Con McCool’s Dream was a poem about a soldier on the front lines of World War Two as he reminisced about life in Lurgan and the characters he encountered on a dander through the town.

With the help of Esther Kinkead, Con McCool’s son has been in touch and gave us a run down on his poetic father.

Maynard Scott lived in Lurgan for his first eight years in the 1930s and 40s, his father David, penned Con McCool’s dream.

Maynard said: “I suppose you could say that I am the son of Con McCool although I never saw myself in that light.

“My father worked as a freelance for the Lurgan Mail for several years before the war. Being young at the time I have no great knowledge of his work.”

He continued: “My father was born in 1901 in the village of Milford, near Armagh and died in Manchester in 1987, he had two brothers, one of which was his twin, and two sisters.

“He joined the Scout movement under the eye of scoutmaster William McCrum who also owned the linen factory in the village.

“I remember him once telling me he and William once had dinner with both Lord and Lady Baden Powell.

“And there is also a rumour that McCrum invented the penalty kick for football.”

David married Maud Thompson from Banbridge in 1932 and they set up home in Victoria Street, Lurgan. Their first child, David died from scarlet fever at just 18 months. Maynard was born in 1937.

He continued: “My father volunteered for the war and posted to the Royal Army Pay Corps in Manchester. His war years were spent in an old mill commandeered by the Army with the role of arranging pay for officers.

“He was billeted with a churchgoing family in a house nearby and remained with them throughout the war. I believe that it was from this house, soon after settling in, that he wrote Con McCool’s Dream.

“My father was almost the same age as the century and as such his best days were behind him when war broke out. I’m afraid the only front line soldiering that he did was dodging the Manchester Blitz like everyone else in that great city.

“During those six years he came home to Lurgan occasionally for just a week at a time, I can remember having a great time playing between the hay stacks when he took me out to Carson’s farm near Lurgan.

“On another occasion, probably when I was still only a six or seven years old, he took me around the Lurgan Mail offices and printing area. My abiding memory from that occasion is the smell of printing ink.”

David was one of the first to be demobbed when the war ended. when he came home he got a job in Stormont, however, shortly after his wife died in January 1946.

Maynard and his father moved to Manchester where David remarried, Maynard concluded: “Although my father continued to write poetry almost to the end of his life the only complete poem I have of his which is relevant to those far off days is one entitled ‘Ulster Memories’.