My Life Story by theirishobserver......

I have finally decided to write my life story. I will use a new Hub for each chapter so that it will be easier to read. In order to protect the identity of family members and others I will have to change names and places as I go along. I hope you understand and appreciate the need for me to do this. I don’t think that changing the names will impact on the detail and richness of the story. Well here we go. Enjoy.




I was born in the mid 1960s. My mother and father were both Irish, they had travelled to England to find work and that is where they meet. This was not uncommon in Irish society. Particularly during times of economic depression in Ireland, Irish people would go to England or America in search of a better life. I was born in England, a home birth I am told, born in a basement flat, a flat that lacked the luxury of heating or running water. Our neighbours and friends were other Irish families and West Indians all searching for a new beginning. My father worked as a labourer on the railway lines. Work for Irishmen in England was usually labour intensive. The Irish were known around the world as hard workers and heavy drinkers. However, I think the drink aspect is often over stated as some of the worlds leading business men and women are of Irish blood, and we all know you won’t go far in business if you’re too fond of the drink.



So the streets of England were not paved with gold as my mother and father had expected. As our family grew and our basement flat did not, my mother and father decided to return to Ireland, when I was still a baby, ah. Eventually, I would be blessed with eight sisters and one brother. Returning to Ireland in the late 1960s did not improve my mother and father's financial position. Ireland was in economic decline and Northern Ireland (the north) was about to explode with civil unrest and political turmoil.



Catholics were being discriminated against in Northern Ireland by the Protestant dominated Stormont Government in Belfast. Northern Ireland was at that time made up of approx 1 Million Protestant citizens who wished to remain within the United Kingdom, and 500,000 Catholics who viewed themselves as Irish. As a large Catholic family we could not get a council house and so we were forced to live in a house that was well past its sell by date. In better times this would have been a nice farm house, but it had lay idle for many years and had become damp and semi-derelict.



The road that leads to our house was poorly maintained as there were only four houses on the road. This meant that everything was a struggle; just getting a bag of coal for the open fire took great effort. The house consisted of two bedrooms up stairs, one of which could not be used due extreme damp. Damp that left a lingering green fungus on the walls and ceiling. The other room was more like a loft over the stairs. It was in this loft that we all did sleep, eventually that would be twelve of us. Down stairs there was an old kitchen that had a big black stove for solid fuel burning. There was also a small parlour, where hedgehogs would sleep in the winter. The sitting room was the only place that could be described as warm, and that was only if there was fuel for the fire.



There was neither running water nor inside toilet. Water had to be carried from a spring well that was a short distance from the house. A small tin shed was the toilet, enough said about that. There was no electricity in the house when we had first moved in, however, my father had run an electric cable from the mains on the road so that we could power the lights.



My father having come from a farming background planted some vegetables and potatoes in the garden. The privet hedge that surrounded the house was used for drying our clothes, when retrieving clothes from the hedge row ear wigs and other foreign bodies had to be carefully removed as they would invade every crevice of the garments. Have you ever heard a girl scream having found an earwig climb towards her ear? Well then have pity as I had eight sisters who all hated earwigs. There was no outside light, so winter time could be real fun when trying to find the outside toilet in the middle of the night.



My older sisters were my play mates as nobody else lived near us. We would spend many hours catching wild rabbits and keeping them as pets in a pen. We also had some chickens and at Christmas we would rear some turkeys to sell in the market. I was also given a pup when he was three months old and I was three years old. I loved going across the fields with my dog. In the summer time we would go to the near by river to swim. We would spend long days catching baby fish in jam jars and on the walk home we would collect wild berries. Along the hedge rows there would be blackberries, strawberries and crab apples. These are small bitter apples, but when you have nothing, they are great. Now and again we would agitate a nest of wasps along the hedge row for fun, however, not recommended, silly thing to do, as we often got stung.



I often sat on the river bank for hours trying to catch baby fish in a jam jar. My sparkling clean jam jar attached to a length of white string would be cast a few feet from the river bank, and I would wait patiently for them to go into my jar before pulling it quickly from the water. The jar had to be crystal clear so that the baby fish could not see it in the water. The glass cul de sac would leave them with no escape route. It took some time to prepare a jam jar for minno (baby fish) fishing. The glued label had to be soaked in hot water and scrubbed for several minutes with a wire pad to detach it from its foundation. The string had to be a manageable length and secured around the neck of the jam jar. This task took particular care and attention; too much string around the neck of the jam jar would alert the fish to the trap that lay ahead.



