CHAPTER TWELVE

BIRMINGHAM

Also in 1956, my mother, along with the rest of the family except for my younger sister Olive and me, left for England. I didn’t want to leave Dublin in the first place and resisted it for as long as I could. Why they left Olive behind puzzles me even today. My older sister May and her husband had been allocated a Corporation house of their own on Killala Road some time previous to this. Now that our family home on Mulroy Road was empty except for my sister and I, the rent collector informed us that one of our neighbours who had a two-bedroom house had applied for our one, as it had three bedrooms. So my sister May, together with the assistance of the rent collector and the approval of our parents, applied to be transferred to the family home. May and her husband didn’t want the responsibility of caring for my sister and I, so we were told that we would have to join the rest of the family in Birmingham. I managed to hold off until the following year.

I had the regretful task of informing my commanding officer in 1957 that I would have to leave for England. To be fair to the Lieutenant, he didn’t attempt any further physical contact and perhaps I misjudged the situation anyway. He now had a girlfriend and they got married within a short time. I was invited to their wedding and met none other than Mr. Charles Haughey who later became Taoiseach. He had been an officer in the same unit as Lieutenant Byrne during the “Emergency.” I was surprised at how small he was, though he struck me as a tough individual and one who shouldn’t be messed with.

He made the announcement to the unit at the end of our parade one Tuesday evening. Some of the people who came over to shake my hand and wish me well surprised me. The guys from East Wall were tough and hard to manage, but they were all there expressing regret at my leaving. That heartened me and helped me to face something that I had been determined to avoid. I never was presented with my stripes for finishing the NCO course, much to my chagrin. Instability was to become a feature of my life for some time to come.

It also meant that I would have to resign from my job at Ballsbridge Motors, Ltd. I wasn’t too disappointed with doing this as the stores manager had been giving me a hard time. To my amazement, he tried every way to get me to stay. I suppose it was his way of showing his remorse at having accused me wrongly of stealing. If somebody had offered me accommodation, I might have seriously considered staying put. The problem with that was money. My wages wouldn’t have been enough to rent a place and feed myself. So I was forced to face the inevitable.

My mother arrived home from Birmingham to stay a few days with my sister in what used to be our home, (the house in Mulroy Road was our home and will always be in my opinion,) and I was given a ticket for the boat to England. I had to go. There was no other choice and I wasn’t happy about it. That Friday evening, I made my way to Dun Laoghaire via Westland Row (now Pearse Brothers) Railway station. The furthest I had travelled prior to this was to Gormanstown Military Camp and that was via the barracks anyway. So, here I was, on my own, heading for Birmingham. The train was crowded with people from all over the country. They were leaving at the rate of one thousand per week, at the time. All I had to do was follow the crowd. By the time I got on board, every seat had been taken. The “Mail Boat” was nothing like the present day well-appointed liners that operate on the route now. It set sail with the tide at 9 p.m. and it took three hours to reach Holyhead in North Wales. The accommodation was poor, to say the least and to my mind the boat was dangerously overcrowded. Because every seat was taken, I was obliged to sit on a wooden bench on the exposed upper deck and I was lucky to get that. It was freezing cold, so sleep was out of the question. I pulled my overcoat up around my ears and tried to get some measure of comfort, but to no avail. The vision I have of Holyhead as we approached the dock still lives with me even now. All I could see silhouetted against the night sky was tall television aerials on every roof and the screech of seagulls.

I eventually found the train for Birmingham, after asking several people for directions. It was even more crowded than the boat and I was forced to sit in the corridor, close to where two carriages joined. Steam and smuts seemed to permeate the air. It got into my throat and left me gasping for breath at times. My mood grew uglier with every mile. I wondered how anyone could possibly get excited at the idea of travelling on one of these infernal machines.

