I had been based in Miami for nearly three years when I started feeling restless again. Suddenly, the job at Hot Shots wasn’t stretching me enough. I put it down to the process of self-discovery I was still going through. And it meant that when Roberta’s SOS call came, it was perfectly timed.
By then Roberta was living in New York with Matt, who was working as a financial broker. She had been working as an events manager for Irish America magazine. Having had so much experience in that field from her work in London, the job suited her down to the ground and she was put in charge of a reception for Jean Kennedy Smith, Ambassador to Ireland, sister of Ted Kennedy and the magazine’s Irish American of the Year.
Unluckily for Roberta, she was diagnosed with endometriosis during the build-up to the reception. It’s a painful and debilitating illness and although, like the real trouper she is, she carried on working despite often being doubled up with pain, she found that the running around was too much for her. Mummy was summoned from Miami to give her a hand - or, in this case, legs.
The Tavern On The Green restaurant, a breathtaking and handsomely old-fashioned structure of linked conservatories in Central Park, was the venue for the Jean Kennedy Smith reception. We arranged for a podium to be set up for the awards ceremony, in which other prominent Irish Americans were also to be honoured.
Among Jean Kennedy Smith’s achievements was her success in convincing the US Government that granting a visa to Gerry Adams would be helpful to the ongoing Northern Ireland peace process. Gerry Adams was a guest at the reception, as was John Bruton, the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic. It was probably the first time the two men had been in the same room and as well as generating enormous media attention, it entailed extremely tight security.
Pride of place on the podium was given to a specially commissioned Waterford Crystal sculpture that was to be presented to Jean Kennedy Smith. Three surgeons were also among those to be honoured and as they stepped onto the podium, one inadvertently allowed his sleeve to brush against the sculpture. There was a concerted gasp from the assembled guests, followed by a sound like a gunshot as the crystal hit the floor and shattered into hundreds of pieces.
The secret service went into a frenzy and the podium was suddenly surrounded by security men. Meanwhile, Roberta and I hurriedly found a replacement vase to present to Jean Kennedy Smith. Once the furore had abated, Donald Keogh, the former head of Coca-Cola, stepped forward to begin his presentation speech with the memorable words, ‘Jean Kennedy Smith now has more pieces of Waterford Crystal than anyone else.’
Trish Harty, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Irish America, was impressed with the work Roberta had done for her and suggested she set up her own PR and event management company. The idea appealed to Roberta, who invited proud Mama to be co-president. We called it RTM, the initials standing, of course, for Roberta and Tina Moore.
We were very lucky to have Trish behind us and organized a lot of events for her magazine. The one I am most proud of was a reception at the Plaza Hotel in New York to honour President Clinton, the following year’s Irish American of the Year. It was a massive undertaking featuring captains of industry and A-list celebrities including Liam Neeson and Anjelica Huston, and involved working with the White House advance team. We were given a fascinating insight into what makes an event of that magnitude work and the White House team said Roberta was one of the best and most efficient event managers they had dealt with. They were particularly impressed with her dedication and eye for detail. I wonder where she got that from.
It was a once in a lifetime experience and wonderful to have the opportunity to meet so many interesting people, culminating with the President and Hillary Clinton themselves. One of my jobs was to co-ordinate security when they went walkabout at the end of the evening. I finished up having to form a human chain of hands to stop guests surging forward, especially one or two ladies with gleams in their eyes and their cards in their hands, ready to slip to Bill.
By then I had fallen in love with New York and decided to stay for longer. I already knew of a great place to live. A customer at Hot Shots had recommended the Teneyck, saying that it was safe and secure and for women only. It was also at a price I could afford, so without viewing it first, I booked myself in for a month.
What my contact at Hot Shots hadn’t told me was that it was run by the Salvation Army. The first thing I saw as I stepped out of the cab with my belongings was its plaque, proudly displayed by the entrance. Inside was the familiar insignia of crossed flags either side of the doorway to the room where Vespers were held. I couldn’t help laughing. ‘I know Bobby’s family were Sally Army people,’ I thought, ‘but never in a million years did I expect to end up joining them.’
The rooms were miniscule. Not that it mattered -I loved the quiet, comfortable Teneyck. Breakfast and dinner were included, the location was fabulous, it was safe and secure and for professional women only, and the staff were some of the kindest people I’d met.
They did smile when I went out, though. Our PR business required us to attend a lot of upmarket venues, so I would gaily emerge from the Teneyck in my finery to a waiting limousine.
‘Where you off to, girl?’ the Teneyck doorman would ask.
‘The Plaza.’
‘Way to go, girl,’ he would say, high fiving me.
I enjoyed my life in New York so much, the contrast between the modest charms of the Teneyck and the high-end circles I had to mix with on business. But my visit to New York wasn’t only about relishing life again and starting to look forward to the future. Although I didn’t realize straightaway, I was also on the brink of discovering something very important from the past.
My father’s name was David Dean, so naturally he was known as Dixie. Virtually all I knew about him when I was growing up was that he was a businessman who came originally from Newcastle.
