It's a Long Way from Penny Apples by Bill Cullen

From the Publisher

Tis better to be born lucky than rich....

There are many ways to confront tragedy and hard times. Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt's tragic--and ultimately uplifting--tale of how one man overcame adversity and found happiness in the New World is a compelling story that has touched thousands of readers.

It's a Long Way from Penny Apples is another view of the Irish experience, another man's journey out of the grinding poverty that held an entire generation of Irishmen in its thrall.

Poverty and its ills can rend a family apart and ruin countless lives, leaving individuals on their own to find their way, if they can, out of that despair and on to a new life. But not every family gives in to defeat. Sometimes the choice is to not leave anyone behind... and out of that love, a family can come together, using all their talents to bring all of their loved ones to a better place.

Bill Cullen was lucky enough to have one such family. Born and bred in the rough inner city slums of Summerhill in Dublin, Bill was one of fourteen children. Selling on the streets from the age of six, be it fruit, flowers, newspapers, Christmas decorations, football colors, or programs, was a means of putting food on the table for Bill and his family. He finished school at thirteen to go on the street fulltime. In 1956 Bill got a job as a messenger boy for a pound a week at Waldens Ford Dealer in Dublin.

Through hard work and unrelenting determination, Bill was appointed director general of the company, in 1965. Bill went on to set up the Firlane Motor Company which became the biggest Ford dealership in Ireland. In 1986 he took over the troubled Renault car distribution franchise from WaterfordCrystal. His turnaround of that company into what is now the Glencullen Group is a business success story-the group now has an annual turnover of 250 million.
Bill Cullen's story is an account of incredible poverty and deprivation in the Dublin slums. It highlights the frustration of a father and mother feeling their relationship crumble as they fight to give their children a better life. It's a story of courage, joy, and happiness--of how a mother gave inspiration and values to her children, saying to them, "The best thing I can give you is the independence to stand on your own feet."

It's a Long Way from Penny Apples is nothing less than a modern-day Horatio Alger story, told with humor and love; a heartwarming tale of redemption and overcoming adversity by one of the most famous self-made men in Ireland

Publishers Weekly

Cullen's memoir attempts to do for Dublin what Angela's Ashes did for Limerick. Born in the slums in 1942, one of 12 children, Cullen lived a life shaped by hard work, the Catholic Church and family. But unlike McCourt's unrelentingly sad account, Cullen's work trumpets the inner strength and humanity of Irish tenement dwellers. The Cullens may have been poor, but they were resilient. Young Liam, as he was called, worked the market stalls, selling everything from fish to newspapers. En route, he acquired an early and invaluable business education. His parents are a study in true grit, often toiling 15-hour days, while his grandmother instills in Liam a fierce pride in all things Irish, insisting, "Never forget your roots." And he never does. Indeed, he parlays a gift for math into a scholarship, managing to attend school and work every day. By the time he's a teen, he's putting in 75 hours a week at a Ford dealership. And it's there, aided by luck and street smarts, that he strikes it rich. The poor boy turns millionaire, moving from Ford franchise owner to CEO of Glencullen Motor Group. Although his early years are far more colorful and compelling than his later adult experiences, Cullen tells this rousing, heartfelt story with flair, honestly recounting the verbal and sexual brutality of some priests, the generosity of his community and his drive to succeed. Photos. (Mar. 3) Forecast: Ubiquitous marketing and promotions coinciding with St. Patrick's Day, including an author tour to U.S. cities with high Irish-American populations and ads in the New York Times Book Review, along with a blurb from Jack Welch, should help Forge sell this one, though one wonders if the frenzy for McCourt spinoffs has passed. Hodder & Stoughton published the book in the U.K. last year. Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Cullen is the multimillionaire owner of Glencullen Motor Group in Ireland, where this is a best seller. He grew up in Dublin slums, selling penny apples with his mother on the street. Penny Apples is an optimist's retort to Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, considered too depressing by many Irish. Cullen's story is rich in Dublin history and slang, but his rose-colored glasses are on tight; much is glossed over. The dangers of the slums are mitigated by the kindness of neighbors, and Liam's cleverness and love for his mother fill up the pages. Though perhaps a bit narcissistic, Cullen's tale is not dull, but he is so determined to paint his poverty-stricken childhood as an adventure without perils that it costs him his credibility. There's a complete absence of dynamic tension, as few examples of human misery are mentioned, much less explored. Where three copies of Angela's Ashes are on the shelf, a copy of Penny Apples will suffice.-Robert Moore, Bristol-Myers Squibb Medical Imaging, Billerica, MA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Growing up poor—but happy and clever—in postwar Dublin, from a self-made business success. There were many in late 1940s Ireland like the Cullens, who were working dirt-poor. But the extended family was also compassionate and supportive: the men were bricks, some with a better sense of humor than others, and the women bred self-respect into the children. "You have a great heart and you must always do what's right," young Liam (a nickname to distinguish him from his father) heard more than once, along with "You'll never meet a man better than yourself. Do yar best in everything." Cullen’s business sense became canny through working at his mother's street stall, which provided "a thorough grounding in economics and marketing. A business course on the streets it was." The author tells his story with considerable warmth and doesn't spare the low points, moments of humiliation and degradation. (After surprising a red-faced friend and a priest buttoning his trousers, "he never [again] left an altar boy with a priest or a curate in the privacy of the sacristy.") This is a very intimate portrait, showing little beyond the scope of Liam’s immediate purlieus and interests, and the author takes particular care to provide evidence that the dictums his family abided by formed a steady source of good fortune in his life. "Always be willing to do any man a good turn, son," his grandmother would note, followed by the comforting, "Never forget your roots, son. They’ll always be there for ya," the last coming after the women in the street stalls made a collection to help him meet his payroll after the banks turned him down. A few breaks, plenty of hard work, a sense of fun and fair play, and thispoor boy made financial good. Angela’s Glowing Embers: Heartfelt tribute to all those who made sure that economic hardship didn’t result in emotional poverty for a beloved child. (Photographs)