At approximately six o’clock the following morning, the train pulled into New Street Station in Birmingham. I was stiff with cold and sore from the hard surface of the carriage floor. My father was waiting for me as I walked down the platform to the exit. After the briefest greeting, he led me out of the station and up the Street to a bus stop opposite the City Hall. Everything was grey, the buildings, the sky, and my mood. I stood there looking around me waiting for the bus and I couldn’t help but wonder what on earth possessed him to move to a place like this. There was an angry looking stormy sky, which seemed to match the mood I was in and this cast a gloom over the buildings, emphasizing their dirty grey colour “What have I come to?” I remember asking myself under my breath. The journey to our digs didn’t do anything to brighten my thoughts. If anything, it made me feel worse. The city had suffered badly during the war and the re-building programme had not yet started. There were demolished buildings all over the place and it looked like what it was… a bombed site.

The house we were staying in had been erected during the Industrial Revolution. Like all of those in the street, it was a red brick structure and it was soot-stained to the extent that it was almost impossible to see the colour of the brick. A Mrs. Pitt owned the house. She was the widow of an ex-Royal Air Force veteran. She knew that my father had served with the 8th Army in North Africa, and it was obvious that she had more than just a soft spot for him, much to annoyance of my mother.

I cannot understand even today, why my parents left a lovely three-bedroom house of their own to live in lodgings. We had gardens back and front, a bathroom and toilet as an integral part of the house. The location was bright, airy, and convenient for the city with a good bus service. This was all given up to live in digs in an unfriendly city still recovering from the effects of the Second World War. It was dirty and the streets were cobbled. They didn’t have bathrooms and the toilet was located in the back yard. Worse than all of this, the family was split. I was the only one of my siblings living with my parents. The rest were scattered around with friends and relatives. We became lodgers in other people’s houses, unable to express our true feelings for fear of being thrown out on the street.

After I had been introduced, I was told that my room was at the very top of the house and it was suggested that I might like to take my suitcase up to it. I soon understood why nobody volunteered to show it to me. The staircase was almost vertical, like a ladder. One needed to be fit just to climb up to where I was to sleep. It turned out to be the attic. There was no door and daylight came through a small glass roof light. It had a wardrobe and a small dressing table and that pleased me. I never had my own furnished room before, so I was happy to ignore the drawbacks such as the naked light bulb that hung from the rafters, and the fact that there was no roof felt, just slates on timber joists. As a result of this, the room was as cold as a fridge. I put my stuff away and went downstairs for some breakfast. The landlady had kindly boiled an egg and made some toast. She handed me a cup of tea that was so weak, it was almost as white as the milk that was put into it. It tasted funny too, and I discovered that the milk was the long lasting type; awful to the taste buds of anyone who had been brought up on rich creamy milk and butter. The English might drink a lot of tea, but they have no idea how to brew a decent cup. The next few days were spent visiting others of the family who were scattered around friends and relations.

My brother Gerry lived in his father-in-law’s house. The address amused me; it was eleven, back of one hundred and twenty three (11/123) Hingeston Street. It was another of the industrial revolution designs. Access was down a lane and along a narrow passageway. The 11/123 was two houses joined together at the back. It was in fact, one house divided to accommodate two families. The rooms were very small and the staircase rose at a very steep angle in similar fashion to my digs. There was a panel in the wall in the uppermost room, which could be broken through in the event of fire. This would allow entry into the bedroom of the house at the front, providing an escape route. The designer of the house obviously realised that the structure was dangerous, should it catch fire, and took some steps to avoid entrapping people in that event. There was a tiny garden, a washhouse, and a toilet in a small building on the left of a narrow concrete path that led to the hall-door. The fireplace consisted of an iron range with an oven to the side that was heated by the fire. Charlie, my brother’s father-in-law, had a very gruff sounding loud voice, but he turned out to be a lovely man. He was a painter and decorator and had arranged for my younger brother Bill to be apprenticed to him. The room was sparsely furnished, but there was a television set. It was the first time I had seen one of these apart from on the cinema screen. Its effect was hypnotic and the conversation between people in the house came in short bursts, usually when the advertisements were on. I discovered that Bill slept on two chairs pulled together in the small sitting room and I thanked God for the mercy He had shown me by providing a real bed in my own room, even if it was a garret.

