Small Town Writer

Dogs bark, girls scream and boys shout

After noon, men and women filter through doors of pharmacies, groceries, draperies, betting shops and bookshop. Schools have their exodus, several times. School exit hours are staggered to avoid traffic blocks but added to road repairs and traffic lights, the town is gridlocked. 

Dogs bark, girls scream and boys shout. 

Town planning is not a science. It is largely guesswork. Like government predictions they are usually wrong, miscalculated or not even considered in the light of decisions taken. Hard to believe that anyone has environmental concerns or worries about the future. The selfish gene is prevalent in all that people do.

The din you hear on main street is chaos

Mid morning, the main street is gridlocked for several minutes. An articulated truck, a double-deck bus, an empty airport bus and a refuse wagon vie for space. An octogenarian woman in a maroon, crocheted beret and blue anorak, leans on her walking stick as if dazed by the sudden arrival of police and the military toting automatic weapons. Helmeted soldiers clamber out of a jeep to take up strategic points of the street while Brinks delivers its load of paper cash and coin. The Angelus bell tolls midday. Thirty minutes later cafes begin to buzz. After lunch hammer blows ring. Buzz saws whine. Metal teeth grind into granite. Dust wafts around and spirals. Work on the narrowing of the artery outside the train station continues.

The questions will not go away. Are they building a bottleneck to throttle the main street?

Praise be the Credit Union

Pensioners and welfare seekers number large among those who stand in line outside the town’s public and private concerns dispensing riches. Thursdays, before opening time, there is a queue outside the Post Office for payouts. Recently the government decided to move our Post Office from the main thoroughfare to a dark corner of a modern piazza. Rumours flew around that the PO was being shut down. There were no denials. The shortage of good PR was such that even the staffers did not appear to know their fate.

The new office is small and a cheerless, as much for the clientele, as the civil servants parked behind its bullet proof glass.

Outside the main banks most days to the week, clusters of people block the sidewalks waiting for the countdown. Banks do not unbolt their doors until ten and sometimes 10:30 am; and if you are thirty seconds late at closing time, too bad. The bankers issued much ballyhoo in the past about how IT would provide more time for staff to spend with their customers. We would all cuddle up together and nothing would be much trouble.

Post Crunch, banks are not recruiting and those who leave are not being replaced. Unless they are big shots, that is.

The Credit Union remains the most humane of money dispensaries in our town.

Child labour?

Morning sightings of children burdened by the weight of books labouring on foot to school bring to mind pictures of Victorian scenes of child labour. Parents complain publicly of the possibility that such physical toil may bring on physical deformities. The response from the teachers is that they need so many tomes in order to keep up with the broad curriculum. Capitalism, it seems, has found another way of bestowing hardship on children in a perfectly legal way and more arguments in favour of parents who deliver their children by automobile to the school’s front door.

uh-oh

(Right: Work outside
Greystones railway station,
January 2009. Photo McNiff)

DOUBTS ARISE AS TRAFFIC
PROJECT NEARS CLOSE

At the town’s busy commuter hub beside the train station, finely cut blocks of granite have been laid. Pavements have been expanded outwards, narrowing the road for vehicles. New parking bays for drivers and public transport have been zoned and carved out. But just as the €500,000 project nears the finishing line doubts have arisen among our elected representatives.

Passengers will be able to watch people drawing money from the local bank’s hole in the wall, one councillor said. Of course, it is for the bank to preserve the privacy of the bank's customers, not the Town Council.

The whole area is too narrow, traffic will be gridlocked, was another criticisms; and a bus driver’s representative voiced concerns about the bus bay being able to accommodate one bus at a time when there other private bus companies to be considered, each one arriving during rush hour periods.

The dissent will continue and the consultants who planned the scheme will be the target. What could they have been thinking of?

Well, one consideration might be that one day soon – say fity years from now – gas will be rationed for public transport only.  There may be none at all for private motorists.

Greystones Harbour, Block 2000

IT TOOK TIME to get this far. It was a political football and still is. It cost two public inquiries. Put half a million bucks on the construction bill and saw one wannabe politician bite the dust at a personal cost of €38,000.