Organization at my station...

Today was mainly spent going through the files I've downloaded from Derry of the Past and neating the comments attached to them, as I read them. I'm focused on the time period prior to 1973 and around 1981, only, but there's a lot from the whole history of Derry in photos and people's memories. It's like I'm listening in on conversations in a pub as others reminisce. Kind of sneaky but very useful.

I've gotten a lot of images off there that I've posted on my blog as well as links to other sites with information that's helping form the story and characters. Like this image of Edmiston Keys from 1970. People posted so much in the comments about the toys and Christmas shop and how someone once bought a Monopoly game there...a moment I wrote to happen in a shop up by Austin's Department Store is going to be changed to here. It works better.

Brendan is waiting for a clerk at the shop to arrive for work so he can give him a watch he'd repaired for the man and get the schilling he was promised. But his mother catches him and thinks he's planning to buy a toy instead of give the money to her, like a good son should. He's only 11, but it gets rough and a constable has to get between them. 

It comes out that Brendan's actually giving money he makes to his older sister, Mairead, because she uses it for the family while his mother gives some of what they get from the dole to the Catholic Church...even though that's barely enough to live on. In response, his mother takes him to their priest to explain where the money goes...which does not go at all well and sets him down a path of wariness regarding the church.

Needless to say, this all comes back to cause trouble as his life goes on.