The next day was Sunday and I accompanied my parents to St. Anne’s church in Alcester Street. After Mass, we passed several pubs with a crowd of Irishmen waiting for them to open. My father was disgusted and the priests constantly ranted about this practice from the pulpit each Sunday. But these men were far from home and lonely. They socialised with their fellow countrymen in this way before having their mid-day meal. Often they had no meal to sit down to and stayed in the pub until closing time. This was one of the great drawbacks of living away from your loved ones. Many of them descended into alcoholism, and lost family and friends as a result. Others took up with local women and had a second family. Needless to remark, the family back in Ireland was neglected. It was essential, in my view, that a family stayed together and not be scattered in the way ours was.

I scanned the classified ads in the newspapers for a job, and before long, I was invited to an interview with F. Keay & Company, Ltd., in Church Street. The letter heading was embossed on what was obviously an expensive paper. The company, as it turned out, was a paper merchant’s, located in the heart of the city.

Not being familiar with the street system in Birmingham, I got directions from Pat, Gerry’s wife. On the appointed day, I took the bus into the city and got off in Broad Street. I then walked from there to the old Church at the top of Church Street. The sun was shining that Monday morning and I remember how well I felt as I crossed the churchyard, scattering the pigeons as I went. The city was a lot busier than Dublin, with hundreds of people milling about. Delivery vans were stopped outside of the various office buildings with doors open, as goods were taken to the addressees. There was a distinct air of tranquillity as I walked through the churchyard, despite the bustle all around. It was like an island of peace in a sea of pandemonium. I was dressed in a dark navy two-piece suit with a white shirt and wine coloured necktie. My shoes were polished black and glistening in the morning sun. I felt confident and at ease as I approached the front entrance of the company office. The building was old, like all of those surrounding it. But it had character and as I entered the vaulted portico, I was confronted by a wooden counter behind which various people sat at old solid timber desks. “Can I help,” asked the young man who came to the counter as I entered.

“I have an appointment with Mr. Neale,” I explained, as I showed him the letter.

The company, I discovered, was a subsidiary of Wiggin’s Teape, Ltd., one of the biggest paper merchants in the country. Mr. Neale, one of the Directors, interviewed me for the job of junior clerk. His office had that lovely smell of wood that reminded me of the Tin Chapel back home in Cabra West. He was dressed in a dark blue pinstripe suit and I noticed that there was a bowler hat on his hat rack. He was very impressed with the fact that I had passed nine subjects at school and made quite a fuss of me when I showed him my school certificate. I was offered the job and he told me that I would receive a confirmation letter in the post. He was true to his word, and I reported to the office on Monday morning, following receipt of the promised letter. I could hardly contain my excitement when I saw that the wages offered where three times more than I had been paid in Dublin and as an extra perk, the company provided luncheon vouchers. This meant that I could get a decent meal in the middle of the working day. The vouchers were accepted by most of the cafés and restaurants nearby, so there was also a reasonable selection of meals to choose from.

Mr. Neale introduced me to Mr. Eric Balfry, his co-director colleague, in whose section I would be working. He was tall and athletic looking, in contrast to Mr. Neale who was short and stout. I learned later that he was an ex-Naval Commander during World War II. A thorough gentleman, it was a privilege and a pleasure to work for him. He assigned me to an experienced member of staff who wasn’t much older than myself. He took me around the other offices within the company and introduced me to the other members of staff. We got along very well together and before long I became familiar with various types of paper and board, together with the finishes applied to them, and was put in charge of the Sample Room.

I became something of a celebrity, or perhaps curiosity would be the better word. Never before had the staff come across an Irish person who worked in an office. They assumed that all Irishmen worked on the building sites. Mr. Neale had informed them that I would be joining the company and made a point of telling them that I had a school certificate. I was complimented by the female staff on my turnout and found myself being invited to join Valerie, Margaret, and Jo for tea break. They were all typists, and like Mike, my trainer, about my own age.