The jam jar had to be cast several times before any serious fishing could be done. Several casts would remove any odours or soap residue that may remain on the jam jar or string. The flowing current would carry these excesses down stream. The jar was then cast and allowed to settle to the bottom of the river bed that was covered in a mattress of moss and silt. Caution had to be taken to ensure that the jar did not strike any of the many rocks that lay upon the river bed. The initial cast would scatter the baby fish. However, after a moment or two of cam the shoal of want-to-be trout would return to the shadow and illusion of safety created by the long grass and ad hoc shrubbery of the river bank. The ad hoc shrubbery was made up of wild rose bushes, whose thorns could pierce to the bone an unsuspecting intruder, lured by their fragrant and coloured blossoms. Rushes could grow unhindered among the protective armour of the hoards of thorn clad roses.



The river was crystal clear in the summer and only a few feet in depth. I had to pull quickly on the string once my prey was inside the jar. The minos were very sensitive to movement. Having captured my prey I would hold the cold wet jar in my hand and pour the small fish into my holding jar. In the short journey from my catching jar to my holding jar, the baby fish would like migrating salmon, attempt to swim against the torrent of pouring water. My holding jar was one of those family sized jam jars that was made by Robinson's jam company. At the end of the day I would simply empty the baby fish back into their watery community.



I would watch as the May flies like fighter jets in search of a target skimmed the surface of the river. Sometimes by way of navigational error the May fly would touch the water's surface and create a radiant ripple. This ripple was to the trout what the starter’s pistol is to an athlete. A trout would spear up from the water below and pluck the May fly from the air. Rocks pierced the waters surface creating small white water rapids which provided camouflage for the lurking trout.



The large oak trees that stood to attention on the perimeter of the large field behind me would be tickled by the cool evening breeze. The hills in their snooker table greenery rolled to the river's edge. The smell of freshly cut grass filled the meadow air. The delicate stems of buttercups and bluebells remained in defiance of the farmer’s mower. Rabbits would scurry and play in the large dry mud beds. These mud beds cut from the hill side by the borrowing of generations of their forefathers. However, even in those early days the cruel pain of maximatocious had reduced the numbers of the rabbit clan. Bloated eyes and the smell of imminent death stalked the small furry white tailed caricatures of Disney's famous movie Water Ship Down.



A few of the Mammy and Daddy rabbits had been reduced to maggot infestations. The baby rabbits would instinctively run back and forward to the place where their parents had fallen dead from this heinous disease. The smell of death was too much for the small creatures who simply wanted to be playful. In a final act of selflessness the adult rabbits moved a safe distance from the borrows of family and neighbours before falling dead in what must have been excruciating pain. It is all very well for farmers to say rabbits needed to be controlled, but in the eyes of a child this is simply cruelty.



Cattle would come down to the waters edge on the opposite bank. Their hoofs would muddy the water momentarily. The small clouds of muck would be carried away by the current, although cumbersome animals, the cattle of multi-breed and colour, moved gently on the waters edge. Although moving in numbers of a dozen or more they made no sound. Perhaps these animals were aware of the delicate task of the fisherman on the bank opposite. What ever the reason for the nodded acceptance of each others presence, I shared the river with my friends from the animal kingdom contently. As dusk fell I would collect up my fishing tools and begin the long walk home.



As I crossed the meadow frogs hopped along the deep tracks cut into the soft ground by the farmer’s heavy machinery. I would walk along the narrow over grown twisted single lane road that ran back to our house. Along the middle of this road stood a tuft of grass that was occasionally manicured by the under belly of the farmers tractor.



From the high hedge row I would pick a few bright red strawberries while discarding the yellowish green ones. Like Emory, the blackcurrants would shine from the hedge rows as the setting sun flashed across their moist tender flesh. In early evening the fruit fly would feed on the berry's luscious blood red juices within. I had often watched the fruit fly at close quarter as its small intravenous tongue penetrated the flesh of the fruit.