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Billy Cullen was heading back to bed when he heard it. A faint drone, but slowly getting louder. A bloody air plane. He took the clock from the shelf to the window and saw that it was twenty-five past one in the morning. Listening carefully, he guessed the plane was down in the south docks area, around Ringsend. Heading up the River Liffey. As the drone faded to the west, he sat on the chair and realized that it must have been the plane’s second time to go over, as he had wakened about ten minutes before. Pulling on his trousers, he went over to the bed and shook his wife’s shoulder.
“Wake up, Mary,” he said, and she was awake like a shot. “I’m going out the back because there’s a plane mooching around up there. Remember they accidentally dropped a bomb in Terenure a few months back.”
He lit the oil lamp and moved to the door while Mary hopped out of bed and put her shawl around her.
“Mind yourself, Billy,” she whispered as he let himself out.
“I’ll be okay,” he said. “Just bolt this door behind me and open it on my five taps when I get back.”
Billy stepped down the stairs in his bare feet and out the back door, to the scrubland behind the Summerhill tenements. On the way, he heard scuffles and murmurs from the spunkers in the basement and thought they’d have no chance down there if any bombs fell. When he got out to the yard, he saw the dockland searchlights weaving patterns in the sky. That would happen only if they had no information from Collinstown Airport on the passing plane. It could be a lostBritish bomber trying to get home, but he should be heading east to the British coast, not west into the Irish midlands. If it was a German, he too could be lost and might mistake Dublin for Belfast, or even a British city, if his instruments were faulty.
In the moonlight, he could clearly see the old stable buildings at the end of the yard stretching over to the Twenty-seven Steps, where his wife’s brother, Bob Darcy, had his horse and cart stabled. Just when he was thinking he could go back to bed, he heard the aeroplane again. The noise was louder now, definitely down by the docks but on the north side this time, and suddenly he saw the plane picked out by the searchlights: There was a German swastika on the side. He turned and dashed up the back stairs. He gave his “shave-and-a-haircut” taps and Mary opened the door.
“Get dressed, get the kids up,” he said. “We’d better get out of here; it’s a bloody German bomber up there.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when he heard the crump, crump, crump of bombs landing. He pulled Mary to the floor. There was another crump, crump, and then the noise of the aeroplane filled the room as it passed overhead. As the noise faded, Billy thought he heard another crump before everything went quiet. But the silence was broken now by the sound of shouts and screams. Mary picked up the two girls: Rita, who was four, and two-year-old Betty. The baby, Vera, was still asleep.
“Don’t touch any gas taps, Mary. Only use this oil lamp. And get the girls down to Molly’s,” he said, as he pulled on his boots and gansey. “That’s bombs the bloody so-and-so dropped, and it’s not far away, either. I’ll have to report to the Local Defense Force in Rutland Street School.”
Mary had herself ready and was dressing the girls. “It’s okay, Billy,” she said. “I’ll take care of things here and check out Mother Darcy. You make sure you get Big Bob with you down there, so give him a shout first.”
As Billy turned to leave, the door burst open, and Missus Carey from upstairs came in, crying, “Jesus, Mary, and Holy Saint Joseph, Mister Cullen, they’re going to murder us in our beds! Himself is after dropping on the floor with the fright.”
Mary put her arm around the old dear and said, “Off you go, Billy, I’ll look after all this. Take care of yourself.”
