By Brian McDaid
Music was my escape growing up. A song would drift over the airwaves through an old radio where I worked as a teenager and I would make it my own.
I didn’t need to know the singer or even the title, and it wasn’t even the riff that hooked me. I think it was the contrast of the times I was living in to the daydream that a song transported me to.
I was the boy, or man, or the hero in that song.
Music or sounds of a different type always take me back to days of my childhood.
There were even different types of ‘calls’ when we were growing up in Letterkenny.
There was the Oatfield hooter that rang out every working day morning at 8.30, reaching all parts of a much smaller town, calling its workforce to another day.
The angelus bells of St. Eunan’s Cathedral rang at midday and teatime every evening, when people would stop for a moment and reflect.
Then there was the fire siren which called out from the old station on the High Road.
It was always followed by the sounds of firemen rushing from work or their homes, day or night, to the station.
It was a sound that I always looked forward to hearing if I was anywhere near the High Road.
One of the firemen, the late Eamon Harvey had a rally car that he also used as his road car and you would often see it tottering about Letterkenny.
But when the fire call came in, Eamon was in the right car to get him first to the station as he released all the horsepower in a sprint to the High Road.
The sound of his rally car sometimes sounded louder than the fire siren.
Many days I stopped and listened as the slates rattled on the roofs of the High Road to the echo of the Avenger as Harvey headed to the station.
Eamon and Noel Harvey in their Group 0ne Green Hillman Avenger on its first Donegal International Rally in the 1970s
That sound from the past drifted into my memory this week when I listened to an historic rally car starting up in a garage on a hillside overlooking Letterkenny.
A son of the late Eamon, Andrew Harvey has spent the last 12 years gathering bits here and memories there to recreate a very beautiful part of life growing up in Letterkenny.
A couple of pumps on the throttle to take fuel into the chambers of the twin forty Weber carburettors – a delicate job at the best of times, it’s so easy to ‘miss it’ and end up flooding the engine.
Andrew turns the key and the car starts up.
The sound is magic.
The engine is a bit rough with the high lift cam when cold. Building up the revs a bit, the car nudges its way from the darkness of the garage to the glow of low autumn sunshine.
The green is the same green sprayed by the same man that sprayed the first coat of green many years ago.
Paul Shiels and his son Brian Shiels put another coat of identical green on an Avenger almost 50 years later.
Wee bits of trim for the half vinyl roof that could not be found when the car was nearly finished, held things up.
However, after long searches and many phone calls these very unique details that were part of the original 1600GT Avenger were sourced and the car looked as good as the first day Eamon turned the key in its ignition.
Back in the early seventies, even before I was old enough to go to a rally, Eamon seemed to be always going somewhere around the town in the rally car.
You could see it parked up at early morning Mass covered in mud from a local navigation rally the night before.
It was a familiar sight outside the Downtown Bar even though Eamon was a tea-totaller and non-smoker! He spent his Sunday mornings playing squash in the old Downtown Squash Centre.
And his car sat outside.
One evening myself and my best friend, Martin McHugh watched Eamon coming up the New Line Road in his Avenger before pulling into his home.
We were star struck at the sound of the rally car.
We were mad about rally cars and we called over to Eamon as he got out of the car, lunch box under his arm, and asked if he would settle our argument for us.
Amused he walked across his front garden to see what we were chatting about. We were wondering if his rally car was a ‘Hillman’ Avenger or a ‘Chrysler’ Avenger (Chrysler being the American car maker that took over the British brand Hillman).
“Have you got money on this?” Eamon asked. He didn’t gave us a straight answer on the brand, other than to tell us it was a 1600 GT Group One rally car.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve got talking to Paul Shiels who worked on preparing many of Eamon’s rally cars over the years when he worked with Danny Caddye in his garage on Church Lane.
Paul reckons the green Avenger was the most successful car that Eamon ever had.
He sprayed Eamon’s car for the first time over 40 years ago down in a builder’s workshop on the Railway Road.
The late Patrick McGonagle had just built a new workshop at the back of his home and Paul asked if he could use it rather than the old tin shed on the Church Lane.
Eamon Harvey with his green Hillman Avenger in the 1970’s. Included are his father Con and his sons Nigel, Darren and Andrew at the home on the New Line Road. Also in the background is Con’s Hillman and the Yellow Ford D Series that Eamon drove for Donegal County Council.
Eamon told Paul to spray the car in a loud colour so it would stand out.
But on seeing it when it was finished Eamon initially didn’t like it.
The ‘Meadow Green’ colour, an original Talbot colour, was one that Paul and Eamon saw on an Avenger when they were in the Isle of Man at the Manx Rally a few years earlier.
But they stuck with the colour and Harvey’s bright green Avenger (UIH 131) became a very well known part of life around Letterkenny.
Those that sponsored Eamon had their business names on the side of the car all year round, not just for the weekend of the rally.
Eamon had an outright win in this car a rally in Mayo, with a young emerging rally driver called James Cullen finishing second that weekend in another Avenger – both cars being prepared by Danny Caddye, Paul Shiels and Gerry Doran in their corrugated iron workshop on the Church Lane.
There are family photos in Andrew’s home, many featuring the green Avenger, sometimes in the background and sometimes on a stage. They tell a very powerful story.
Some still have the burn marks around the edges.
They were salvaged by the family after a very serious house fire at the family home on the New Line Road back in the 1990’s.
One such photo captures Eamon and Noel Harvey heading through a water splash on the Isle of Man.
Another image captures three generations of the Harvey family gathered around the Avenger on the New Line Road.
Sadly Eamon passed away 20 years ago this year before his 60th birthday.
Eamon’s father Con, his son Nigel and his wife Carrie have all passed from this earth but their memories live on.
Eamon’s two sons Andrew and Darren posed for a photo alongside the green Avenger nearly 50 years on this Bank Holiday Monday evening.
I worked with their father Eamon in the fire service in Letterkenny for over 20 years.
I can see his mannerism in both of them and in their children as we get side-tracked talking about days long ago.
Meanwhile the old green Avenger has still a small bit of work to be done over the winter months.
Drivers like Eamon Harvey got me interested in rallying. I often dreamed that some day I would rally an Avenger just like my hero.
But along the way I found my way into photography, capturing rally events. That eventually led me into a career and over 40 years later, I’m still doing it.
And here I am full circle, getting a few photos of the green Avenger once again as another generation of the Harvey family get ready for the road.
Their plan is to have the car ready for next year’s Donegal Rally where Andrew will steer and Darren will navigate.
It’s been a wonderful journey.
It’s like Andrew took the memory of his father’s car and its history, deconstructed it and then very carefully put it all back together.
The original lyrics were worked out by Paul Shiels and Danny Caddye in the old garage on Church Lane.
The music being the mechanics of the old Hillman Engine with the twin Weber carbs and its whining gearbox, and limited slip differential coming to life.
The rehearsals back in the 70s was listening to rally cars coming across the old railway sleepers in Caddye’s old workshop out of the Church Lane on dark winter nights and heading up Glencar for a shake down spin.
Then it was through to the final stage – that of a hot weekend in June where its driver never missed a beat or a gear change as thousands turned out to watch super stars and local heroes like Eamon Harvey take part in the natural amphitheatre that is the hills of Donegal.
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