The transfusion of juice from fruit to fly would reduce the fruit to a vampirian corpse. I could not pass the crab apple trees whose branches reached their fruit alluringly down to head height. The tempestuous bitter fruit of the crab apple trees would take a heavy toll on my digestive system. Yet the bitter first bite of the crab apple is like no other experience. The wrenching of the face and squinting of the eyes, as the bitter juice touches the tongue, is one of natures electrifying moments.



One of the houses on the road where I lived when I was a child belonged to an elderly couple who had no children. These were wonderful people who had a small farm; I would spend as much time on the farm as I could. They had a few milking cows each of whom had a name. They also had some beef cattle and a selection of fowl, ducks, hens, geese and so forth.



This couple treated me like a son and I always helped out on the farm when I could. When the hay had to be taken in my sisters, father and I would help. When the cattle were ready for the market we would load them up early in the morning and spend the day at the mart. I loved the mart; I always got big mugs of tea and a scone (type of bun) with lashings of butters melting on top.



This couple lived on low lying land that was close to the river where I fished. I remember in the 1970s long before talk of global warming and such like that there were severe floods. Their house was flooded throughout; the water was going in the front door and out the back. My father and I helped to rescue all the animals. It was very scary; Sarah and William had only been altered to the flooding when their bed began to float as they were sleeping. We rescued all the animals and eventually everything returned to normal.



While we were Catholics these neighbours were Protestants. William had been in the British forces when he was a younger man and had injuries to his legs from that time. However, this was none of my business as a young child; I simply enjoyed working on the farm. William had a TVO tractor (small) which helped him to get about the farm. He also had a small black Morris Oxford car which only came out of the garage when absolutely necessary, to go to Church on a Sunday or some other special occasion.



Sarah baked the most wonderful bread, I particularly remember treacle bread, she would take a loaf out of the oven and it smelt like heaven. On occasion she would stand at the half door of their small thatched cottage and call to me as I made my way to school to give me some freshly baked treacle bread. I would have the bread eaten before I got to school. Saturdays were my favourite time on the farm as the bread man would call with his fresh delivery of soda bread and potato bread. Soon a large Irish fry would be sizzling on the pan, the sausages, bacon and black pudding would create an aroma fit for the nose of a king.



When Willie and I had finished milking the cows, we would be sat down to an Irish fry. As we entered the house my nostrils were filled with the smell of freshly baked wheaten bread, oh what a joy.



Bacon crackled on the heavy iron skillet, sausages sizzled on the pan are their fragrance popped from their skin. Fresh eggs collected from the dozen or so hens, spat their juices onto the top of the old cast iron stove. The Denny sausages had to be placed in the oven before Willie had them tasted away to nothing. Sarah was one for detail and even breakfast had to be laid upon a freshly cleaned lace table cloth. The dogs would be rewarded for their mornings work with a freshly cooked sausage. I cut into the soft homemade butter with one of Sarah’s prized ivory (fake) handle knives. The butter melted into the still hot wheaten bread. Soon Willie would be sleeping in his arm chair. Sarah and I would settle to watch the Saturday afternoon wrestling on the black and white telly. Great names like Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks still ring in my ear.



In the early 1970s the British Army had moved into every town and village in Northern Ireland. The British army established a base close to the home of Willie and Sarah and they were no longer allowed to keep their cows. The cows had to go as the army would not allow the milk lorry in to collect the milk, for fear that the lorry may have been hi-jacked and a bomb planted on it. This type of proxy bomb was common practice. The terrorists would hijack someone, place a bomb in their vehicle and tell them to drive it into a target.



Local shops and businesses were also affected by the presence of the British Army, shops closed and others had to move. The British Army were very active around the border areas; this is the area that divides Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland. There is no physical border like the former Berlin wall, it is simply a political border drawn in the 1920s when the British were forced out of the area now known as the IrishRepublic.



On one occasion when I was about nine years old my father asked me to go to the shop for bread. It was about eight or nine o’clock on a winter’s night, the walk to the shop was only a few hundred yards. Any way as my father opened the front door of our semi-derelict house to let me out to the shop, several heads jumped up from behind the old stone white washed wall that surrounded our house. There was a clear sound of guns being cocked (ready to fire) and shouts of “Halt” “Halt” in an authoritive English accent. When the soldiers realised that we were simply man and boy they stood down their weapons.



