My friend sent me the photo on a Saturday morning. It was a photograph of a book in the window of an Oxfam charity shop in Dublin. Not just any book, it was My First Book by the late and marvellous Maeve Binchy.
My friend had never seen it before but I knew the book well. It’s a collection of her writing in The Irish Times first published in 1970. In my house, it’s a sacred tome.
I got my copy years ago at a second-hand book stall at a market in Howth. I keep it on the locker by my bed, like a taliswoman. It’s full of Maeve’s ordinary, extraordinary stories. They involve human happenings she picked up on while eavesdropping – I like to call it maevesdropping – her way around Dublin, London and other parts of the world.
On the back of the book it says that Maeve – who once edited The Irish Times women’s page and also served as travel editor – “has for eight years been writing the type of column to which people respond ‘that’s what I’ve always felt but never said‘”.
Róisín Ingle: I did a good bit of ‘maevesdropping’ in the shop. It’s what Binchy would have wanted
I’m enjoying my new friendship. We’re at the stage when everything is fascinating
Róisín Ingle: I have a list in my head of unwritten letters. Now I will write them
Róisín Ingle: We will have two 16-year-olds in this house soon which is blowing my mind a bit
I’ve flicked through My First Book so much over the years – seeking and always finding inspiration on weeks when the words won’t come – that it’s now falling apart. That is no shade on The Irish Times, which printed the collection, but it wasn’t that sturdily bound.
The copy of My First Book in the window of the Rathmines charity shop looked, from the photograph, to be in excellent condition. My friend thought it was there as part of a display, the way sometimes charity shops curate certain items which can only be purchased from a certain date in the near future.
I called the shop to check. The book was for sale right now. Clearly, somebody who worked there had given it a starring role in the shop window knowing the likes of me and my friend would be drawn to it like moths to a penny candle.
“Can you keep it for me?” I asked. “We can’t hold anything for anybody,” the man said, which was fair enough.
It was Saturday and I wasn’t dressed yet – preferring, as a general rule, to leave getting dressed to as late as possible on a Saturday morning. A friend was due to arrive for coffee, but I asked her if we could do that on Sunday instead.
I got dressed quickly and asked my husband for a lift to Rathmines. (It’s been nearly a year but I’m still not used to saying the word husband). “For a mission,” I said enigmatically. He was reluctant until he found out the mission involved a charity shop.
[ Rereading Maeve Binchy — as loved and relevant as everOpens in new window ]
[ I’m enjoying my new friendship. We’re at the stage when everything is fascinatingOpens in new window ]
He needed some new jumpers and he loves a bit of rummaging through the items on display. Our friend, who has a pathological aversion to charity shops, describes the clothes they sell as “dead men’s clothes”.
My husband dropped me off at the charity shop and went to park the car. I hardly dared look in the window in case the book was gone. I imagined some other Binchy fan strolling around Rathmines just minutes earlier, glancing at the book, immediately realising how precious it was and striding purposefully in to claim their prize.
But there it was. My First Book. Sitting beside other old books about Irish history and politics. It was mine for €7.
It’s mine now but it wasn’t always. According to the inscription, it was a Christmas present for two people in 1976. It reads: “For Marie, Paddy, Love Mary Lou.” I hope Marie and Paddy enjoyed it as much as I always will.
There are so many wonderful bits of the book I could quote, but one I’d forgotten was the time Maeve wrote about sending Thin Lizzy a fan letter when Whiskey in the Jar came out.
She told them it was the best record she’d heard in years. “I thought they were poor and struggling and thin,” she wrote. “I thought they must be needing a few brisk fan letters from older women.”
It really was the best morning, popping in and out of charity shops
After that she got invited to lunch with Thin Lizzy. Well, her and a room full of journalists in The Shelbourne Hotel. “None of them looked poor … Phil was ... thin all right, the others were kind of average-sized,” she observed.
Maeve asked Phil Lynott, hopefully, whether their new record was another Irish traditional song “all souped up”. “No man,” said Phil. “No man. It’s bad to get stuck into a groove if you know what I mean, bad to get typecast.”
Maeve wrote that she replied “Yes man”, adding that she wondered: “Should I throw up my job immediately, was I stuck in a groove?”
With my book in a bag, the rest of the morning was spent picking out clothes with my husband. It really was the best morning, popping in and out of charity shops alongside people who know there are too many clothes in the world already and who love a bargain and who can’t afford to shop for new things. They don’t mind wearing dead men’s clothes.
I did a good bit of maevesdropping, too, while I was there. It’s what she would have wanted.
