I have never been lucky at raffles, the Lotto, or draws. But I won two ducks once. Delph ducks. The kind that cannot swim, fly, or be eaten. I was a small boy then and delighted to win anything. And, unlike those ducks that can swim, fly, or be eaten, mine are still among us all these decades later. They grace the mantelpiece at home in Ballaghaderreen.
I won them at “the Brothers’ Bazaar”, as it was called. A bazaar in Ballaghaderreen? How bizarre. It took place before Christmas every year in St Mary’s Hall to raise funds for the local De La Salle Brothers’ school where I was a pupil. To this small boy it was a hugely exciting affair, not least when entrusted with selling raffle tickets for each item.
People donated prizes and these covered the range of those products which we were told in geography class were manufactured in Birmingham, “everything from a needle to an anchor”.
Such largesse. Particularly when arranged neatly on the stage in St Mary's. There in front of the tiered, red velvet seats which smelt of tobacco, betraying its more usual night time occupation as the town cinema. I saw Ben Hur there for the first time, at a matinee. And Pit in the Pendulum, which cured me of horror movies for life. All those cowboy films too.
St Mary’s was always packed for the bazaar and I looked forward to it every year, particularly when my senior boy status was finally recognised by appointment as ticket seller. All gone now. St Mary’s in a fire. The De La Salle Brothers are long gone. I am no longer a senior boy/ trusted ticket seller. But the two ducks remain.
I never did find out how such an exotic word as bazaar was chosen for what was really just a fundraising event. Not that I thought it was such an exotic word then. It was “the Brothers’ Bazaar”.
Nowadays the word bazaar has more to do with those huge markets I've seen in Middle Eastern and North African countries, sometimes referred to as souks. And that is as it should be as bazaar originated with the Persian word bazar also vicar, meaning "a market". Souk originated with Arabic word suq, meaning "marketplace". inaword@irishtimes.com
