Due to the wonders of modern technology I was able to listen to John Bowman do a programme about Aloys Fleischmann on RTE 1 this morning.
He would have been 100 about this time if he lived.

He was a fascinating character and as well as seeing him flying around Cork on his scooter (well into his seventies) I did meet him several times.

His wife Nancy was a cousin of both my mother and father(Cork was a small town then) and his daughter Maeve was a contemporary and friend of mine, so I was often up in their old, huge very ramshackle house in The Glen (called I think, Glen House)
I remember going there one day and Aloys was in the garden with a wheel barrow full of mud, wearing a dressing gown over his clothes.
He told us that he was clearing the stream which flowed under the house.
He wore the dressing gown, it turned out, to protect his clothes.

Nancy told a story on the radio this morning about a house ghost which they used to hear thumping about on the wooden floor of the hall, “But then”, she said with some pride, “when we got the fitted carpets we didn’t hear him any more”

Strangely I remember when they got those carpets, Maeve brought me in to show them off proudly !
I don’t think there was a lot of money spent on unnecessary décor on Glen House over the years.

I was a bit of an anomaly in those days being a teenage member of Cork Ballet Company.
Aloys, delighted to see that any of Nancy’s family was interested in the arts, made a particular effort to always come and talk to me when the Cork Symphony met up with the ballet company.
A kindly man.