One wonders where these amateur nurses had learned how to compile such remedies as cough mixture. Yet it is a fact that when all home-made remedies of soap and bread poultice or other combination of “Yarbs” had failed, hope would revive when someone said “Had away to A'ad Mary Lisle for a box of sarve. That'll sure ti cure it.”
Who-whoo-oo-oo the north wind would come whistling across the open field with stinging and blinding showers of sleet and snow.
My mother's parting benediction for the night would be “God bless ye, ma, jewels, cuddle in ma ‘bairnies, cuddle in, for it's a deedly storm,” or (a reference to the Crimean War) “Jackie Roosia will get ye if ye don't watch out.”
For hours I would lie awake, unable to sleep, listening to the fury of the storm, thankful to catch the first glimpse of dawn to hear the tread of the fishermen's heavy boots on the cobbled pavement outside and to listen to their voices shouting the time, the tide, and the weather.
I could easily distinguish the knock of the caller-up and the answering shriller note of the womenfolk who had to be astir with the men to help launch the boats.
Fishing lines in swills had to be carried to the beach, sandbags or ballast carried cold and frosty from high water over the wet sands.