Thomas Cook Dublin

A couple of weeks ago, I was directed to a story in the Irish Times and elsewhere about the sad end of the Thomas Cook branch in Grafton Street, Dublin. Actually, from what I can gather,it was he end of that company in that country completely, but it was that main branch closure that was of particular interest to me.

Recent economic difficulties had pushed the company to bring forward the already planned closure. They just shut the place down with virtually no notice. The staff, understandably, were not amused and locked themselves in. The dispute seems to have mostly boiled down to one over redundancy payments - how much they should get for each year of service. They put video clips up on Yoochoob and were eventually arrested by the Garda (Irish police) who turned up in seemingly excessive numbers to evict the staff.

None of that is what this post is about.

I'm not going to try to go into the rights and wrongs; I'm too far removed and it's really none of my business. I just wish them all well.

I just found the whole episode extremely sad. You see (many may already know), I had some of the best, and some of the toughest, days of my working life in that office.

This is the story of the 1976 Irish Bank Strike.

I had heard stories of the previous bank strike in Ireland six years earlier but by the time of the 1976 one, I was working in London as part of a small group of Foreign Exchange Cashiers who, in between developing and installing primitive (though, then, state of the art) computer systems, were sometimes made available as "emergency reliefs". We'd covered a flu epidemic in Glasgow, a mass suspension of staff at the London flagship branch (all but one later vindicated), and so on.

When the bank staff went home in Ireland, early in the Summer, they caused enormous disruption to everyday life; no way to get money out, nobody would take a check, nowhere for people like the bus company to get or deposit the vast amounts of small change they handled, no way to pay wages.....you can imagine, I'm sure.

One of the, truth be told, minor disruptions was that, at the start of the summer vacation season, there was nowhere, nowhere in the whole country, to change money. Well, there was ONE place. Under the law at the time, only the banks were allowed to sell foreign currency. There was ONE exception. You've guessed; the FE Dept of Thomas Cook, Grafton Street, Dublin.

If you were visiting Ireland and needed to change money, there were, in theory, a few other places you could go. Trouble was, there was nowhere THEY could go. This handful of jewellers shops,exchange bureaux etc. were in the habit of taking all the currency they bought to their bank. Oops. We got all that too.

Well, the four staff in the little FE cage were, as you can imagine, swamped. Two more staff from the Traveller's Cheque distribution centre upstairs were available to help (their customers were all banks!) and three of us Brits from London went over to try and help out.

7 to 9 people in a box built for 4, in Summer with no air conditioning. Sacks of money on the floor behind us because there was nowhere else to put them. Customers started arriving early in the morning and lining up outside. When the manager's wife Maeve (bless her) let the first ones in at 9am, the queue was already 4 hours long and never got any shorter.

Maeve would manage the queue all day, spelled from time to time by one of the travel agency staff whose customers couldn't get to them anyway. We could hope to serve the last one about 9.30pm, having blocked the end of the queue at 5pm. More business transacted in August alone than in the whole of the previous year - and that had been a record.

Besides the "real" FE stuff, we had to do other things just to "oil the wheels" - ours and everybody elses. CIE, the bus company, would send trucks round with all the change they had taken in bus fares - 100 Pounds per bag, mixed silver. We needed that for the tills but somebody needed to break it down into manageable bags and count it all. Bring on the travel staff again - they'd do this all evening. In exchange for the coin, we would pay the wages to the bus drivers and conductors. They would come in with their pay slips, we'd stamp them and pay them out of all the money people were spending on Spanish Pesetas et al.

Farmers and all sorts from the other end of the country would send their family members to Dublin on the train - an overnight trip for many - just to line up at Cook's all day, change the money for their family trip and go back again. For some, it was their first ever trip to Dublin.

It went on for about 10 weeks. I was lucky; I rotated in and out, doing three spells of two weeks, then back home to London to recuperate. The "regulars" were just stuck there. But for all the sweat and crazy conditions, I remember it as one of the happiest times of my working life - a real high spot.

I went back to Dublin to work, in more regular circumstances, several times and always loved it. From 1979 to the mid 80's, I considered it my second home. I doubt it would have been the same were it not for the experiences and friends made through adversity of the '76 bank strike.

So it was sad to see the old place shut down in such an ugly fashion.I could have just said that. I suppose, but then I like to tell stories.

If anyone knows where any of the following folks are - please let me know, or point them at this blog. I always think dedications are a bit hokey, but this entry is dedicated to:
Tommy Tobin (deceased),Maeve Tobin,Dave Adams,David Lalor, Paul O'Malley, Bob Beatty, Richard Brennan, Pat Byrne, Brian Latham and Malcolm Wing. Oh yes, and to Derry Troddyn (deceased) who sent me.

OK, OK, I know I'm VERY late this time.

It's been over a year and I've just read my last post - amazing what can happen in 14 months.

I'm going to try to pick up the threads of the last posts and update my ever-smaller gaggle of readers on developments since.

First , the DOGS. When last I wrote, we were excited about the arrival of Mokey, then 8 months old. She DID arrive on time, dressed up to the nines by the joker-breeder with ribbons and pearls. She was nervous after the flight but took an immediate liking to Bu (who is, after all, her half-brother) and, after a quick pee on the grass at the cargo terminal, came back to Hubbards with us.

She's been here 14 months now and is a delight. Smaller and MUCH lighter on her feet than Bu, I call her the VTD. Some of my ex-colleagues will immediately say "Virtual Trading Desk?????" but no. This time, it stands for "Vertical Take-Off Dog".

She has many indiosyncracies which I'm sure will come up in future posts. For now, let's just say she's an expert bed and couch hog, VERY attached to all of us, especially Bu, plays well with the cats. She currently has one of my old socks (of which there is no shortage) bandaged to her foot after getting a toe nail clipped a bit too close this afternoon but, otherwise, she's fine.

I'm back - thanks to Kevin O who links to here from his site. When I can remember how, I'll return the favour.

More soon (yeah, I know, you don't believe me).