Progress. I love it! The computer age both fascinates and mesmerises me. I’m addicted.
Nevertheless, I do miss the old Dublin which is disappearing all too quickly.

So when I saw the blue open-backed lorry parked along Bath Avenue curiosity got the better of me. It was full of fruit and vegetables for sale.

Willie McKeon has been on the road since he was a kid. Only in those days his father, Thomas McKeon, had a horse and cart which was stabled in Ringsend (where the new senior citizens’ complex is today).

People would be waiting for the McKeons to do the rounds and it was said you could set your clock by them! There would always be cups of tea brought out to them while the horse always knew where her favoutite titbits were to be had.

Most of the produce was Irish and often locally grown. You could have bought a stick of rhubarb for 1 old penny or an apple for less. They even sold rabbits to eat (as many as 200 a week in the 1950’s).

Way back then, the roads were alive with merchants and delivery men. Bread, milk and coal would come to your doorstep daily and also the weekly clothes salesman.

In fact, there use to be 15 shops all doing business at South Docks Street ... now there’s one.

Willie still goes to the market for 7 a.m. to get the best bargains and he’s out in all weathers. The only difference is that today much of the produce is Dutch and he comes around only three times a week, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, While his range of produce has extended to logs and coal.

As a young lad, it was his job to feed and groom the horse, even clean out the stable. And he loved doing this, but how Willie laughed when I suggested going back to those days. No, he would not part with his motor.

“At least I can sit in my cab. Back then, there was no shelter at all from the rain and snow – you just had to put up with it. We’d turn blue with the cold in winter. It was hard earning a living but the atmosphere was 'good.'

Originally from Ringsend, Willie would hate to work anywhere else.

“I’m part of the place. I’ve been doing this for 40 years or more. I still have my regulars and I’d hate to let them down The kids like to see me coming around ‘cause there’s always an apple for them.”

Willie enjoys his work and meeting the public, perhaps that’s why he’s always so jolly. I couldn’t help noticing how everyone who passed greeted him like an old friend.

It was good to see the relaxed atmosphere and not to hear the clink of supermarket tills mixed with the groans of impatient shoppers behind me.

After all what are we all rushing about for when we can get the produce outside our door?

Willie McKeon displays his fruit and vegetables.