I’m not one for bucket lists mostly on the grounds that I object to the phrase “kick the bucket” as a euphemism for dying. I know many people prefer to talk about passing away – a widely used phrase for death which, incidentally, is not tolerated by The Irish Times Stylebook. This book stipulates that the more factual “died” should be used “in preference to passed, passed away, or other euphemisms”. Other people can be quoted in articles as having said their loved ones passed away. We’re not complete monsters.
My antipathy to the “kick the bucket” phrase only increased when I discovered that its origins might be traced back to the bucket people were standing on that was kicked away before they were hanged by execution or suicide. In John Badcock’s slang dictionary of 1823 he writes that “one Bolsover having hung himself from a beam while standing on a pail, or bucket, kicked this vessel away in order to pry into futurity and it was all up with him from that moment: Finis”. “Pry into futurity” is a brilliant euphemism for dying, in fairness to Badcock.
[ I walk around the block and think of dead friends who don’t feel dead to meOpens in new window ]
My friend Paul has a bucket list with mad things on it like “visit the Falkland Islands” which he has actually done. Occasionally, when I’ve considered my mortality as we should all do from time to time, Paul has urged me to start a Bucket List. I compromised and came up with a far less urgent sounding Things I’d Like to Do Sometime But Sure, No Rush List. I put Paris on this list. I have never been – I know, sacre bleu! Rome went on it too. My sister Rachael brought me on a magical trip there last November, so that one is crossed off.
Another thing on the list was visiting the childhood homes of my musical heroes Paul McCartney and John Lennon in Liverpool. In a stunning piece of heritage-preserving, the National Trust in Britain does tours of both houses which have been kept or restored to pretty much as they were when teenage John and Paul lived there in the 1950s and early 1960s and where they wrote songs such as Please Please Me and Love Me Do. For Beatles fans these houses are holy sites of pilgrimage.
Róisín Ingle: I sat at the childhood piano Paul McCartney played, and bashed out Let It Be
Manchán Magan was a great man for a video message. You’d never know what you might get
I walk around the block and think of dead friends who don’t feel dead to me
This story involving Mary Robinson and a historical wrong made me smile, so I thought I’d share it
My friend Paul decided he’d organise the trip and we asked our musician friend and fellow Beatles fanatic Tom to join us. There was a bit of prep to be done. We decided before we went, to watch Peter Jackson’s eight-hour Get Back documentary in Tom’s house one Saturday afternoon. It was an outstanding day of Beatles shenanigans, made even better by the fact that Tom’s wife Audrey is a chef and kept bringing us fortifying snacks while we marvelled at McCartney just casually writing Let It Be in front of our very eyes and The Beatles bickering in the studio. “See you ‘round the clubs,” George says at one point when he decides to leave the band.
The night before we went on our day-trip to Liverpool, I stayed up late teaching myself how to play an extremely rudimentary version of Let It Be on the piano. I knew there was a piano in Paul’s house so I wanted us to be able to have a little singsong in his sittingroom. We got an early flight before ordering a sorry-looking breakfast in a Beatles-themed cafe off Matthew Street where we took photos of ourselves outside the Cavern and beside a statue of Cilla Black. Then it was time to visit the Holy Grail.
A little National Trust coach picked us and other pilgrims up at a train station before driving to Mendips at 250 Menlove Avenue where Lennon lived as a boy with his Aunt Mimi and Uncle George. (People say a lot about Yoko Ono and The Beatles, but she is the one that bought Mendips and donated it to the National Trust.)
Lennon’s semidetached home was posher than Paul’s, with a beautiful garden and art deco flourishes. The guide took us through the house and told us how his Aunt Mimi, intolerant of John and Paul’s noisy musical antics, would banish them to the porch which the boys discovered had fantastic acoustics. On hearing this, Paul, Tom and I took one look at each other and abandoned the tour to leg it into the porch where, after closing the door, we sang a pretty outstanding version of Eight Days A Week complete with perfect harmonies. John and Paul were right. The acoustics are incredible in there.
We got back on the coach, singing Beatles songs rowdily down the back, until we got to 20 Forthlin Road, the council house that was the home of McCartney, his brother Mike and their parents Jim and Mary.
It was nothing short of fab. I stood in McCartney’s childhood bedroom. I sat in the chair in the sittingroom where he wrote I’ll Follow The Sun, inspired by the sunlight that would move through the room as the day wore on. While the guide tried to get us back on the coach to make room for the next tour I parked myself at the piano, a piano actual Paul McCartney has played, and bashed out Let It Be while Paul and Tom sang along and the three of us thought we might actually explode from happiness. Whenever I kick the bucket or pry into futurity or pass away or die, this memory, this moment, is coming with me. See you ‘round the clubs.
