The lads were always up for a bit of fun on their rounds. One Christmas back in the 1980s, Kevin Lally, Billy’s younger brother, asked for a few weeks’ work for the busy festive season. Billy was quick to oblige and gave him a job as a helper on the truck. One day they arrived in Bowling Green and the lads told Kevin to deliver 6 bags of coal and 8 bales of briquettes to Nora in Number 8 while they kept busy with the rest of the deliveries.‘She’s as deaf as a beetle’ they told him, so be sure to give a good hard knock! Over went Kevin with the first bag and began knocking on the door, but there was no reply from Nora. The minutes passed as Kevin was stooped under the weight of the heavy coal bag. The sweat was pouring out of him, and he was about ready to collapse under the weight on his back. He began shouting in through the letterbox calling out ‘Nora, Nora it’s the coalman’. ‘Are you there, Nora?’ By this time he was causing quite a racket on the street, and you could see the net curtains twitching all around. Then suddenly, the next-door neighbour came out, looking quite perplexed. ‘You’ll have to knock a lot louder than that’, she said, smiling. He then dropped the bag of coal on the ground and turned to see the two boys standing by the truck, falling around the road laughing and holding up all the traffic. The neighbour had realised what they were up to as she smiled and turned to Kevin and said, ‘This is the house of the famous Nora Barnacle the wife of James Joyce, long departed this world and gone to the pearly gates. I don’t think she’ll be needing any coal tonight.’