The weeks seemed to fly by, and before long I was invited to attend a staff party. I was told that there would be a dance and that I was welcome to bring a partner if I so wished. The party was enjoyable, though a very mild affair. On Monday, I discovered that I was the talk of the office. The girls couldn’t contain their curiosity about who my partner was and the fact that I had only orange to drink.

My partner, I informed them, was my older sister Rosaleen, and I didn’t drink alcohol. They were absolutely fascinated by all of this. “Your ears must have been burning all night,” they said. When I asked why they said that the comment, “He didn’t waste much time,” was being bandied about, as I had only been in Birmingham a short while never mind the job. Jo, in particular, found it so interesting, that she asked me a couple of times why I didn’t drink alcohol. I later discovered that her father was an alcoholic and her family regularly ran the streets in fear of him.

Christmas came and went. It was a miserable time. As I mentioned earlier, the family was split and I cannot for the life of me remember where, or if I had a Christmas dinner. I reflected on that frosty Christmas morning so long ago, when I made my way to six o’clock Mass to sing with the choir. My poor mother must have been heartbroken. She loved the fuss of preparing the pudding and decorating the house in Dublin. Here she was now, living in digs and unable to do the things she would normally do at this time of the year. So my father decided that we would save for a deposit on a house of our own. I agreed, and I began to give over most of my earnings to him for that purpose.

Mrs. Pitt, the lady we were living with, asked if I might be interested in working part-time in the local pub where she was a barmaid. I said yes, and she arranged for me to meet the manager the very next evening. He liked what he saw and hired me immediately. I spent that evening being taught how to pull a pint and get to know the customers. My father and my brother Gerry came in regularly. After a few weeks or so, I was filling a “shipping order” as it was called; it was a full tray of mixed drinks. As I was topping up the last pint, the customer asked how much it was. I answered immediately and placed the tray of drinks on the counter. The customer checked the price and agreed it was correct. My father, I noticed was standing at the end of the bar talking to the manager. He had come in while I was filling the order and I hadn’t noticed. Both he and the manager had broad smiles on their faces. “You’ll have to get up very early in the morning to catch him,” my father said, looking proudly at me.

From then on, the manager pestered me to consider applying for a pub of my own. “There’s just one thing,” he said, “You’ll have to be prepared to taste the beer to make sure it’s alright.” I thanked him, but refused politely. One evening, not long after I had taken up the job, a customer came in and asked me for a “Black and Tan.” I asked him if he was trying to be funny. My brother Gerry happened to be at the bar also, and quickly informed me that it was a genuine drink. It consisted of half a pint of bitter, with a bottle of Guinness poured in on top. We all had a good laugh as I apologised to the customer. He happened to be Irish and saw the funny side of it.

Before long, Easter was approaching and I decided to return home to Dublin for the weekend. I asked my boss, Mr. Balfrey if I needed to work on Good Friday, explaining to him that I intended to visit Dublin and I wanted to travel on that day if I was free to do so. “Certainly you can have the day off,” he said, “but would you remember to change my blotter when you get back?” I promised I would and he wished me well and hoped that I would return.

“There’s no doubt about that,” I said, reminding him that all of my family were now in Birmingham. His secretary, Mrs. Andrews, happened to be in the office when I made my request and before long, the word of my proposed journey was all round the office.

One of the senior office staff called me and asked if it was true that I was going back to Ireland. “Just for the weekend, Roy,” I explained.

“Well, I have to send some samples of paper to our Dublin office,” he said. “Would you happen to know where Sir John Rogerson’s Quay is, and do you know Armstrong’s, the paper merchants and would you be willing to drop the samples in their office for me?” The questions were coming in rapid succession.

“I know the Quay for sure, but I don’t know the company. I’ll find them though, and I’ll be delighted to drop the samples in for you. Are they likely to be open?” I enquired and was surprised to learn that they would, although they closed on Good Friday.

“They’ll get a hell of a surprise,” he laughed. “They need the samples in a hurry and with the post the way it is, there was no chance of them getting them before Tuesday at the earliest. Don’t go letting them talk you into staying and working for them,” he joked.

