Oral history: Bridget Aherne

INTERVIEWERYou said you knew Miss Vale from the house on Ashfield Road.

AHERNEEllie, yes. She had the back room and the mending of everything. Chairs mostly. She was very bad at it but she would not have it done by anyone else.

INTERVIEWERDo you remember the Thursday gatherings?

AHERNEThe Thursday work, we called it. Well — the Thursday meal, and then whatever wanted doing after. That went on for years before she took the farmhouse. Years and years. I would have said from when I came, and I came in fifty-seven.

INTERVIEWERWhat happened at them?

AHERNENothing happened. You ate and then somebody said the gutter, and then you did the gutter. There was no talking about it, if that is what you are after. I do not think it was anything. It was a Wednesday for a long while and then it was a Thursday, or the other way about, I could not tell you now.

INTERVIEWERWas it always at the house?

AHERNEThe house, and the settlement place on the hill, and once in a church hall when the range went. It was not one thing. That is what you are all trying to make it and it was not.

INTERVIEWERDo you remember anyone calling it anything?

AHERNEThey called it dinner.