You have probably heard references in this ranting drivel about a certain Margaret Ryan. Now Margaret was a legend in her own lifetime. She was always a fixture around our house. She started in the employ of my Great Aunt Molly a goodly number of years in the distant past. When my mother inherited from Molly, Margaret was in the package.
She ran the post office and did general chores for my great aunt and when we took over the post office and built the shop, she just naturally came with the territory.
She had a caustic tongue and could strip the paint from a door at 50 paces and despite her diminutive size, you didn't mess with Margaret. She scorned all the trappings of the electronic age and did all the post office processes manually, much to the dismay and frustration of the powers that be. She handled all the pensions, dole and farmers AI phone calls (and the "I" did not stand for intelligence).
Her age was a mystery until in the last years of her life she broke her hip and had to tell me on the way to the hospital. She managed the Post Office well past official retirement despite numerous attempts to force her into retirement. This was not helped by the fact that Margaret did not have a birth certificate and was never out of Ireland in her life, so had no need of a Passport etc.
One particular Wednesday, which was half day in the Post Office, an officious looking mad arrived into the shop.
"Good afternoon, my name is Mr O'Sneaky-jobsworth-smarmy-fecker" says he
"And" says the ould lad, in fine form
"I wish to discuss the Post Mistress with you" says greasy man
"And, who the feck are you" says the ould lad
"I am a representative of the post master general" replied tiny man drawing himself to his full height of 5 foot. And flashing his ID
Now the ould lad was a little gruff at the best of times but his treatment of officialdom was legendary.
"Fire away" says the ould lad
"When was Miss Margaret Ryan born" says official jobsworth
"No Idea" says the ould lad
"Roughly" says soppy bollix
"Sorry, I have roughly no idea" says the ould lad
"We believe her to be past retirement age" says smarmy git
"Get away" says the ould lad.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, he got nowhere and my mother was no direct help either and he went away no wiser. This little charade was to be a regular occurrence every year as the wheels of government tried to turf Margaret out of a job.
When the ould lad sold the shop Margaret didn't like the new owners much so she retired of her own accord and working back from the hip incident I calculated that she was 85 years young when she retired (about Tikay's age).
Great woman.