“My sister has thrown me out once already, so there no chance of that, even if I wanted to” I smiled as I took the package. I called in to Armstrong’s, expecting to be greeted like a celebrity, particularly as they were getting delivery the very next day. But the office was busy and the guy I spoke to at the counter just took the package and strode off leaving me standing there. I don’t even think he said thanks. For sure, no one offered me a job. If anything, I felt as though they resented me. So somewhat deflated, I left, and as it was too early in the day to seek out my girlfriend Kay, I went back to my sister’s house in Cabra West.

I had kept the money I was paid from the bar, and saved it for the occasion. I felt that I was playing my part by handing up all of my wages from my full-time job. Before I left Dublin, I had met Kay Storey and I really liked her. We had been writing to each other since I’d left for England. So I bought her a signet ring out of my hard-earned money with her initials engraved on it. I discovered when I got home however, that she didn’t feel the same about me and was, in fact, seeing somebody else. So I told her to get lost and to shove the ring. I came to realise anyway, that it was a futile exercise, expecting her or any girl to wait for me, when I didn’t know if I would ever be home again. I ached to be back in Dublin and in Cabra West in particular, but there was no prospect of that happening, at least not in the foreseeable future I thought.

I returned to Birmingham on Tuesday morning and went directly from the boat train to work. The journey had been a little more pleasant this time. I managed to get a seat in the lounge on the boat, and as I now knew just where to catch the train, I got there ahead of the main crowd and found myself a seat by the window in a warm carriage. So I was reasonably refreshed when I arrived at the office. Remembering what my boss had asked me to do on my return, I went into his office and changed the blotting paper in his desk pad. Noticing that the container of three by five cards he used for writing messages on was empty, I replenished them also. Around ten o’clock, Mrs. Andrews came into the sample room and informed me that Mr. Balfrey wanted to see me in his office. She was all smiles, so I knew it wasn’t going to be a telling off. “Did you have a good time in Dublin?” he asked.

“Yes Sir, it was great,” I answered.

“Before you left here on Thursday, I asked you to change my blotter, and I find that you’ve not just remembered to do that, but you’ve also filled up my container of cards. Now I want to know how you managed to remember what I asked you to do after a weekend away, and not only that, who told you to fill the card container?”

“Sir, I can’t explain, except to say that if you give me an instruction, I’ll see to it that it’s carried out, and if I see something that needs doing I’ll use my initiative and do it.”

“Wonderful, fantastic, just great,” he smiled. “You’re a gem, and I’ll see to it that you are rewarded.” He was true to his word. My wages were increased by the following Friday and suddenly everyone in the office regarded me as someone to respect.

I was even more popular with the girls now and during the tea break, Jo was particularly attentive, so as I was now free I asked her out. We arranged to meet after work so that I could see her home. She lived within walking distance of my digs. She was nowhere to be seen when I left the office, so I carried on to the bus stop and caught my usual bus home. Next day at the break, she asked if we could meet that evening. Generally, I would be quite ruthless in a situation where a girl had stood me up, and would have nothing further to do with her. But our arrangement had been very loose anyway, and it wasn’t as if I had been left standing somewhere. I simply carried on home, once I didn’t see her at the pre-arranged place. So I agreed and we met after work. She explained that she had thought that I wasn’t being serious, and though she hid in doorway and saw me looking for her, she was too shy to come forward.

Our relationship began to blossom from then on and we began to see each other regularly. She told me about her father and his behaviour and suggested that I might prefer to ask one of the other girls out. It seems that Valerie was very keen on me, but I told her that I was going out with her and not her father, so stop worrying. Valerie, as it happens, was a petite blonde and I met her father on an office outing some time later, and we got along very well. Everyone near us on the bus assumed that Valerie and I would become an item, especially as her father seemed to like me so much. But I had already made my choice, and although Valerie was a very nice person, I was already seeing Jo. And as I’m a faithful guy, I didn’t pursue the matter. It might have been better if I had asked Valerie for a date, with the way things eventually turned out. Jo became very possessive and the longer we were together, the worse this got.

