My Own Backyard

Dublin in the fifties. That was the time when 'Saturday Night Fever' meant a soap and flannel attack, when Nelson's Pillar was the city landmark, when being top of the pecking order meant knowing how to use your fists, and the sight of Brendan Behan suffering a woeful hangover or teddy boys in drainpipes strutting down the street was a regular occurrence.In My Own Backyard, Greg Dalton lifts the carpet on Dublin life in the fifties - often shabby and hilarious, but always truthful and entertaining. Growing up in a decade of cold swims in the 'Naller' or Grand Canal, watery grave to many a bicycle; of throwing the police off your tail with 'a wrong address and reverence'; of dealing with heavy-handed teachers, and ice skating on the lake in Stephen's Green.