Warm memories of a poetic dad on the eve of Father’s Day

“He always had an eye for a funny turn of phrase,” Belfast-born Rick Nugent explained, reminiscing about his father’s use of local sayings in his poems, adding “he loved to see people laughing at what he came up with.”

A joiner by trade, Frederick (Fred) George Nugent was born in 1927 in the Ballymacarrett district of East Belfast and when he passed away in 1995 he’d written “close to a hundred poems,” Rick told me.

After some “persistent cajoling” from his writer and broadcaster son, Fred shared his poetry in a local paper and in a book called ‘Ballymacarrett Ballads’ published in 1986.

‘Brown-catus’ features in the first ballad - ‘As English Should be Spoke’ - and when Rick read it on a Father’s Day programme on Radio U105 an enthusiastic public sought copies.

It was reprinted last year, opening with numerous hilarious examples of Belfast-English.

“I’d a despert sore head the ‘or day

My nose was runnin’

My feet was like lead

Ah cud’ve slept on a clothes line

Nivver mind on my bed.”

On the eve of another Father’s Day Rick says he’ll be doing tomorrow what he does every year - visiting his dad’s grave, alongside his mum’s.

“Fred lived in his native district his entire life,” thus the book’s title, and in the introduction Rick explains that his father “enjoyed a happy childhood with his big sister Hilda, their mum Mary and dad George, who ran a little business serving the local community.”

But the happiness ended when George was lost at sea in the early days of WWII.

The ship he was serving on was sunk in enemy action.

“That left Fred as the man of the household at the age of just thirteen,” Rick explained.

The young lad left school and along with Hilda got a job, to help their mother “make ends meet.”

When he was in his 20s Fred met Ruth “who was to become the love of his life.”

They married and Rick was “proud and privileged to be their son and basked in that shared love for many wonderful years.”

In his 50s Fred started writing verse and “his love of his native Northern Ireland is clearly reflected in many of his poems”, Rick explained.

Fred muses on his “wanderin’ lust” in a poem called ‘Travellin’ Home’ and visits the Andes, the Alps, the Rio Grande and Arizona, but “travelling was just in his imagination” says Rick, confirmed in the lines:

“I’ve seen the Sphynx and pyramids

And sailed along the Nile

But a lazy day along the Bann

Would beat them by a mile.”

Everywhere Fred’s pen takes him he finds ‘The Ulsterman’, another poem that smiles endearingly at the place he loves so much.

“No matter where you wander

No matter where you roam

You’ll find a man from Ulster,

Pinin’ for his home.”

Fred pokes fun at politics in ‘A Little Bit of Nonsense’, wondering if Orangemen are happy being ushered onto Pelican crossings “by a wee man in green!”

Perusing photographs in ‘My Album’ he fancies himself as a footballer and would sign for Arsenal:

“But the management declined.

The fools, they missed a genius

So I left that dream behind.”

…and Fred became a joiner, working for a time in the shipyard. Rick recalls, “the other joiners would have a cup of tea and a chat at lunchtime, but dad used to take the wood cuttings that were going to be thrown out and he’d make little wooden toys for me and bring them home.”

He cherishes one that has survived the ravishes of time.

“It’s not actually mine,” Rick admitted, showing me a beautifully-crafted doll’s house, “dad made it for my two cousins who kept it and passed it on to me.”

And Fred still makes folk smile with comically-crafted lines about a constantly cooing dove stopping him sleeping in ‘An Ode to Spring’, or with his rhyming recollections of ‘When I was Twenty-One’, or with his ‘Joiner’s Tale’ about dying and going to “a big building site up in the sky.”

‘Ballymacarrett Ballads’ is available from Shanway Press at https://shanway.com or the No Alabis Bookstore at https://noalibis.com