Now and then my mother and Nanny Wilde would let slip some tantalizing snippets of information, such as that he’d gone off with another woman and that she was Irish. I had a few shadowy memories of my own as well of a tall, dark man once visiting our flat in Christchurch Road. I was around five or six at the time. What made his appearance stay in my mind was that he was carrying a wire-haired fox terrier puppy, which he gave to me.
I never saw the tall, dark man again. I had no idea who he was. For all I knew, he could have been my father. It wasn’t something I would ever have asked. Any feelings of curiosity I might have had on that subject were quickly stifled by my loyalty to my mother. Whoever my father was, he had left her to bring me up on her own. As I’ve already explained, she had a tough time. She was beautiful and inspiring and deserved a better deal. Whatever the circumstances, and despite any questions I might have had, I wasn’t going to betray her by seeking out the man who had caused all her heartache.
But that isn’t the end of the story. I’m a bit reluctant to talk about this in case I sound crazy, but some years ago I went to see a clairvoyant. She told me I had a brother and sister. It was news to me.
What happened next was uncanny, an extraordinary sequence of events. In the summer of 1995 I had arranged to visit Ireland with Trish Harty in her role with Irish America. She and I had hit it off the moment we met and I knew I was in for a great time; as well as my accompanying Trish to various functions in her role with Irish America, we had booked a day out at The Curragh for the Irish Derby.
As Trish and I chatted on the plane over, the conversation must have turned to family because I remember half-jokingly saying to her, ‘My father ran off with an Irish woman.’
‘Why don’t you try and find him while you’ve over here?’ said Trish.
I laughed. I was still ambivalent about my father. The way I saw it, not only had he let my mother down - he had let me down, too. But the odd thing was that by the time the plane landed in Dublin, I found myself thinking seriously about what Trish had suggested.
After our day out at The Curragh, Trish refused to let me delay any longer. No sooner had we checked into the Mont Claire Hotel than I was whisked off to the bar. She found a seat and placed a Guinness in my hand. Then she disappeared. A few minutes later she returned with a phone book, open at the Ds. ‘There are only a few Deans there,’ she said. ‘Please do it, Tina. I really think you’ll regret it if you don’t.’
She can be very persuasive, my friend.
Even so, I was really nervous when I started to leaf through that phone book. Cold-calling Irish strangers wasn’t something I made a habit of doing. And in any case, what would happen if one of those Deans in the phone book really was my father? How would I feel if he didn’t want to know about his long lost daughter? What if he rejected me?
But eventually I steeled myself to go through with it. Very tentatively, I dialled the first Dean in the directory. The number was answered by a man. ‘Are you David Dean of Newcastle and England?’ I asked shakily.
‘I’m really sorry,’ he said, ‘but Mr Dean passed away twenty-five years ago.’
My heart lurched. ‘Who are you?’ I said.
‘I’m his son.’
It was almost unbelievable - like scoring for England on your debut! I said, ‘Well . . . are you sitting down? I’m your half-sister.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I know all about you. You’re the one who married Bobby Moore.’
‘How did you know about me?’ I said, astonished.
‘After my mother died, one of our relatives told us our father had previously been married to an Englishwoman and they’d had a daughter.’
What was more, not only did my half-brother have a family - he also had a younger sister. It was exactly as the clairvoyant had said it would be.
‘How would you and your sister feel,’ I said carefully, ‘about meeting up now we’ve made contact with each other?’
‘Oh, I think we should. How long are you over here for?’
‘Only a couple of days. What about tomorrow?’
By now, Trish and I were both crying tears of happiness.
My half-brother and I arranged to meet at a bar and when I arrived there the next day, he and my half-sister were already waiting for me.
I felt an immediate bond with my half-brother and I think he felt similarly about me. He told me he picked me out the moment I walked in. I must have had a look of my father about me.
‘Once, when I was very young,’ he said, ‘I was taken to see Ireland play England, which I thought at the time was a very strange thing for my father to do. He wasn’t a big football fan at all.’
‘Was Bobby playing?’
‘Funny you should ask that,’ smiled my half-brother. ‘Yes. He must have wanted to see the man you’d married.’
So my father must have kept an eye on me from afar, somehow.
It was impossible to make up all the lost ground in one short meeting, but we decided we wanted to keep in touch and later my half-brother told me that the moment he met me he liked me. Even so, he did think at first that I was completely crackers because of the clairvoyant angle!
Meeting my half-brother and half-sister turned out to be a really healing experience. Although I had always avoided finding out more about my father, I had carried a lot of questions around with me throughout my life and they were able to supply me with some of the answers.
For instance, I’d always wanted to know why my parents split up. My new siblings told me that during the war my father wasn’t called up - he had an exemption because he was qualified to do underwater welding, a necessary and valuable skill in wartime. He was highly paid for it and travelled a lot. He obviously met the second Mrs Dean on his travels.