I went on about my business after the soldiers explained that they were on foot patrol and thought our house was derelict. When they heard the door open they thought it was an ambush by terrorists. It was for me a frightening experience and my first real encounter with the British Army. I suppose in retrospect, the encounter was just as frightening for the young English soldiers who had been transplanted from working class areas in Liverpool and London to the back roads of a foreign land, were danger lurked in every shadow.



While my father was a pure breed Irish man he could not get a work permit in Northern Ireland as he was from the Republic. The refusal of work permits for Catholics from the Republic was only one of the many discriminatory laws set down by the Unionist (Protestant) dominated Northern Ireland Government (Stormont) at that time. My father had to sign on in the social welfare office as he was effectively an foreigner in his own country. I remember that for our large family he was getting eleven pounds per week, this would have been very small money to keep such a large family. My father worked illegally for many years in order to keep our family together. My father would collect the social welfare and work for cash in hand at the same time. My father had to leave our house early in the mornings and make his way across many fields to get to work so that he would not be seen by the authorities.



I often went to work with my father as I would get to work machinery and drive the big David Browne tractor. The women who owned the farm on which my father worked was one of God’s great gifts to earth, she grew all her own vegetables and fruits, she reared her own beef and bacon, her own hens for eggs and meat. She was juts a magnificent woman. She had two sons who later in life would become very successful businessmen. Her husband died young from a heart attack, I don’t remember him very well but I do remember him dying. I would often go fishing with one of her sons who had all the fishing equipment, rods, reels and so forth.



My father, who is still alive, had one great weakness and that was alcohol. The weekly routine of drunken binges and domestic violence were common place. We were already outsiders in the small town in which we lived, my father and mother’s behaviour did not help matters.



In my early years my mother would also abuse alcohol, this meant that what little money we had from social welfare and my father’s work was usually squandered in the public houses of the small town where we lived.



I have many memories of spending long days in the public houses that were dotted around our small town. Catholics and Protestants had their own public houses and rarely did both sides meet while socialising, a kind of self imposed apartheid. The pubs in those days were dusty old places, no fancy foreign brand drinks like today; it was bottles of Guinness and whiskey, Jesus, rough stuff folks. I would often be kept at home from school to help with my baby siblings, and then I would be the one to have to go looking for my father when he did not return from the pub. Social services were constantly at our door; in them days being home alone was common practice.



You know it is easy to look back and ask what the feak my mother and father were doing, but, I suppose having been through the wars now myself, criticism does not answer many questions. I often seen my mother struggle to bring a bag of coal home from the coal merchants up the town, she could not afford the extra few pence for the delivery charge and so the coal would be pushed in a child’s pram. They were difficult times to say the least, but we survived, sort of.



My mother who had travelled to America and England before settling in this small town was fearless. My father without drink was passive, when drunk he would like the wolfman turn into a monster. My mother did not need drink to stand up for herself, she was lethal. My mother’s anger and frustration with life was often misplaced, she would often cause trouble that simply bounced back on myself or my siblings at school. This was a small town where your every move was monitored by the curtain twitchers. But mother carried on regardless, we were often left home alone, social services would be called, mother would point the finger at one neighbour or another and war would break out.



As we were Catholics living in a small divided town it was easy to find yourself with no one on your side, mother did not care, and she was not put on this earth to make friends. In deed today she is in her 70s and she still has a tongue that would shame the devil. On occasion mother reported some local Catholic lads to the police (RUC) for doing damage to a public building. This was a road too far for many and mother became more and more isolated in our small town. At school my siblings and I would reap what mother had sown. I was often brutalised by the older lads as I was an outsider, not from the root and soil of that small incestuous town.



In normal circumstances one would have said mother was right to report criminal damage to the police, however, the police in Northern Ireland were seen as a Protestant police force for a Protestant people. My mother’s behaviour was not acceptable in the Catholic community and the cold chill of isolation followed her every where. Many of the older lads that mother reported to the police had brothers at my primary school and so I would feel the pain of my mother’s ‘sins’.



I was very ill when I was a child, I had chronic asthma. The conditions in which we lived had aggravated my medical condition. Eventually, a Catholic priest would give me my last rites as it was thought I was about to die when I contracted pneumonia. I still have clear memories, when I was about nine years old, of people gathered around me. I was lying on the old vinyl couch, in the draughty front room of our old house. However, I made an incredible recovery after receiving the blessing and would never again be afflicted by asthma. Strange but true, why this happened I don’t know.



