement in support of Saddam Hussein, and this was Galloway who most on this site supported. Now, because he doesn’t toe the party line, the narrow republican ideology espoused by nearly all on this site, he is lambasted.
Ah now William, you know rightly Galloway wasn’t the only one to praise the boul saddam. Your friends in Whitehall were fond of him at one time too. As a matter of fact they advised,armed and directed him now and again as well………just like they did to some citizens in the north. So in a fact he and Whitehall were two cheeks of the same ass so to speak.
As for him not ‘toeing the line’ etc, well republicans will always welcome sensible contributions from whoever concerning the unification of the island. That doesn’t mean we are automatic fans of such people.
The beauty of the Scottish independence entire campaign is that it has opened the eyes for a lot of people here on the true feelings of certain people in the political and celebrity world. It should also pose a question for unionists here in the north ie would the British establishment,media etc be as vocal in a better together campaign if it concerned the north?????
Norma,
I was very sad and troubled to read your blog.
Anyone who thinks that another human being should be brutally assaulted in broad daylight for holding a differing political opinion is no different to those who supported Hitler and other radical despots!
I sincerely hope you didn’t take delight as you say in hearing the news that this man was savagely assaulted in the street while posing for a photograph.
Your comment that “he was talking when he should have been listening” is the language of the bully. The fact that you use such terminology would indicate that you were either bullied as a youngster or engaged in bullying behaviour yourself.
It could also be that you would rate higher on the asbergers spectrum which would leave you with a limited capacity to feel empathy for others although it is not usual that such people can sustain stable marital relationships.
No matter what the cause I think you have unresolved issues to deal with and there is help out there if you know where to go!
William, it is disappointing that you view republicanism with such distaste. A republic is, after all merely a form of government wherein power resides in the people, rather than power being inherited or appointed. Hardly an ignoble political belief system.
Pointus
I am mortally wounded, no I don’t have Asbergers, no I don’t have any empathy for GG. Last but not least I have a very strong marriage.
Why would you presume that I was bullied, or bullied any one.
GG entered the UH with all his body guards, and hench men, why? I hold firm in what I said, it was long over due, he is offensive, ignorant, and a hate monger.
I have sailed through life, mrs average, never in trouble in my life, oh yes and could even knit a monkee hat on four needles back in the sixties.
The saying “talking when he should have been listening” is very fond memories from my Father!
Norma.
Norma,
I don’t agree with everything George Galloway says, nor do I agree with everything David Cameron says or what members of my own family say and that is healthy and fosters diversity and debate.
George Galloway hasn’t broken the law of the land as far as anyone here knows. It is widely accepted that the man who inflicted the serious assault upon him is a violent thug and will probably be conviced of ABH and pay a penalty for his crime.
I personally believe that you are not a bad person and just make unacceptable remarks (which are not too far away from incitement to hatred) to see if you can elicit a response.
There is an old saying “walk a mile in another man’s shoes” and maybe if we all lived by those words we would be a lot slower at advocating violence towards another.
The fact that so many of Mr Galloways parliamentary colleagues failed to condem this assault on him shows that politics in London still stinks of rank hyprocracy!
No “dunchers” here Paddy,thats Sam McCaughtry (or Sam McCliche ) crack youre going over!
Michael ….me daddy used to call them “dunchers” too . He wore them all his life….sometimes indoors too..He was incorrigible…I still have my uncle Paddy’s too , but it won’t fit my big head!
Apparently the term “duncher” originated in Harland and Wolfe .Wee Sammy would don his “duncher” and then proceed to “the yard” where he would give wee Seamy swimming lessons while Billy and Norman encouraged Seamy on his way with handfuls of “shipyard confetti”
They were also very popular on the building sites where me dad worked , from the time he was fourteen sometime in 1933, michael. Most men wore flat duncher caps or trilbys and homburg type hats for best…then of course there was the old bowler from the turn of the century that was colonised by our Orange brethren who , as a group , made it impossible for anyone else , other than themselves to ever want to wear one!! My father’s father was a great on efor homburgs and wide -brimmed straw hats but my mother’s dad liked the practical flat duncher.You could roll it up and stick it in your pocket when out digging up the spuds..
The older generation all wore them round here but they were just known as “caps ” never “dunchers” They had multiple uses including fly swatters,a grip for a starting handle,an improvised glove when loosening a hot radiator cap and a receptical for collecting eggs.They were always placed on the knee when eating and if a man had a “notion” of a neighbouring woman he would have “set his cap” for her. My late father told me of a neighbour who literally threw his cap in the doorway of a neighbouring woman and shouted “can that be there” !