The Random Thoughts of Henry Holloway
I’m getting to be a bit of a stranger now in the city where I was born. Having had to live away from Belfast for many years I find myself wondering what changes I’ll find the next time I go to town’. The most revolutionary change in the city in recent years was, of course, the passing of the trams.
It used to be a great sport ‘hopping’ the trams for a free ride until the conductor came down the stairs, and then you had to jump for it. I can just barely remember being taken by my father to see the old horse tram that used to sit up at Glengormley. Going to Glengormley in those days was an adventure and it only cost threepence.
There was a booklet which came into my hands once and I have kept it ever since because it was printed in the year I was born. I often wondered what Belfast was like when I was looking out of my pram. Of course, they didn’t call it a pram then, it was advertised as ‘A high-grade baby carriage.’
In those far off days you could have a pleasant evening at the ‘Empire’ for as little as threepence and not more than 1/6. They also had a ‘Palace of Varieties’ and the newly erected Hippodrome where entertainment was provided.
If you wanted to have your tea in town, well all it would cost you would be sixpence or 1 /-. You could buy a cup of coffee in the morning for a penny and for threepence you could have bread and butter with it. A cup of tea cost a halfpenny. There were even sixpenny dinners. For the country cousin coming to town there was a hotel for 6/- a day - bed, breakfast, dinner and tea.
When the good weather came you got away to Whitehead for 1 /-, Larne for 1/6, Portrush for 2/6 and Stranraer for 3/6. A taxi to the station cost 1 /- for two miles. A new suit for the outing was £2.15.0 and if you wanted an overcoat, to sit on the grass, it was only two guineas.
I can imagine some of you saying, as you read this, he must be a lot older than he looks. Well, I’ll give nothing away when I say that all this happened within the last half-century - and I’m not there yet.
We only abolished slavery in comparatively recent times. We have only just discovered atomic power but we have made many discoveries in medicine and surgery in a remarkably short space of time. We have much easier ways of working but our cost of living is rising. We pray every day: ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ and we get it but we are going to have to pay still more for it.
It’s strange, isn’t it, that the fundamental needs of life have never changed in all the changing years- We still need our daily bread. It is the staff of life. It is one of the most essential things in life, one of the simplest and one of the cheapest. It was that commonplace thing that Jesus used as a symbol. He once said, ‘I am the bread of life.’
The bread was always broken in the East and men have always known what Jesus meant when He said: ‘This is my body broken for the world.’ You can leave a great deal out of life and not really miss it. You can’t leave Him out without going hungry all your days.
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