Muhammed Ali and I were not exact contemporaries. I was 20 days his senior. He only got into boxing at the age of 12 whereas I was involved somewhat earlier. With Ali, at 12, it started when his bike was nicked and a policeman suggested that the noble art of self-defence might lessen the chances of it happening again or anyone treading on the tail of his coat. At 10 I had a secondhand bike. My elder brother had been promised one if he got Honours in his Inter Cert and my elder sister also. They were six years and five years older than me and as I had little prospect of earning a bike that way I scrimped and saved for two years until I had £3.00, enough to get me an ancient model. It was my pride and joy. In those days and for many years after most bikes parked even in Central Dublin were not locked, and none at all in the Howth Peninsula from the Summit to Sutton Cross. To freewheel from the Summit where we lived at nearly 500 feet to sea-level barely a mile away would be as much fun as an adult might enjoy with their clothes on, but as the poet said about a singular rather than multiple revolutions, for a youngster it was an intimation of Heaven.
I think the fear of Purgatory rather than the prospect of Heaven drove me to frequent Confession, until I could free-wheel there on hard-won steed, as proud as any Caballero in the Land of Don Quixote. Coming out of the Church I found that my bike wasn’t there. My property was gone and my machismo outraged. Unhorsed and unmanned and my whole life blighted, I swore I would have my revenge. I know now that in the eyes of the law the offence was merely a TRA – taking and riding away, or “Joyriding” and not larceny or grand theft, for the joyrider brought the bike back, undamaged, about five minutes after I’d discovered its disappearance.
I was not quite a muscular Christian, though a member of the Church Militant. So I boxed the miscreant about the street for a bout or two and then shook hands with him.That was the general way of settling boys’ disagreements. Once honour was satisfied no grievance survived. Adults and Gardai had no part in such things in those enlightened and halcyon days.
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