Billy moved out the door with his usual “You too,” and he threw a dabble of holy water on himself from the small font nailed to the wall under the picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Down the stairs he went, moving a few people aside on the way, and when he got out onto the street he saw his neighbor Tommy Farrell on the footpath.
“It’s down toward the Five Lamps, Billy. We’d better get moving to the school. Here’s Bob,” said Tommy, pointing down the street, where Big Bob Darcy was coming up the middle of the road. He was fully dressed.
“Bejaysus, a fella can’t even have a bit of a hooley with his pals but either the guards hoosh us out of the pub or some bloody German in his aeroplane tries to blow us all up. This is some state of affairs,” said Bob, and it was obvious from the white froth on his upper lip that he’d still been scooping Guinness when the bombs fell.
Billy looked over at Bob Darcy, his brother-in-law. A big tough man he was, a full six feet four inches and over 250 pounds: He wasn’t called Big Bob for nothing. While he was a gentle sort of fella, he was known to be fond of the Guinness and with the drink on him would take on any man in a fight. Billy Cullen didn’t touch the drink—in fact would never go into a pub—and from that point of view he had little time for Bob Darcy.
Billy knew that no matter how much booze Bob had in him, he would never show it. He had seen him outside the pub after a night’s drinking, still able to outfight a younger, sober opponent keen to be able to say he’d floored Big Bob Darcy. For tonight’s work his size and strength would be needed. Billy felt a shiver down to his boots as he saw the smoke and flames in the distance.
Up Summerhill they went, with people calling nervously from the hallways. Men with only their trousers on and the women in shawls.
“What’s up, Mister Cullen, are we in for a hiding?” someone shouted.
“No, it’s okay,” said Billy. “It was only one aeroplane, and it’s off home by now. Go back to bed, the LDF boys will take care of things.”
As he was saying this, they could hear the clanging of fire brigade bells not far away. They came to the door of Rutland Street School—called the Red Brick College on the Hill by the locals. Jimmy Corbally was at the door. In they went, to find Captain Bolger and about twenty other men in the large hall.
“Well done, lads,” Bolger said to the new arrivals. “We’re just ready to head off. The word on the phone is that the houses up at Newcomen Bridge on the North Strand Road have been severely hit. We’re to get up there fast and help the fire brigade lads, so grab your kit and double up outside and we’ll move into Killarney Street and up to the Five Lamps. Let’s go.”
As they came up to the Five Lamps, they could see that there was chaos. People were running in all directions, some in their nightclothes, many others arriving half dressed. Fire brigade units were already in action. Billy couldn’t believe his eyes: The houses on both side of the North Strand Road up to Newcomen Bridge were in ruins.
“We’ll have to set rope cordons to hold back the crowds,” said Captain Bolger, “and then we’ll need every man we can get to help remove that rubble.”
Billy looked at Bob, who was now grim faced and quietly sober. “We’ve some night ahead of us here, Billy Cullen, and that’s a fact,” Bob said, looking at two battered bodies lying in the rubble just a few yards ahead.
* * *
It was Sunday evening at six o’clock. The whole of Summerhill Parade and the North Strand Road had been blocked off since Friday night. Only emergency crew members were let through. The ambulances had been ferrying people to hospital for two days. Mary Darcy was listening to the six o’clock news on the wireless. It was hard to believe that thirty-four people were dead and hundreds were injured in hospital. The rescue work was coming to an end, and wives could expect the crews from the emergency forces to get home soon. Mary had left her children down in Number 17 with Mother Darcy and had the coddle simmering away on the hearth.