I did however remain weak. And the older lads at school showed me no mercy. On one occasion during lunch time the lads attacked me again. There was nobody supervising the yard as the four teachers simply went home for their lunch. They all lived in the town and really done as they pleased, who was going to report them. On this occasion I was dragged by the hair down a step grass covered hill, the big lad who was dragging me eventually kept on walking with only a large clump of my hair in his hand, I was effectively scalped. I did not tell anyone what happened, I was in terrible pain. I covered over the large raw piece of exposed flesh, with my hair that was long and not too clean at that time.



About three weeks after I was so badly assaulted my mother was checking our hair for lice, you know the district nurse had sent home a message to all parents to check children’s heads. Well as my mother was checking my hair, she found a festering hole in my scalp. I would not tell what happened, if I told, I knew what would happen, she would go straight to the people who done it and I would simply get beaten again. So due to my silence my mother had to draw her own conclusions, she thought it was ring worm, a disease you can catch from some animals.



Assuming that my injury was due to ring worm, my mother took me to an old man who had the ‘cure’ for ring worm. We are great in Ireland for having people who have the ‘cure’ for things. This man’s cure was to spit on to the wound three times while saying a few words. His chewing tobacco as he done this did not induce much hope of recovery. Eventually he rubbed his spit hard into my head, sweet mother of divine Jesus; I am just remembering the experience. Within days of this ‘cure’ my head was a yellow festering lump, the smell was unbearable.



My Mother took me to the local doctor. The doctor immediately took a scalpel and cut the festering lump from my head. I can still remember the horrible smell and the filth that came from the wound. The Doctor threw the rotting flesh into a small tin bin beside the vinyl bench on which I lay. The Doctor then covered the wound with red surgical disinfectant I had often seen this disinfectant used on the farm where I worked with my father, it would be used on the pigs after they had been castrated. I had a bandage placed on my head and had to keep it on for a couple of months, having it changed regularly. The Doctor, long since dead, was a very kind man and gave me a bar of Cadburys chocolate when he had finished cleaning and dressing my wound. He told my mother that day that if the infection had been left any longer I would have been blinded by the poison.



I was off school for the full two months, I was glad, hated school. It is only as I write that I disclose how this injury came about. I never told until this day. Mother never knew and so I suppose never learned. Each time she would cause a problem for someone in the town, I would get the beatings.



Even the Headmaster joined in the beatings and brutality. This was a small school in a small town, in a time before bullying or abuse was an issue. The Headmaster had absolute power and he used it to ultimate effect. He had a leather strap embedded with brass studs, he would use this on any part of my body, and sometimes I was simply punched in the head or body. I never cried or showed emotion, this meant that he would build himself into a rage, but I would not give in.



This brutality was not done in secret but in front of the entire class. The class room was heated by an old cast iron pot bellied stove. On one occasion the Headmaster had built himself into such a rage and was hitting me with such force that his glasses flew from his face and into the open top of the burning pot belly stove. There was a flash of bright light as his glasses hit the burning coals. He bellowed at me to sit down, the girl seated beside me was crying because I had been beaten so badly. The Headmaster ran to where I was sitting and again punched me in the head; the punch knocked me to the ground. I simply got up and sat back in my seat, without uttering a word.











Ireland.



Ireland.



Ireland. The Early Years

I think my mother done her best; she eventually sobered up to some degree and began to pay for us to have soup for our lunch at a wee café beside the school. It was great getting soup and potatoes during the winter, there had been many days when we got nothing. As mentioned above the pot bellied stove was the only heating in the school, it burned coal and slack. The Headmaster constantly sent me out in the cold and wet to bring in coal or slack so that he could warm himself as he sat by the stove in his chair. It would take for ever for my clothes to dry when I would come back in out of the rain or snow. It was good in the summer when the warm weather came. Before we began to get the soup and potatoes for our lunch we used to have bread and jam, not always, but sometimes. There were wee half pint bottles of milk that we used to get free at school, which were great, although more often than not the bullies would get them first.



I remember once when I decided to retaliate against the Headmaster. It was not as dramatic as Kenny Roger’s, Coward of the County, but I felt good after it. It was just coming up to the summer holidays, the annual nine week break from hell. I was told by the Headmaster to remain in my seat while all the other children in the class took down our years work from the walls, drawings and paintings that we had done through the year. A general clean up before the holidays. At one point during the day the Headmaster left the class room, probably to check his bets in the bookies, the bookies was only down the street.



