Waiting for the Kettle to Boil

Waiting for the Kettle to Boil ©

By Michael Casey

Well we just put out the rubbish into the outside dustbin, and  as I sat waiting for the kettle to boil I wondered what to write about, and that’s why you are getting this, waiting for the kettle to boil, see I’ll write about any rubbish, but I don’t write rubbish, I’ll pause while the cat chokes on the floor besides me. As the kettle boiled I thought a few thoughts about kettles and water, and a watched kettle never boiling. So now I’m back sat in front of the computer I’ll put them together as Annie Lenox sings from Peace, and feeling 17 again.

A kettle has first to be filled with water, or fresh water first thing in the morning as my dad used to say. My mother’s house had a well right beside it back in Cromane Lower, both the house and the well are no more now, but I do have photos. Everything does start with water after all, Life itself. It’s the pond of life, that is disturbed and ripples till new life is born.

Life is cold, it has to be nurtured, to be warmed up with love, it has to have it’s temperature risen, like in the Elvis song. So as the kettle gets hotter, on the crane over the fire, the family awakes. Dad’s house had a 10 feet wide fireplace, you could even sit inside it, beside the fire, the crane hanging there with a truly enormous kettle. There were 10 kids plus mum and dad in 1920s Ireland, just Morris and his wife now, and the 60 acres and the cattle. Yes really, that’s why I belong to a Clan.

As the kettle boils the cups are lined up and the large tea pot is got ready, though it was always coffee for me, my eldest brother bringing it home from grammar school 57 years ago maybe. That’s why I drink instant coffee, Kenco.

The big cast-iron frying pan got ready too, ready for the feeding of the five thousand before we go off to school. And on it goes through the years, the kettle might change but the ritual remains. The celebrants change too as we children grow and leave home, and come back again, depending on financial circumstances. Putting the kettle on for the washing up as  we have cake and tea on a Sunday, me and my brother being forced out to serve at Benediction, missing our Sunday tv. So, we learn to power walk home, just in time for the Clangers, the original inhabitants of the Moon.

Life itself comes to the boil as we get jobs and change jobs, or are abused by some employers. Rest and reward, and a reassuring cup of tea, as dad shaves in the kitchen because the upstairs bathroom is so cold. Don’t worry, and it was on his Birthday that your employer relegated you to the dole queue. Many cups of tea, or my coffee you end up with a job for life. Market Research into Alcohol sales, and you living in the shadow of a brewery, and with many an alcoholic lodger. God does have a sense of humour, and mum always had a saying and a prayer for every occasion, she should be Jewish not Catholic, but Love of God is universal.

The kettle continues to boil and you have steady work, though tons of shifts and nights. Dad did nights, but a kindly G.P. got him out of them, but I did 14 years worth. It does build a bond between us, he sweated in a steel works, I worked all the hours under the sun. Radio Four being my 20 year education, and maybe salvation. And on the kettle boils.

Water is for sharing, as is alcohol, and I saw much of that during my decades with Market Research into Alcohol Sales, StatsMR where are you all now? You get your own home, as dad encouraged us to stay at home, until we got our own homes, we give money to a stranger, and what was a bit of food, and the kettle was always always boiling at home. And I’ve started to cry now as I talk to you, you just cannot imagine mum’s and dad’s strength, and love. That’s why I could not bring myself to put dad in The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker. However, he was in me, just as I am in my own children, his love appeared in the character Big Sid the Butcher. I only realised after I finished, who was this big man with such love in him, I had written my own father. So, if ever I finish Tears for Butcher, Big Sid will be there waiting for me, just as my own father did, staying up late just to see me before he went to bed.

And the kettle boils on, and tears appear again, he is no longer here, but I am who I am because of him, and my mother. Thousands of cups of tea, and my coffee, meals and laughter and pain, all shared, and sacrificed. I could go on but it would overwhelm me right now, but there’s always another day, and as dad always said When God made Time he made Plenty of It. And  as you remember yesterday mum always said, With the Help of God and Two Policemen, and perhaps maybe a cup of tea, the kettle is boiled now.