John and Joan Nixon - Good News Caravan
1998 Version of the Good News Caravan
- from the Nixons Website
Monday, January 12, 2015
Good News Caravan
Many Togher residents and Ex-Pats of a certain age will undoubtedly remember the Good News Caravan which travelled throughout the District back in the 1970s. The towed Caravan would park up in various Estates and open its doors for the local children to enter and listen to the Preacher with hymn singing playing a major part of the proceedings. Whilst most Adults treated it with suspicion , the majority saw it as a means of entertaining the wee ones for a half hour. In this age of Political Correctness and Child Safety ( for obvious reasons ) , it is difficult to comprehend that back in those far off innocent days , it was viewed with at best , an arched eyebrow and laughter and at worst derision and even outright violence , due in part to its conflicting views with the local Faith. It is even thought that the Priest would literally chase it out of Estates!
The Good News Caravan had its genesis in the Child Evangelism Fellowship - an off shoot project of the Baptist Ministry which had been active in Cork City since the 1950s. The Ministers who drove around Togher with their Caravan in tow were John and Joan Nixon who initially moved to Cork in 1969 before undertaking their travelling ministry around Togher and other Districts of the City in 1977. The Caravan was a regular feature of 1970s Togher and while it amused many local children , it also attracted unwanted attention , with the result that the Caravan often had to endure stoning and heckling as the years passed. However , this did not deter the Nixons as they persevered becoming in the process a part of Togher folklore.
Whilst the Religious aspect of the Caravan may have gone over the heads of the children who elected to board and while away a half hour in comfort , there can't be many who grew up in the 1970s and early 1980s who do not have nostalgic memories of this part of their childhood past. It is not known if they ventured further south into Togher ; however it was part and parcel of the landscape of the Ardmanning and Upper Togher Road areas as well as Deanrock and the " Five Star " region. Alas ,as the years turned into Decades , the Caravan , bearing the scars of countless rocks and missiles , was put into retirement and is no longer seen in Togher. In its final years , acting on spurious claims made by Adults , video cameras were installed inside the Caravan to allay any fears of wrongdoing. Today , the Caravan has been replaced by a modern custom built model and now patrols the Estates of Ballincollig , Co. Cork.
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The good news caravan ventured to Bishopstown also. I remember it at Westgate green as we giggled at the story of Jesus dying on a tree and other parts of the show which differed from that of our teachers and the priests. Enthusiastic singing and guitar playing provided further laughs, as we took none of it seriously. In case we were taking it seriously though one of our mothers (who shall remain nameless) burst in to the caravan and ordered us all out immediately! Her angry protestations leaving us with no doubt as to what we were to do. The good news caravan is up by the GAA club would be a call that would go out in future years. And perhaps fuelled by the anger of said mother in some way unbeknownst to our young teenage selves, we’d run to watch the inevitable stoning the caravan would receive and the bearded man with glasses running out with a camera to take pictures of the irreverent scattering youth. How they kept coming back, I’ll never know.
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