NOT END OF THE WORLD IF PROBLEM IS NOT FIXED

There is this interesting slideshow that I received recently which started with comforting words for the lonely and lost. Watching slide after slide, I was expecting a helpline like the Befrienders at the end of the whole show only to be amused by the last slide which read ‘If no one else remembers you, the Inland Revenue Service does.’

It is that time of the year again where we have to tabulate our income earned and the claims that we can deduct. This reminds me of the time when I was asked to supply supporting proof for my income and claims for the last six years. As it is not everyday that you get selected for this task, with it came three big words: anxiety, anxiety, and anxiety (especially when some receipts were missing).

The first S.O.S. call was to friends for advice and help. Offering differing answers to my questions, I was no wiser. Like a toddler who has pushed his dinner onto the floor from his high chair, I was getting agitated. I needed someone to clear up my mess so I could go have a cup of strong tea. So entered Elvis, the tax consultant who in no few words promised to lead me to Graceland, for a fee. I was hesitant but when Elvis started to take over the documentation, he had indeed melted my wooden heart. A tidy sum in exchange for peace of mind. That confirmed that I had done the right thing when confronted with an arduous task: leave it to the experts.

How nice the world would be if there is a ‘real’ expert that you can call on for every small job in the house at a reasonable price.

Throughout the winter months, the radiators in our house were chugging sluggishly way below peak performance. We called in a few self claimed expert plumbers and they all had their theories what was wrong but none could solve the problem. It was trial and error all the way: fix this, bleed that, knock this, cut that. By the time the radiators were reasonably cured, winter was over.

As if in a sinister conspiracy with the radiators, the vacuum cleaner decided to make a lot of noise but not clean the gritty carpets which were a pure embarrassment. So we called up the electrical shops only to be told they sold vacuum cleaners but not repair them. Then someone told us that there is this man living in a big yellow house by the old church about 20 minutes drive away who used to be an expert in repairing vacuum cleaners. Now I have my doubts about lugging a heavy vacuum cleaner in search of a big yellow house by the old church about 20 minutes drive away. Worst still, he did not give me the name or house number of this elusive vacuum cleaner expert repairman.

The next best thing was to buy a new smallish vacuum cleaner which promised to do the job while the more expensive but broken one stands in the shed. Even as I am writing this, I just heard that this new three month old vacuum cleaner had decided to blow out dust instead of sucking in. So here we go again.

The word ‘malfunction’ is perhaps the most irritating word ever. We get upset when our car breaks down. We get bothered when equipment that we purchase fail us. We get heartache when we cannot glue back our favourite broken china. We get flustered when the house that we live in literally starts falling apart because of wear and tear.

But then again, Richard Carlson famously said, ‘Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff’.

Fresh food can become stale. New machines can break down in time. The underlying principle is nothing tangible lasts forever. If something can function, then it also can malfunction. If we cannot find an expert to fix a physical problem, at least no one died and it is not the end of the world.

It is not possible to keep everything in pristine condition over time. To make it easier on ourselves when something breaks down, imagine the things that are more difficult if not impossible to fix: a congenital problem, a broken heart, a loss of sanity.

PRESERVING THE PAST, SAVING THE PRESENT

Whatever little I knew about coal mining was very much the result of watching Billy Elliot, a 2000 British drama film featuring the son of a Yorkshire miner who preferred ballet to boxing. Then when the 33 Chilean miners were rescued suddenly my interest in everything related to mining escalated. Thus when I visited the hill country of North Roscommon recently, I knew I had to visit Ireland’s last working coal mine in Arigna. The mine was closed in 1990 and it is now opened to tourists.

Jimmy Nugent, a tall and handsome ex-miner was at hand to describe the difficult occupation which many had chosen not by choice but by design. Young people then faced few options: they either left Ireland for London or New York or worked at the mines. It was commonplace for boys to leave national school and begin working underground at 14 years of age. For the then teenager Jimmy, it was the mines although he did not come from a family of miners. I marvelled at the way he enthusiastically described his daily routine not because it was a chore but because he took pride in it. He must have been asked the same questions many times over by ignorant minds like mine and yet he did not hesitate to enlighten.

At one stage he caught me yawning and asked, ‘Are you bored?’

Far from it, everything in the mine screamed 400 years of mining history, geography, sociology and human struggle. Like a bear ready for hibernation, I was merely reacting to the cold and may be it was because my body needed more oxygen for respiration, so I could generate energy to keep warm. At any time of the year, it was 11 degrees Centigrade in the mine.

What was it like to go to work knowing the risks they faced and that the goodbye kiss to a loved one at the door maybe the last? What was it like to work for long hours in darkness surrounded by some of the narrowest coal seams in the western world ? What was it like to dig the coal from the vein on their backs against the wet floor? What was it like to know that the air that they breathe was saturated with coal dust?

When a miner went to work, all he had with him in the mine was his lunchbox which was usually securely latched so the rats could not get to the food, the clothes he had on, a miner’s hat, his tools and a carbide lamp.

A dull sluggish world to any one could be transformed by the promise of good things.

The money was good. At the peak of the mining days there were 13 pubs in the area and business was rife. Money from the mines was spent within the area itself and it was not surprising to find the neighbourhood convenience store stocking up a great variety of goods from down-to-earth potatoes to panty hose. Now we are spoilt for choice and we would have to drive to different shopping malls, find a place to park, insert coins into the parking metre in order to shop for either necessities or luxuries. More often than not, money spent at multi-national companies is not ploughed back to develop local communities.

The comradeship was good. In most mines the communities were tight knit, a far cry from many of us living in the city today who do not know who lives to the right or left of us. Worse still, someone could be mugged right across the street and instead of calling emergency service, all we did was watch from behind the curtain, afraid to be involved.

The experience was good. If we have our dialects, slangs and registers, the miners had their own unique vocabulary. Working in coal seams which were usually no more than 0.6 metre high at best, the miner did not see a ‘styme’ of daylight for hours. The coal was then broken up and loaded into ‘hutches’ or cars to be brought up to the surface. Miners referred to that part of a mine from which the coal has been removed and caves in as the ‘gob’.

As I bade Jimmy goodbye and signed my name in the autograph book for visitors I could not help feeling proud that I had been to the heart of man’s tenacity and endurance, basically man’s basic instinct to harness nature in order to survive.