Declan
Mulholland
by Jilliana
Ranicar-Breese
What a
character! I first met him in the Magdala, South
End Green, my local pub years ago, where Ruth
Ellis, the last woman to be hung in England, shot
and killed her lover. I lived on South End Green,
South Hampstead at 2 Warwick Mansions above the
famous Prompt Corner Cafe where elders, like my
friend the artist Maurice Sumray, would play
chess on the clock. I was never a pub drinker but
occasionally, in the summer, enjoyed a chilled
lager in my local.
I knew Declan was a character actor but he never
talked 'shop' with me as I was not in the acting
profession. I met friendly hilarious rotund
Northern Irish Declan on occasion for dinner. He
would have me in tears with his repertoire of
Jewish and Irish jokes and spoke of his dear
friend Peter O'Toole, the famous screen actor as
they often worked together.
My artist fiancé Anglo-French Philippe Amos
moved into my third floor flat on West End Green,
8 Alexandra Mansions, London NW6 and began to
paint 'Grecian' inspired icons on my tongue and
groove pine clad walls in the lounge and on the
Edwardian wardrobe doors in my royal purple and
turquoise exotic Moroccan bedroom.
When summer came Declan offered to put up the
third pine T and G wall as it looked odd having
both walls with the trendy 1970s fashionable pine
stained wood and not the third wall. He suggested
that I pay for the planks at trade price and,
being an experienced carpenter, he would put them
up for free, stain and varnish them to be ready
for my return with Philippe from the Greek isles.
I trusted my friend giving him £20 and my house
keys. Declan had measured up the wall space and
calculated the amount of planks, after measuring
the width of each plank. Off we went island
hopping around the blue and white enticing
Cyclades with shimmering waters in the eternal
sunlight far away from grey dull England.
Back we came two months later to find the T and G
up but miscalculated height wise. Declan had
measured the width but, being Irish, had not
measured the height correctly! He had tagged on
the mIssing pieces of pine so there was a visible
line extending the whole length of the wall. He
may have been good as a character actor who even
appeared as Jabba the Hutt in 'Star Wars',
performing roly-poly characters with the Royal
Shakespeare Company but as a carpenter he was
useless even though he had built stage and film
sets. He had even left his tool bag behind
but not my spare keys. I never saw Declan again,
nor did I get my keys back!
Months rolled by without any word. I suppose he
felt too ashamed to call. Eventually my sash
windows needed repairing and I knew that would be
a huge expense. After all, I was an impoverished
TEFL language teacher teaching English to adult
young foreigners at St Giles School of Languages
at Oxford Circus taking home £27 a week after
tax in 1973. When the tradesman came to give a
quote, I suggested a trade - Declan's expensive
tools for replacing the sash windows. Done and
dusted as they say in the antiques trade, a trade
I would later embrace a few years later in 1977
when I moved to Paris, skipping a generation as
my grand parents had owned two antique shops in
Swansea, South Wales where my mother had been
born.
Written
on the Turkish Airlines flight to Antalya via
Istanbul on 4/3/17. Reading time 4 minutes 15
seconds.
References
Wikipedia - Declan Mulholland
The Guardian - obituary 27/7/99
Wikipedia - Ruth Ellis
Wikipedia - Peter O'Toole
Wikipedia - Maurice Sumray
The Independent - obituary Maurice Sumray 22/7/04
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