This is a Christmas present from Robert; an antidote to Chips’s diaries.
Younger readers will be familiar with David Sedaris, once hilariously introduced as Sid Harris. As there aren’t many younger readers, he was born in 1956, reared in New York State and North Carolina, now living sometimes in Sussex. Irish readers may enjoy this entry.
“January 31, 2005
At the banquet dinner the other night in Dublin, I sat between a woman named Geraldine and a man named Tom … (who) talked about the European move to ban the swastika. .. “There used to be a cleaners, the most popular in Dublin, with that name. Swastika Cleaners, remember them, Jerry?” And the man across the table nodded his head.”
I remember it in Ballsbridge, being driven twixt Barmeath and Castle Park (prep school). The name wasn’t a fervent pro-Nazi statement. It commemorated the laundry founder’s horse, “Swastika Rose”.
“The company used electric vans, painted in red with a white swastika on a black roundel, to collect and deliver laundry to customers. The vans were quite ahead of their time.” (Wikipedia)
I hope Sedaris will lead me down more rabbit holes.
The laundry used to be beyond Ballsbridge nearer to Blackrock. But it is certainly on the coast road you would have taken to Dalkey in the way to Castle Park. E