Roamer: More notes and quotes about 95-year-old Mickey Mouse

Then came the merchandise, the Mickey Mouse Club’s famous Mousketeers with teen star Annette Funicello and cartoon-colleagues like Goofy and Donald Duck.

By the 1950s there was a theme park, a franchised comic strip and the big-eared Mousketeers moved onto TV. More recently, Mousketeers Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears became massive worldwide superstars.

The wee mouse’s merry magnetism never waned even though

numerous other internationally adored animations lined up for the limelight.

On his 50th birthday in 1978 Mickey became the first cartoon with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On Mickey’s 90th birthday in 2018, a senior Disney executive described him as “an everyman who sometimes fails but keeps trying. Who can’t relate to that?”

“Mickey Mouse is my hero,” says Banbridge author and acclaimed storyteller Doreen McBride.

She loves his “cheerful smile, optimistic attitude and the wisdom of some of his sayings such as Take the dream with you wherever you may go…Don’t stress over anything you can’t change… All you need is a little bit of magic.”

Most of all, Doreen likes the wisdom shown in Mickey’s advice to “live every moment so as not to regret what you’re about to do.”

And she also reckons “Pluto must have an anniversary sometime soon!”

(He first appeared as a bloodhound in The Chain Gang in 1930 and is one of the ‘sensational six’ - Disney’s most popular cartoon animals, though Pluto is the only one not dressed as a human.)

Doreen’s husband George McBride, former teacher, headmaster, writer and life-long lover of literature knows about Walt Disney’s Irish roots, outlined here last week.

George remembers the Mickey Mouse wrist watch “produced especially for very young children”, he saw Disney’s Darby O’Gill and the Little People when it came to Belfast and recalls Walt attending the film’s premiere in Dublin in 1959.

Da in BBC NI’s Give My Head Peace - Tim McGarry - isn’t so sure about Walt’s famous little rodent! “I regret to say that I never found Mickey Mouse remotely interesting or funny and his relationship with Minnie was deeply dull. I was a huge fan of Bugs Bunny, philosopher and carrot munching hero. All comedians loved Bugs. All TV executives loved Mickey.”

Ulster Scots writer, poet and broadcaster Liam Logan tends to agree with Da.

“When I was a young man growing up on a small farm in North Antrim,” says Liam, “mice were not as well regarded as they were by Walt Disney. They lived under haystacks and fled in droves from their warm straw hiding-places when disturbed, provoking panic among us children, even though we had a significant height, weight advantage. Of showbiz mice, truth be told, we preferred Jerry (of Tom and Jerry fame) or Pixie and Dixie (and their nemesis Mr Jinks). Please don't tell Mickey!”

There’ll be more local folks’ stories about Mickey here soon, but finally for today, Ma in Give My Head Peace - Olivia Nash - tells a very moving story about her cousin Bronagh who had a Mickey Mouse soft toy which went absolutely everywhere with her. She even got special permission to take it to school.

The rest of today’s page is that very remarkable story, as told by Olivia Nash:

“Unfortunately Bronagh was very ill and in hospital as a little girl. Somewhere in all the different hospital departments including Intensive Care, Mickey was lost. When Bronagh realised this her health deteriorated and they were very worried about her. Her mummy told the hospital that she knew what was the matter - she was missing Mickey.

“As her mummy and daddy were on a 24-hour rota with her they couldn’t leave the hospital to try and buy a new one. Guess what - the amazing hospital staff bought her another Mickey!

“They tried under her mummy’s instruction to sew it, to make it look as near as possible to her beloved Mickey. Bronagh immediately started to improve and just before she left hospital she winked at her mummy and said, ‘I know it’s not my real Mickey, but wasn’t it kind of him to send me his cousin.’”