11-07-2025
Colm O'Regan: We all need Sound Men, especially when we have to reverse a trailer in a dump
'Rome wasn't built in a day.' The kindest sentence I heard this week. Said to me by the man at the civic amenity.
For anyone not familiar, the 'civic amenity' is another name for the recycling centre which, in turn, was the new name for the dump.
I used to think it a euphemism but now I realise that it is actually is an amenity because it is probably the best place to improve a nation's mental health you could find.
'Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and hurl it off the Bulky Waste cliff' as the old song sort of goes. It's confession but instead of sins, it's stuff.
I had been looking forward to this moment for yonks — getting rid of a broken sofa. But it needed a trailer.
The difference between driving with a trailer and normal driving is like the first time you drive with a baby. You go slower, you're constantly looking back, and you're furious at anyone who comes too close.
But I'd mastered that bit and was looking forward to the thrill of getting rid of a sofa.
The civic amenity is good for mental health until you try to back a trailer into a Bulky Waste Bay, though. Which is what I was trying to do. I'd never reversed a car with a trailer before.
The thing you need to know about reversing a trailer for the first time is that you have to unlearn all you know about reversing.
You have to turn the car opposite to the way you want the trailer to go. And then at some point the rules change and the trailer won't go the way you want it even if you beg it.
So you have to go forward and straighten up and then try again and fail again.
To paraphrase Beckett 'Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Only now it's even worse.'
As Eminem would say, I was 'palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy' because others were waiting to use the bay and the man from the dump was watching me. It's parallel parking in traffic, the X-games version.
I got out and started to apologise saying it was my first time backing a trailer. He just said 'yerra take the trailer off altogether and we'll push it in.'
And we did and it was fine. 'Thanks and sorry again,' I said and then he said about the length of time it took to build Rome.
It's a capable man that can back a trailer. But it's a secure man that doesn't slag off another for making a hames of it.
In general, the lads who work at the civic amenities are a very sound bunch.
It's like they're acutely aware of humanity's mistakes, the hobbies that were discontinued, the inefficiency of material use, the paint that went off, the overshopping, so they take each new fallibility with good grace.
I have been rescued a few times by Sound Men when I've done something stupid.
Petrol in a diesel car (which is why you'll always find me at the pumps muttering 'diesel diesel diesel'. It's a mistake you only make once), an engine that ran out of oil.
And just at that moment what you don't need is someone describing in detail your mistake back to you and asking questions about why you made that mistake.
You just need someone to cluck sympathetically, pretend they once they made that mistake themselves, and fix the problem.
So this is my thank you to the Handy Lads Who Are Also Sound.
There's a lot of handwringing about role models for young lads.
But if they're stuck for ideas, they could do worse than following Sound Men.