Their mother had been a glamorous blonde, like mine, while my half-sister was a pretty, voluptuous redhead. She found it hard to deal with me at first - I suppose she’d always been ‘Daddy’s girl’ and here I was, a potential usurper. Happily, we got to be more at ease with each other as time passed.
They said my father had loved a drink and had been very charismatic. ‘Whenever he was in a bar, he’d draw a crowd,’ said my half-sister.
I laughed. Where had I heard that said of a man before? I was absolutely intrigued that although I had barely any memories of my father and he played no part at all in bringing me up, I had ended up marrying a man who in some respects sounded a very similar personality.
He died quite young of a heart attack, but he’d been a wonderful father to his second family. His first marriage, to my mother, had taken place when he was still young and finding his way in life.
So many gaps were being filled in at last, all out of one phone call. The uncanniest aspect was that because my half-brother’s household had been receiving nuisance calls, they had arranged to have their phone cut off and a new, ex-directory line put in. The work had been scheduled to take place the day after I made that first call. If I had left it another few hours I would never have known my half-brother and sister, or been able to learn what kind of man my father was.
Finding out about him wasn’t all sweetness and light. For a while I felt very angry. Why hadn’t this wonderful man been so wonderful to me? I felt cheated that he hadn’t bothered with me. But I wasn’t upset for long. The next time I met my half-brother, he mentioned that our father had a lifelong love of wire-haired fox terriers and had bred them for many years. So that had been my father - the tall, dark man who came to Christchurch Road and gave me the puppy.
I travelled back from that later meeting thinking how life hadn’t yet lost its capacity to astonish and amaze. I had been through huge events - divorce, moving to another country, Bobby’s death. They had all played their part in my process of self-discovery. But it had taken a journey to Ireland and a phone call made almost on a whim to provide the final link in the chain - my father. I had wanted to feel whole again, and now I did.
Later that year, The Times Court and Social page was able to announce that Roberta Christina Moore married Mathew Charles Hobbis on 28th October 1995 at the Chapel of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, in St Paul’s Cathedral.
Getting married at the Chapel was an honour. It wasn’t normally available to the general public, but Bobby’s OBE, awarded to him for his contribution to football, made it possible.
Although Roberta and Matt had got together in Australia, the extraordinary thing was that they lived only twenty minutes’ drive apart back in England.
He had been in the same football team as Dean when they were younger, and had met Bobby and me - in fact, the only Moore not to have met him before was Roberta. We both liked him and were delighted when he and Roberta got together. He was smart, intelligent and big-hearted and came from a sound, solid background. He even had the right pedigree. His grandfather, Harold Hobbis, played for Charlton Athletic in the Thirties and was capped twice for England, against Belgium and Austria. The Austria match was played in front of Adolf Hitler, who presented each of the team with an engraved silver lighter. During the war he had twenty-three games for West Ham. They included one on his wedding day: he left the reception to play, scored twice and returned to the wedding celebrations later that evening.
As soon as I met Matt, I could tell he would be good for Roberta in much the same way that my mother had recognized that Bobby would be good for me. Bobby had met Matt, too. Their first encounter was when Matt was 14 and hung out with Dean quite a lot. Later, when Matt and Roberta were going out together, they would go round to dinner in Putney with Bobby and Stephanie.
Having already spotted that Bobby was a compulsive tidier and arranger of objects, Matt would re-arrange the cutlery and cushions whenever Bobby left the room. Bobby was always puzzled when he returned to find everything in a different order from how he had left them. Matt was a prankster after his own heart and Bobby liked him a lot.
Roberta and I spent the day before the wedding together. After lunch at a nearby restaurant followed by the obligatory shopping, we booked into the Savoy and enjoyed dinner in the Grill Room: Dover sole, salad and one glass of champagne. Then we went to bed.
The bed was king size, so we shared. It was lovely to be with my girl and to give her a comforting cuddle. She was really upset about Bobby not being there - they had been so close. Finally, with the command, ‘Mum, I must have a good night’s rest, please don’t make any noise,’ she fell asleep. To be on the safe side, I stayed awake until I heard her breathing deeply.
All of a sudden I felt hot. Then sick. I dashed into the bathroom. Stricken with terrible food poisoning, I ended up lying on the marble floor while Roberta kept coming in to see how I was. It was four in the morning before we got any more sleep.
Our wake-up call came at seven o’clock. Poor Roberta was exhausted, but her name wasn’t Moore for nothing. She got ready, had a glass of bubbly and looked like the original fairytale princess in her wedding dress.
Although Bobby wasn’t there to give Roberta away, Dean filled the role admirably. As I watched them walking along the aisle, I thought how proud Bobby would be of them both. They had grown into the young woman and man Bobby and I always hoped they would be: Roberta is beautiful, elegant and, like the father she so loved and admired, cool and collected; Dean has inherited Bobby’s shyness along with his good looks but, like his father, is at his best on the big occasions. He looked marvellous, filled with pride as he escorted his sister. They had turned out to be the most supportive, caring son and daughter and I just felt so lucky to have them.
So many of our friends and family were there and we all missed Bobby’s presence acutely. He would have loved that day.