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Johnnie Harron stories

Johnny was my Granda Harron’s brother so he was my father’s uncle; even though he was actually my generation’s grand uncle or great uncle, we usually referred to him just as ‘Uncle Johnny’.

Johnny lived in Artigarvan and had two sons, Mickey and Patsy and three daughters Annie, Maggie and Lena.

Mickey was quite a well known cricketer, Patsy settled in Ballykelly and had a large family – 5 of his daughters appeared on Family Fortunes one time. Annie was married to a man called Kelly who would have been been an uncle of Johnny Kelly who owns the Fir Trees Hotel; I lodged with her for a while after our family left Strabane. Maggie never married. I think Lena married an English man

Johnny drove a steam threshing machine when he was young which took him around all the farms in the area so he ended up very well known. Getting the steam thresher in was a big community event in those days. When it would come to a farm, all the neighbouring men would gather in to help and then they would all move on to the next farm. The owners of the farm in question would provide hospitality and refreshments including dinner for the men doing the work and this was the source of much gossip exchange, leg pulling and general craic.

Johnny was famous – perhaps notorious would be a better word – for telling some rather tall tales on these occasions or about them. These stories have been handed down into my generation and somebody remarked to me a while back that they should be recorded for posterity.

Here are a few that I know, maybe some of the family can add others.

I remember Johnny vaguely from my childhood, I think he died a couple of years after Granda Harron and he was well into his eighties so I reckon these stories took place back about the end of the 19th or start of the 20th century.

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Quare stuff, that Persil

There was an old man who died somewhere outside Artigarvan. As he was a bachelor who lived alone, the local custom was for the neighbouring women to wash his body for laying out but this man had a reputation for a certain lack of hygiene so the women were a bit reluctant to do it.

One of them had the bright idea of asking Johnny to do it, he had a reputation for being a very obliging chap – especially if a half pint of whisky would be on offer.

Johnny told the story something like this:

“There was this new washing soap just out at that time, I think it was called Persil or something like that so I thought it would be a good thing to try out.

“I headed up to the man’s house with the Persil, a bucket of hot water, a scrubbing brush and me half pint of whisky.

“I started into scrubbing him, stopping for an occasional nip of the whisky – strictly medicinal purposes, you have to understand, as the house was very cold!

“Now I wouldn’t like to talk ill of the dead or say that the man was particularly dirty, but as sure as God, I was scrubbing for a full ten minutes when I came on an inside shirt!”

Note for the younger generation – an ‘inside shirt’ was an old fashioned name for a vest.

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The Thirsty Dog

One time Johnny was threshing at a big Protestant farm. It was a very hot summer’s day and when the men went into dinner, it being a Friday, they found that the woman of the house, respecting their religious practices, had provided fish for dinner in the form of salt herrings for the Catholic men – the last thing that thirsty men would want on a hot day.

She plumped down a big plate of the herrings in the middle of the table along with a pot of potatoes and a slab of butter. She told the men to help themselves and went outside, leaving them to it

Of course nobody wanted to offend the woman so they weren’t sure what to do. Johnny noticed a collie dog under the table sniffing the air so he took a herring from the plate and slipped it to the dog who wolfed it straight down. Another herring followed, then another and another until the plate was empty, the men just ate the potatoes.

The woman came back in and seeing the empty plate exclaimed “Good, Lord, have you ate all the herring already Don’t worry, I’ve plenty more!” Off she went and came back a couple of moments later with a second plate.

Again she left the men to it and again the herring were passed to the dog.

After the dinner, the men went back outside and the dog ran after them, gasping for breath. There was a burn running beside the house and the dog ran over to it and started lapping the water and continued lapping non-stop for several minutes.

According to Johnny, the dog couldn’t get enough to drink that way so it jumped into the burn and lay with its mouth open, letting the water flow into its mouth. After about five minutes of this, the dog climbed out of the burn, shook itself dry and then stood barking at the water for another five minutes!

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The Milking Goat

One time Johnny was threshing for people called Crampsie down at the lock gates between Strabane and Ballymagorry. Johnny happened to mention that he was on the lookout for a good milking goat – I think he used to goat’s milk for some kind of ‘cure’ that he used to concoct.

Mrs. Crampsie told him that she had happened to have a goat for sale. She showed him the goat, Johnny was under pressure for time and didn’t have time to give it a thorough examination but Mrs. Crampsie assured him that it was the best milking goat she ever had and she was only letting it go because she had no room for it any more. They struck a deal, I think it was for something like 1s 6d (about 7½ p in modern money) and Johnny said he would would collect it that night.

When Johnny collected the goat, it was a clear moonlit night so he decided to take a shortcut across the fields with the goat on a tether. As they were clambering over a ditch, he noticed something glistening on the goat’s belly but couldn’t make out what it was in the moonlight.

When he got home, he investigated further and was amazed to find a large safety pin wrapped up in the hair on the goat’s belly. He opened the safety pin and out fell a long teat – at least the length of his arm, according to Johnny – which had been folded over a number of times and then pinned up out of sight. He would have had fun milking that!

(I have a soft spot for this story. My wife Carmel’s granny, Mrs Holmes, mentioned her sister Mrs Crampsie down at the lock gates one day and it turned out that she was the Mrs Crampsie in Johnny’s story; Mrs Holmes had never met Johnny but had often ‘heard tell’ of him. She also hadn’t heard the goat story but she said it was exactly the sort of thing her sister would have done!)

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According to my brother Michael, there was one report of Johnny singing "Moorlough Mary" in the Ballymagorry Hall and he was stopped on verse 90!

He also said that Johhny was so well-liked and respected on both sides of the community that on the day of his funeral, members of the local Orange Lodge lined the route of his funeral cortege to show their respect.

Michael has told me since that the reason they honoured him was because he played the fiddle every Saturday night in the local Orange Hall, the only Catholic to attend it!

I've also found oyt that Johhnie and Minnie had 5 other children who all died young.

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