Book review: Last Bus to Pewterhole Cross

George Harding left school at an early age but never lost his love of poetry. Following his retirement from a successful bicycle business, he went to university and got back on the literary saddle, he tells Colette Sheridan.

George Harding

Revival Press, €12.00

Late-flowering poet finds life blooming

LEAVING school at 14 probably wasn’t the best idea for a burgeoning poet.

But 66-year old Cork man, George Harding, whose second collection of poems, Last Bus to Pewterhole Cross has just been published, eventually found his feet and graduated from UCC with a BA degree in 2003.

He decided to go to university after retiring from his bicycle business in 1999, studying archaeology and Greek and Roman civilisation.

The latter subject was “a revelation. Through my reading of novels over the years, I wouldn’t understand the classical references so studying Greek and Roman civilisation was a real eye-opener for me.”

Harding, a wiry bespectacled man with light red hair and a low-key manner, was “always fooling around with poetry. My mother was a literary person. I had my first limerick published when I was about seven or eight in Reality, a religious magazine.

"I was always tipping away but only became serious about writing poetry when I retired and went to college. Going to college when I was young was out of the question. We didn’t have the money. I’m one of seven. It was a case of finding work.”

Harding worked as a messenger boy and later as a “shelf-filler” in Roche’s Stores. He even did a stint as a church organ tuner although he says he is tone deaf.

“My father used to kind of employ me in the summer in his bicycle shop. I finally started working there full-time when I was 20. I had done my best to avoid it as I didn’t think there was any money in it.”

However, Harding’s Uncle Charlie had a bicycle business in Hollywood and after returning to Cork from the US, he invested in Harding’s bicycle shop on South Terrace.

“When I saw that investment, I decided that there was some kind of future in it. It really took off and we ended up with a second shop on Oliver Plunkett Street and a shop on Bachelor’s Walk in Dublin.”

Possessing both business acumen and literary flair, Harding’s conversation switches from making money — he tells of buying his first house for cash — to literature without any bother.

He thinks WB Yeats is the best poet since Shakespeare and he is a fan of Seamus Heaney. Harding believes that Heaney’s best work is his first collection, Death of a Naturalist.

“I have a signed copy of that book. I met Heaney in the Metropole Hotel. He was fantastic to speak to.”

Just as Heaney references the ancient king turned mad bird-man, Sweeney, Harding mentions this character in his poem, ‘Announce Spring’. And there are shades of Heaney’s poem, ‘Digging’ in Harding’s moving poem, the title poem of his new collection.

Harding writes that he overheard people say of him that “He’ll never stand in his father’s shoes.” The poem describes the hard work and self sacrifice of his father. It concludes with the lines:

“But that night I grew a little when I broadened my skinny shoulders and pulled those boots from his tired feet.”

"Writing at times in a deceptively light and humorous way, Harding’s subject matter includes “family, nature, the environment and politics. My first book, My Stolen City, came out in 2011 and some of it is about the effects of the Celtic Tiger.”

He bemoans the “brutal landscape” of Cork and writes of the greed of the boom years.

Harding lives between the Cork suburb of Blackrock and Kinsale with his teacher wife, Nuala. They have “a beautiful place in Ballymaccus outside Kinsale, overlooking the water.

"During the Celtic Tiger years, somebody had the idea that it would be a great place to have a hotel and 250 houses.

"We were up in arms over that and with our neighbours, we went to the High Court and failed and the Supreme Court and failed.

"Eventually, we were successful with An Bord Pleanála. By the time that happened, the company had gone bankrupt.”

It’s a matter of pride for Harding that two poems from his first collection, ‘First Snow’ and The Music of Hurling are included in the set text book for Junior Cycle English in 2015/16. Looking back on his formative influences, Harding cites none other than The Sunday Times.

“My father used to buy The Sunday Times. There was a great film critic there called Dilys Powell. If she recommended a movie, I’d go to it.

"I would try to read the books that were recommended. But I didn’t always understand them. I have a signed copy of Dylan Thomas’s collected poems. The date on it is October 1967. I was 18 then.

"I loved reading those poems, the sound of them and the way Dylan Thomas put language together. But I can’t say I understood many of them.”

Harding’s interests are varied. He is a keen bibliophile and between his two houses, he has a couple of thousand books.

“I mostly collect Irish books, both books of Irish interest and Irish language ones, even though I can’t read Irish.

"I went back to college at night time for two years trying to grasp Irish, but I couldn’t. Not being able to read Irish is one of my greatest regrets.”

His other interests include ornithology, the environment, early cinema, Cork city and the prowess of its hurlers. Harding thinks hurling is an art form.

“We grew up hurling on the street. It’s the only sport I’m interested in. My mother’s brother was Fox Collins, a famous Cork hurler from the Glen. I was alright at hurling but I needed glasses so I was gone by 15.”

Harding volunteers the information that he is “a Fine Gael supporter. I think they’re doing a good job.” But does Fine Gael care about the arts?

“I’m not too sure about that.” He points me to his satirical poem, McCarthyland, in his new book. It’s about the economist, Colm McCarthy’s attitude towards the arts.

“He basically says that not a penny should be put into the arts because art will happen anyway.”

The fruit of Harding’s art manifested itself relatively late in life. A father of three children, now grown up, he is in no doubt that he couldn’t have lived the life of an artist.

“I was working in the business 70 hours a week which is what happens when you’re working for yourself.”

But he doesn’t regret putting in the hours. It allowed him to retire early. He is “half-way through the next book”.

That cycling has really taken off in recent years is something that Harding smiles at. He says he could have made lots more money had he remained in the bicycle-selling business. But he has no regrets on that front either.

Harding leads a nice life, cycling around the city when he comes into town, jotting down ideas for poems (although not at the same time), crafting them and meeting “the lads one night a week for a pint.”

He cites the late Limerick-born, Kinsale-based poet, Desmond O’Grady, as “a bit of a mentor. I was a drinking buddy of his. He suggested that I try Revival Press which publishes up-and-coming writers.”

It has been all down hill ever since for this late-flowering poet.