O'Brien

Before the Bus Station in Kairdiff was re-organised the National Express Office was situated on the first concourse! I was walking past one day when a man came out and looking me directly in the eye, said " I don't know whether I've done the right thing! I've bought a ticket to go home to Ireland for Christmas, I don't think my family want to see me". He sat down and started sobbing! I sat with him for a moment, then left to go home and write this.

O’Brien

Well, it’s like this, I was born in Tralee.

I have a wife and six children in Manchester.

I have one sister in County Kilburn.

So you might be asking why I’m sat on a yellow metal seat outside the National Express Office in Cardiff Central Bus Station.

Well you see, I can’t move no more.

I’ve been on the move all me life and now I feel that I have found my final resting place.

As a child playing in the West of Ireland we’d know when the old farm dogs had reached the end of the line, they’d just slope off the field of play and find a spot in one of the whitewashed buildings to go and lay down and die.

But you see, I’ve been hiding all my life, hiding in the shadows because I don’t have such a quick brain and it takes me a while to keep up.

People don’t have a lot of patience, well you know that!

You wouldn’t be sitting on your seat otherwise would you.

So how does it feel for you in the Goldfish Bowl?

I’ve grown so many skins in my life and that’s what I’m doing now, peeling them off, one by one.

I never thought it would be like this……my life.

I didn’t think as a boy in Tralee that I would die on a seat in a bus station.

Sure we’d heard about Cardiff and Newport, how our families had been chased up Bute Street by locals carrying sticks and stones.

They do break your bones you know.

I notice you looking intently at me, now that’s a luxury for me.

You want to see evidence of my drinking to prove your prejudice right.

‘The Pissed Paddy’

Well I’m sorry, no cans or bottles. I can’t stand the affect. Commercialised Anaesthetic! Oooh Big Words from a little Brain.

Talking of which I can smell their Brewery from here, it makes me want to heave.

I smell the vomit, the toilet floor, the bleached cold pavement.

I wonder why so many of the boys back home succumb and become Pint Pot Heads.

Their sponsoring your gallant boys in red. The men with Big Brains and even Bigger wallets.

What is that you wear on your shirts? Three little white feathers!

Old Kitchener would send white feathers to those he saw as cowards and deserters in the First World War.

The War to end all wars.

Oh I’m trying to be clever here!

Trying to make a few points to keep you on your seat.

What colours your seat? Mine’s bright yellow, yak!

I’d prefer a nice emerald green. Ah well as long yours is not black and tan I don’t mind.

I know one thing for sure it’s not as uncomfortable as the one I sat on in the schoolhouse.

Mr Rooney, the schoolmaster would tell us of his visits to London, to the theatre.

He said he saw Lawrence Olivier in the Entertainer at the Royal Court.

A good few years later I myself entertained a crowd down the bottom of the King’s Rd.

Ah yes, I was in my bright yellow jacket and I was banging out a few Jigs and Reels on me old Jack Hammer.

Maybe that’s why I’m a little deaf now, building roads for the Brits.
The Yuppies, do you remember those?
They'd drop a £5.00 note and wouldn't bother to stop and pick it up 

They used to shout all sorts to me, Thick Mick, Paddy Prick and then Fenian Fucker.

I’d smile in my bright red mask because I did drink in them days and at close of play I’d head up the Kilburn High Road to sing the ’Mountains of Mourne with the boys from back home.

So you see I’m stuck on this seat.

Do I go home to Tralee where my family don‘t like me, up to Manchester where the wife is now my ex wife and the kids think I’m their uncle or back to my sister’s in the Kilburn High Rd.   

Well you might well be thinking this guy has lost his sense of humour but as I make me decision I leave you with an Irish Joke.

Irishman walks on to a building site to see the gaffer.” I’m looking for a job gaffer“.

“Well, competition is fierce now and we only want to take on men with Brains” says he.

“I’ll ask you a question and if you get the answer right, the job is yours”

“Fire away Gaffer,says the Irishman”

“Right what is the difference between a joist and a girder?”

“Ah sure, Gaffer, that’s easy, Joist (Joyce) wrote ’Ulysess’ and Girder (Goethe) wrote ’Faust’.