BLISS

Sheer bliss

I know the feeling. Been there. Done that.

Coláiste Mhuire was a good school. We had an orchestra, periodically examined by an extern. But then we had the Pit Orchestra. A loose assembly of serious musicians and messers, all out to enjoy themselves accompanying whatever action was going on onstage. The sheer joy and enthusiasm of it is hard to convey. The formal stuff was onstage. The formal orchestra doing a piece by Beethoven or whoever. The quartet with its Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and endless restarts in which I played second fiddle.

But the Pit Orchestra, accompanying the onstage gymnastics, was a bit like jazz. A collection of individuals, each expressing themselves to their heart's content but producing the miracle of coherent sound, never to be repeated.

I just loved it.

So I think I can claim to empathise with Gordon Brewster and his liberated first violinist.

Gordon gets it so right.

And that is just a tiny detail in one of his political cartoons.

Get the book (forthcoming)

WHERE DID GORDON DIE?

Gordon's Death Cert
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Wikipedia, when I looked it up, assured me that Gordon had died in Sutton. This was most likely because the writer knew that Gordon lived in Sutton, so presumably he had died there. As I know only too well from my research into family and local history, it is unwise to make assumptions and peddle them without corroboration.

As it happened, I knew only too well where Gordon had died. On the fatal day, he had left his house in Sutton and gone to Howth to buy sweets for his children. As he was purchasing the sweets in the sweetshop he collapsed and died.

Died? Or was he suddenly taken ill, was carted off to hospital only to be pronounced DOA?

Well, there was one way to find out, and that was to check out his death certificate, which is what I did

So I can now confidently state that the artist Gordon Brewster died in The Gem on Bloomsday 1946.

The Gem was a sweetshop in Howth, run by my mother between 1942 and 1949. So Gordon died in the Mammy's shop and that is why I was sort of curious about him down the years. In truth, I knew next to nothing about him except

"Gordon Brewster, the artist, died in the Mammy's shop"

Non-existent plaque

The Gem in more modern times

WHEN I MET DOLORES

It was a strange feeling, being nervous about meeting someone for the first time.

In response to my asking about the Brewster family, Honora Faul, the lady then in charge of the NLI collection of Gordon's cartoons, told me they would be over from England at the weekend and would love to meet me. Apparently they came over every so often to visit Gordon's grave in Kilbarrack.

I jumped at the opportunity and that's how I found myself sitting in my car, outside the Marine Hotel in Sutton on 23th March 2013, feeling nervous.

But why nervous? That puzzled me. I don't normally have any difficulty meeting new people. So what was going on here?

I think I finally worked it out. Gordon Brewster had been a sort of ghostly presence in the family over the years. I knew his name, that he was an artist, and that he had died in the Mammy's shop. But who was he really? What was he doing in the shop? Had he known my parents? And if so, what was the connection.

There was so much about him that I didn't know. I had fleshed him out a little bit when I went through his cartoons in the National Library, but now I was to meet the family. I desperately hoped that this meeting would lead to me getting to know Gordon better. After all, I had come to like him from being through the cartoons. What if his family didn't like me? Or me them? What then? Was that the end of the line? I figured that was what was bugging me.

In the end, I needn't have worried. Four generations of Brewsters turned up that night: Dolores, Gordon's daughter then in her eighties; Lynne, Dolores' daughter; Katrina, Lynne's daughter; and Lottie, Katrina's daughter. And we all got on like a house on fire.

Dolores was really something and she and I chatted into the night. I was to meet her again a few times over the few years until she died in 2016 and we got on so well that she was still passing on information to me virtually from her death bed; she was gone within a week of our last communication.

RIP

Flowers by Dolores

NEW BOOK

Click on any image for a larger version

My book has now gone to the printers and I hope to have it out in about the next month.

My objective is to introduce Gordon to a modern audience by analysing his cartoons and outlining some of his life's story.

He died suddenly and tragically in my mother's shop in 1946. His estranged wife returned from England to deal with his affairs and, in the words of his daughter, "claim the children", who she took back to England with her.

Gordon then sank into complete obscurity until NLI acquired the collection of his originals. Since then some of his cartoons have appeared in books and elsewhere, but his magnificent work deserves more universal recognition.

I hope my book will contribute in some small way to this.

Check out Gordon's collection online at the National Library of Ireland.

Gordon Brewster