I was at a car boot sale last Sunday and noticed a woman selling pots from the back of a van. She was wearing a silver cross. It hung from her neck and dangled in front of her black bodice. The woman buying the pots wore a cream hijab. Nobody asked what religion the pots were, and from a distance, I could see the two women examining the lids, and handles, and feeling the weight of steel in the bottom of each pot.
The women smiled at each other, laughed, and then the one with the hijab opened a purse and began counting money. Maybe they had common experiences in the cooking of soups for cantankerous men or desperate children, and here at a car boot sale reaching across cultures, they had time just to be women and laugh.
Then I saw a man from eastern Europe selling roses from the back of a van. I greeted him with a wave because I knew him. I bought a chainsaw from him about seven years ago and almost cut my leg off. I shouldn’t be let near a chainsaw because I’m not trained. And one thing I learned very quickly as the big saw dangled from my left hand with the blade still running was that you’d be better to get trained if you fancy yourself wielding that class of a weapon among the briars.
I saw two young African boys staring at me as I stared at them, and I got a salute from a Traveller man I know, and then I saw a whippet-thin gent drenched in tattoos speaking in a London accent
There were a few Ukrainian men at the car boot sale too. Or at least I think they were Ukrainian because I recognised a smattering of Russian words peppered through their conversation and they looked like grumpy Kerry men discussing a football match. They gathered around the man with the roses at the back door of his van, but they weren’t buying flowers.
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I tend to stroll around car boot sales admiring the population, rather than looking for something in particular. I saw two young African boys staring at me as I stared at them, and I got a salute from a Traveller man I know, and then I saw a whippet-thin gent drenched in tattoos speaking in a London accent to a couple of Italians; trying to sell them little money wallets he claimed were one hundred per cent Italian leather.
There were a lot of orange and yellow high-visibility jackets for sale, hanging on the empty frame of a stall that the wind had blown down. There were boiler suits for sale, and racks of shirts, and denim trousers, and big blue barrels and a horse box. There were clocks and Delph dogs, ornaments for the mantelpiece, a Chinese woodcarving of Christ on the cross and four ducks in flight stranded in a tray of second-hand watches. On the ground was one full line of wheels for wheelbarrows. And walking sticks. And of course the roses.
There were always people who fled from war, he explained. And invariably they settled in cities, were destitute, and collected around coffee houses where they spread new ideas like viruses
The roses, I thought would bloom the same in any soil.
George Steiner, the philosopher, used to say that Europe was an intellectual construction forged in the coffee houses of various cities across the Continent. There were always people who fled from war, he explained. And invariably they settled in cities, were destitute, and collected around coffee houses where they spread new ideas like viruses; fusing stories and memories, philosophy and dreams of the future. Thus, according to Steiner, Europe was born into its unique modernity.
Except that nowadays you’d need a job in the Civil Service to dare stick your snout inside the door of a coffee house and order a bun. But it’s when I’m scouring the car boot sales on Sunday mornings, I feel I’m looking at a similar social transformation. And that in these liminal spaces a new world may already be germinating that will one day evolve into a new Ireland.
Car boot markets are not exactly the Open University. But migrants who come from Syria or Ukraine, from Somalia or Sudan, can gather in open markets to cheer themselves up and meet other people who are also trying to build something socially.
And some day their children will go to school and university and find each other in canteens along the way. They will ask questions like,
“Where are you from?”
And hear answers like,
“I’m from Carrick-on-Shannon.”
Because one thing for certain is that young people will always fly from war on whatever life raft they can find and etch their dreams on some peaceful corner of the earth they can call home.