Outside on the street, she heard a shout of “Here they come,” and she stuck her head out the window. Sure enough, a bunch of lads was trudging down from Rutland Street, looking like coal miners. They were filthy and unrecognizable, except Big Bob, who stood out a mile in any group because of his size. And her Billy, who still walked like a soldier on parade, with his chest out and his head high. She rushed down the stairs to the hall just as the group were passing, and Billy and his pal Tommy Farrell turned in to the footpath.
“See ya later, Billy,” said Bob. “Mind him, now, Mary me girl, he’s knackered.”
Billy said, “So long, lads,” and walked quickly into the hall. The smell of decay hit him and he shook his head sadly.
Mary put her shawl around his shoulders. “Come on, Billy,” she said, “let’s get you cleaned up. I’ve some hot water on the boil upstairs.”
She stripped off his gansey and shirt, his boots, socks, and trousers. They were filthy and she saw cuts and bruises all over his arms and legs. His hands were in a terrible state, bleeding and gashed, with some of his nails broken. With a clean cloth and the Sunlight soap, she washed the grime from his body, then sat him down and let him steep his hands in a fresh basin of hot water. He was quiet as she gently cleaned his hands finger by finger.
“We’ll need something for these. Just as well I’ve got some Germolene.” She rubbed the pink antiseptic cream into the cuts and scrapes.
“Where are the girls?” he asked.
She smiled at him. “They’re down with Mother Darcy. She’s minding them tonight. You know poor Martin was to make his Confirmation yesterday but it was canceled by the archbishop? So they’ve been playing together all day and I’ll pick them up in the morning.” Martin was Mary’s youngest brother. He and his sister Angela, who was fourteen, together with Big Bob, lived in Number 17 with Mary’s widowed mother, Molly Darcy.
He looked up at her and gave a wry smile. “Well, at least young Martin will have his day later,” he said, and she felt the desolation in his voice.
“Come on now, Billy, and have a plate of this coddle,” she said and busied herself serving the stew. He got stuck into the coddle with his big spoon and ate three platefuls without a word from him.
At last he sat back. “That’s the finest meal I’ve ever tasted, Mary,” he said.
“Hunger is the best sauce,” she said. “Put on this clean vest and get yourself into bed before you pass out.”
She went out through the curtain, and as he pulled the vest on over his head he heard her bolting the door. He was sitting on the edge of the bed when she came back, and she sat beside him and put her hand on his. There wasn’t a sound as they sat together for a while, and then she felt him shudder.
“It was horrible, Mary,” he said. “Poor women, old men, and children all blown to bits. I pulled out Tommy Carroll and he’d no legs. Doris Fagan had her head blown off. Not a scratch on it, but the rest of her missing. And Harry Browne is dead, and so is his mother, his wife, and their four lovely children.”
The tears were streaming down his face, his chest was heaving, and he just couldn’t get any more words out. Mary pulled back the bedcover and moved him into the bed, pushing his legs under the sheet. She undressed and quickly slid in beside him and held him tight as the tears flowed down her shoulder.
“It’s all right, Billy,” she kept repeating, “It’s all right,” and slowly the spasms subsided as she held him fiercely to her. She pulled him down to her breast as she slowly lifted the end of his vest.
* * *
Almost nine months later, on a cold day in February, Mary Darcy gave birth in the Rotunda Hospital to a wee boy she named after his proud father: William Patrick Cullen.

Copyright © 2001 by Bill Cullen

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It's a Long Way from Penny Apples

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Excerpted from It's a Long Way from Penny Apples by Cullen, Bill Copyright © 2004 by Cullen, Bill. Excerpted by permission.
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