Both of her parents were not just against her having a boyfriend, they were virulently anti-Irish. When I went to call for her, my timing had to be perfect, so that when I knocked on the hall door she would know who it was, and answer it herself. Very often, I could hear her father shouting about the “TB ridden Irish Gits,” as she quickly closed the door. So they insisted that she be home by ten thirty at the latest, on the nights we went out. This made things very awkward if we wanted to visit the cinema for the evening show. The film usually finished at around ten thirty. So she had to get special permission to stay out until eleven o’clock. This meant that we could get on a bus and be at her house with a few minutes to spare for a quick kiss goodnight. She was embarrassed by all of this, and apologised regularly. I continued to act the “Sir Galahad” however, and the more her parents acted in the way they did, the more I continued with our relationship.

I informed my parents that I was seeing a girl, and that I would like to invite her to tea at our digs. They agreed and arranged it with the landlady. Everyone was on tenterhooks, and we spent a nervous hour or so in a fairly tense atmosphere. I couldn’t understand this, as my mother especially was a very friendly good-hearted woman. Later on, she would advise me about marrying “our own kind.” She had obviously detected something that wasn’t to her liking. I guess it was what’s called woman’s intuition, although she said nothing to me at the time.

Summer came and my father decided that he would take my mother back home on a holiday. I was delighted for her, but bitterly disappointed to learn that he used all of the savings that had been set aside for the deposit on our own house. I know that my mother would’ve gladly forgone her holiday in favour of her own house. But that wasn’t to be. They met up with my eldest sister Alice and her husband Frank, who were on holiday in Dublin at the same time. They lived in Oldham in Lancashire. When my parents arrived back in Birmingham, they decided to move to Oldham where empty houses were in abundance, so I was told.

I was very happy in my job. In the two years that I had been there, my wages had increased six times. And now the directors had asked me if I would like to attend the College of Arts and Crafts to learn all about “Paper Making, Merchanting, & Usage,” and earn a qualification. I was over the moon at the prospect and now my father was talking about moving up North. When I informed my boss about this, he tried his best to arrange a transfer for me to the Manchester Office. He organised an interview with the manager of the Manchester office and gave me a return ticket and enough money to cover my expenses. I had never experienced such kindness before, and was quite overcome by his generosity. The prospective new boss asked me the question as I sat in front of him in his office… “Where do you see yourself in five years time?”

“Doing your job,” was my reply. I knew right there and then, that wasn’t what he wanted to hear, and there was no prospect of him employing me.

He had obviously heard how Mr. Balfrey felt about me, and I was being perceived as a threat. In today’s world, I would be expected to give such an answer, particularly as the manager would expect to have moved upwards himself. But it was the wrong answer to give at that time. People didn’t have ambition then. Or if they did, there just weren’t the openings at work. They expected to be in their job as manager until retirement. So, much to my regret, and to Mr. Balfrey’s disappointment, I wasn’t offered a job in Manchester. Had I been worldlier, I would’ve found myself a bed-sit and stayed in Birmingham. But I was too naïve, and the thought just didn’t enter my head. It broke my heart to have to leave Keay & Company, Ltd. All of the staff wished me well and presented me with a lovely fountain pen, because of my clear handwriting.

My girlfriend’s parents would have been delighted at the idea of the move. They would’ve looked forward to the day when either one, or both of us, would get fed up and give up on each other. My parents would not have been unhappy at this prospect either. But we vowed to remain true to each other, and we would take it in turns to visit each other every weekend. My new address was 10 Coronation Street. The soap with the same name had just started on the television and we used to enjoy it, because of its authenticity. Olive, my younger sister joined us soon afterwards. Alice, my eldest sister and Frank, her husband, lived just around the corner from us in Roscoe Street. And our aunt Annie, my father’s sister lived a few blocks further down the road from them.

Oldham.

