Tess was busily working away on an old pedal Singer sewing machine, trying to make a two piece suit for her nine-year-old son. Her brother Peter had bought a new crombie overcoat and given her the old one.

This was her first attempt at making a suit for him and she didn’t want to get it wrong. Her husband Leo was sitting near the fire soleing and heeling a pair if Kathleen and Marie’s shoes.

Having left the leather immersed in water in the sink overnight it made it pliable and easy to shape and cut. “Tess, the little fella was having trouble with his homework tonight, especially his sums and he asked me to help him out. In the end it was Kathleen who seemed to have a better grasp of them who managed to give him a hand”.

“I’ll have a chat with my mother because she’s wonderful with figures, maybe with some coaching from her he’ll buck up and improve”.

The sound of laughter came from the bedroom as the girls giggled at their brother’s tales. He was telling them of a ‘B’ film he had seen with ‘Laurel and Hardy’ and exaggerating for all he was worth. Feeding on his sister’s laughter he was quite enjoying himself as his parents told him to quieten it down as it was getting late.

A day or so later Tess had got her mother Katie to agree to give the lad some basic tuition in arithmetic. In her youth she had once been a monitor tutor in Townsend Street girls’ school and mathematics was one of her subjects.

One afternoon when her grandson had returned with her weekly turf allocation she sat him down and explained what she was about to do. “Numbers are from one to nine and then they become repetitive. By adding numerals either before or after, you can then make them greater or lesser.

Multiplication, addition, division and subtraction are relatively easy if you round them up”.
She began to show him this in practice and he soon came on in leaps and bounds. Within a few weeks he was doing difficult mental sums such as decimals and fractions in his head and coming up with the correct answer each time.

His grandmother’s wonderful magic formula was working extremely well and his schoolwork began to improve immensely, especially in arithmetic. Each Friday in school, his teacher Mr. Gallagher gave the pupils a test in mathematics. The usual winners were Jimmy Gannon, Joe Ashmore or Stephen Kearney. Between them they had a secret pact to share the spoils whichever of them won, reasoning that a third of a sixpence was better than nothing.

When Leo and Tess’s son overtook them, they were shocked to the very core, wiping the smug smile from their faces. Having overcome the first hurdle there was no stopping the lad now, he had learned a wonderful new language.

The most popular sweet shop for all of the schoolchildren in the area was the Happy Valley in Townsend Street. With his shiny sixpence he made for it to buy some toffees. A large notice on the wall caught his attention. ‘Win a Pound Note. How many Aniseed Balls are there in the Jar? Nearest to the amount wins’.

To enter, a purchase of sixpence was required. His full winnings were soon spent and he was issued with a cloakroom ticket, his name on the duplicate and a cone-filled paper of aniseed balls.

Recalling his grandmother’s lessons, he used her logic. It was a large seven-pound jar in which the seal had been broken: meaning that more must have been added to it. Over the next few weeks each time he was going to the Palace with his pals he would get them to shop there.

By the time of the draw he had almost ten tickets in the drum, with his answers varying slightly. On reaching the shop the draw had already been made and he was delightly surprised to find it was himself who was declared the winner.

“Congratulations, young man that was a very good guess. Having said that, if there had been a second and third you would have won them too, you were only three out. No one else even came near to your answers”. He admitted that it was a lucky guess on his part and accepted the brand new one pound note gratefully.

Coming into flat 16h his mother scolded him. “Where were you till now? There was a competition, Ma, and I won it”. “And what was the prize?” “It was a pound note, Ma”, taking it out of his pocket and placing it into her hand. Tess was gobsmacked and she collapsed down onto a chair in shock and delight.

“There’s a film called ‘Random Harvest’ showing on the Capitol. Granny said that you and Dad took her to see it again because she said that you and Dad enjoyed it as well”. There were tears of love and pride in her eyes when she hugged her only son as he squirmed with embarrassment while his sisters chuckled at their brother’s discomfort. “Ah Ma, I’m getting too big for that now”. “You can be a nice little man when you’re not teasing your sisters”.

As they were all eating supper Leo and Tess were in a jovial mood as they went through the story repeatedly. Kathleen whispered something into Marie’s ear and both of them burst out laughing. “What are you two muttering about?” “The winner’s name was in Irish and everyone said that it was a phantom name made up by Mrs. O’Brien and she never paid anyone at all, but now we know it was our brother”. Everyone at the table exploded in fits of laughter at his clever little deception.

Leo, Tess and Granny Katie dressed up in their finest that night and caught a tram to the Capitol Cinema where they enjoyed once more, Ronald Colman and Greer Garson in the wonderful timeless weepie, ‘Random Harvest’.

Years later the boy, grown to manhood, could look back with great love and affection for Katie, his caring, generous grandmother who taught him that there was a simple logic to all mathematical problems. It would serve him well as he passed those treasured lessons on to his own children and glow with the same pride his parents must have enjoyed, all those warm memorable years ago.

Above: Photo in Sandymount Green 1949, Katie and her daughter Tess, with her grandchildren, Kathleen, Eileen Donnelly, Frances and Rose.