Any way opportunity and motive presented themselves. The Headmaster had left his tweed jacket hanging on the back of his seat. I wrote a note calling the Headmaster a bully and some other non publishable words. Another lad in the class who had also been brutalised by this basket weaver volunteered to put the note in the pocket of the Headmaster’s jacket. However, the other lad, Connor, chickened out and decided to retrieve the abusive note before the Headmaster returned. We both knew that the list of suspects would be short if the note were found.



Any way, Connor was happy that he had retrieved the note and I suppose I wasn’t that bothered, we knew what we would get if the note was found. I put the note in the back pocket of my trousers. When the Headmaster returned the first thing he done was put on his jacket. Connor and I looked at each other relieved that we had retrieved the note. The Headmaster sat down on his seat and almost immediately put his hand into his pocket. The Headmaster took a note from his pocket and began to read it; his face began to get very red. Connor and I looked at each other, I checked my back pocket, I had the note that Connor had retrieved. I gently took the note out of my back pocket and opened it under my desk, my heart stopped, the note that Connor had retrieved, was in fact the line out for the sports day we would be having the following day. The note the Headmaster had taken from his jacket pocket was my hand written note calling him all sorts.



Well it would not take CSI Miami to work this one out. However, the Headmaster called out another boy in the class, he was the class Rat. The Headmaster wanted someone else to point the finger. The Headmaster returned to the room and called Connor and I out to the front of the class. The Headmaster lost the plot, roaring and shouting obscenities, his face was apple red. I told him that Connor had nothing to do with it and had in fact asked me not to do it. Connor got six slaps of the brass studded leather strap and was returned to his seat with a kick up the ass.



The Headmaster tried to get me to hold out my hands, one on top of the other, I told him to Feak off, in plain simple language. The Headmaster battered me with the brass studded leather strap all over my body. I kept telling him to feak off and some other choice words were used. I would not give in and he just kept beating me. The beating lasted for ever, or so it seemed, then he spluttered out to return to my seat. I was satisfied that I had not given in, feak him. The Headmaster then announced that neither Connor nor I would be Alter Boys at the funeral of the Parish Priest who had recently died. To be Altar Boy at a Priest’s funeral would have brought us some pocket money, but that was not to be now, still it was worth it. I would never tell me mother what happened that day; I had to hide the big welts that covered my body from the blows of the brass studded leather strap. He was one hateful man, but he was not alone, recent reports produced in Ireland show that many in the Education sector abused their unquestioned position.



It was not all bad news, I remember one Christmas getting a three wheeled bike from Santa. On another occasion my cousin (RIP) won a toy wheel borrow at the annual Bazarre in the town. This was a sort of fund raising event for the local football club. Any way my cousin gave me the wheel borrow, it was great, made from tin and very solid, not like the plastic stuff you get today. I also had my border collie, Tiny. These were my worldly possessions. My clothes were normally from the second hand shop or the local Protestant jumble sale. I loved the Protestant jumble sales as they always gave away good clothes. Had my family lived in Brixton or the Bronx we would have fitted in quite easily to that academic term the ‘underclass’.



I have one good memory of primary school, only one, that was the day I won a box of sweets. The school had only four teachers, the Headmaster and his wife had two rooms and then there were two other female teachers. In the room that I had to attend for a couple of years before entering the Headmaster’s room, the female teacher was ok but she would not stand up to the Headmaster. Any way I would have been about 8 years old when this teacher held a quiz. The quiz was general knowledge, but my team won as I knew an answer about Louis Pasture, the man who invented pasteurisation, I only knew the answer because of my work on the farm. We were given one of those small boxes of Milk Tray to share, what a feast.



As I now conclude this chapter I have mixed emotions about what happened to me as a child. There were no such thing as children’s rights then, a Headmaster in a Catholic School in a small divided town was never challenged, who would dare, he and his wife made up the Board of management, they could basically do what they liked, they were smart enough never to hurt the children of the financially well off or the educated. Still that’s life, absolute power wields absolute abuse. I hope you have enjoyed this chapter and chapter 2 is already being worked on.