“Sexual intercourse began in nineteen sixty three
(Which was rather late]for me)
Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban
And the Beatles’ first LP”
– Philip Larkin
“There was no sex in Ireland before RTE”
– Oliver Flanagan TD
The poet was speaking of England about the time the Cute Hoor from Laois/Offaly
(or King’s and Queen’s Counties?) was speaking of Ireland.
But I reckon that Ireland, groaning under the tyranny of Sean Lemass and John
Charles McQuaid, (if we are to believeTHE IRISH TIMES) was less buttoned up
than Britain at the time.
I’ve been reading AN ENGLISH AFFAIR -Sex,
Class and Power in the Age of Profumo by Richard Davenport-Hines” and
in an Overture to the book the author writes-
“In May of 1963, when I was nine, Miss Vera Groom, the old spinster who
taught me English, asked her class to name a noun beginning with a vowel. There
was a new word I was proud of knowing. I had discovered it from the cook’s DAILY
EXPRESS .
I raised my hand, and in response to a nod from her cred out ‘Orgy!’.
Miss Groom trembled;she gripped the edge of her desk; her face flushed with
blood; her skin turned puce. ‘You are a foul boy,’ she said , and sent me to be caned
by the Headmaster.
A few days later Mr Wilcox addressed the school. It was the year Dr.No
sold 437,000 copies in paperback. Warner Wilcox was then in his early forties,
but seemed old to me. Like many headmasters of his time he was both overbearing
and anxious
Dark-browed, stern, conscientious, he had a jolly wife who could not soothe his
pent-up tension. When he rebuked the school, he would spring up and down on his
heels, as if he was going to bound forward into the boys and start cuffing
them.
‘It has come to my attention,’ he said in a storm of knee-jerks, ‘that boys are
bringing James Bond novels into school. I will not have them on the
premises. They are sad-is-tic novels’ – he pronounced each syllable of sadistic
lingeringly before ending his speech with a savage roar -‘and I will thash any
boy who is found in possession of one.’ As soon as I could, I asked a
chauffeur what ‘sadistic’ meant. If he knew, he did not say.”
That was in Hampstead, London .
At the time, my Uncle Dermot, Catholic curate in Bantry, West Cork, used read
James Bond novels in the Confessional when waiting to hear the sins of
penitents. I doubt he was seeking sadistic penances to impose for he never seemed
to suffer from pent up tension. He reckoned that he would be in heaven if only
his house was connected to that of his parish priest. When he was on call in
good weather, he would be fishing from his rowing boat a few yards from
the road that ran thirty miles down the Northside of the Bay. When not on call
he could be anywhere in some of the most scenic parishes in Europe
Comments are closed.