I had just about gotten used to my surroundings in Birmingham and thought that things couldn’t get much worse. But they did. If Birmingham was a step back in time, Oldham was still in the Stone Age. The toilet was like an army latrine. It operated on the basis of a “tippler” system. The toilet bowl was made of concrete and it had a wooden plank across the top, with a hole in it large enough to accommodate one’s posterior. There was no “S” bend. Whatever you did, dropped into a shaped receptacle that was quite large, and only tipped over when it was full of water after flushing. But being large, it only tipped over after several flushes. So it meant that six or seven people would have to have used the toilet before the tippler operated. It then dropped the contents directly into the sewers. The first time that the tippler operated while I was sitting on the toilet, almost gave me a heart attack. Nobody had warned me about it and I thought that the whole system had collapsed. I quickly became conscious of the fact that rats had free and easy access to the toilet because of the openness of the system. So one sat down with this in mind; expecting the family jewels to be bitten, at some stage. The summer was very hot the first year after we moved in, and the whole area smelled to high heavens.

I continued to visit my girlfriend in Birmingham every weekend. Her parents had forbidden her to travel to Manchester to see me, so I had to do the travelling. During this time, my brother Gerry and his wife let me stay in their house. It meant sleeping on the floor in the living room and sharing a mattress with my younger brother Bill. But I was glad of their hospitality. The house was overrun with mice, and it wasn’t unusual for us to sit in the dark quietly, then switch on a torch and throw our shoes, or anything else that came to hand at the mice that had been caught in the beam. This carried on until we got so tired that we fell asleep. I remember waking one morning and there was a mouse sitting on my forehead.

The train journeys home were a real trial. They were pulled by steam engines that seemed to cover everything in smuts from the burning coal. The Sunday train stopped at every minor station along the way, and took three hours to cover a journey of eighty miles. I came to know the names of all of them and place names like Congleton and Etruria still haunt my memory. Bill was apprenticed to Charlie Hutchings, Gerry’s father-in-law as was mentioned earlier. Charlie was the foreman with a large company and he was a very decent sort. He made the mistake of signing time sheets for two guys who went home early one Saturday. The boss found out and Charlie was sacked. Bill left the job shortly afterwards and came to live in Oldham. My other brother, Jim, decided to leave the Royal Air Force after nine years of service, and he came to live with us also while he was on his pre-discharge leave. My younger sister, Olive, also joined us. At last, some of the family were together again. We began to have fun once more, despite our surroundings.

My father was working in a local factory that made plastic raincoats. He spoke to his boss and soon Jim, Bill, and me were working there, too. It was owned and managed by Jews and run on piecework lines. I very quickly mastered the machine that I worked on and was earning upwards of one hundred pounds per week. Very soon afterwards, I bought an engagement ring and proposed to my girlfriend. I continued to visit her in Birmingham and to stay at Gerry’s place. Then one Sunday night, as I sat in the carriage of that slow moving train, I began to feel very unwell. I was burning with a fever and was almost delirious by the time I reached home. I said a quick goodnight to my parents and went straight to bed. I’ll be fine now, I thought as I fell into a deep sleep. During the course of the night however, I awoke and felt as if I had a ton weight on my chest. I couldn’t breathe, nor could I call out for assistance. I managed to bang on the headboard until I woke my parents. My father came into the room and drew back the blankets to see what was wrong. As he did, so a cloud of steam rose towards the ceiling. “I knew he wasn’t well when he came home. He’s never gone straight to bed without having a chat first,” I could hear my mother say. She then went and got a wet towel to put on my forehead, in order to cool me down, while my father went to the nearest phone box to ring the doctor. He arrived very soon afterwards and diagnosed pneumonia. He injected me with penicillin and promised to return later that morning. The drug soon took effect and I settled down to sleep again. The doctor returned around ten o’clock and gave me another shot. He ordered me not to get out of bed for any reason, stating that I had a very bad dose and as long as I did what he said, he would not have me removed to hospital. My mother was present, and he made her promise to see to it that I followed his instructions. After a few days, I was well enough to sit up and I asked my mother to bring me a writing pad and pen so that I could let my girlfriend know what had happened, and that I wouldn’t be seeing her for a couple of weeks at least. My mother expressed her concern at the number of weekends I was spending on a floor in Birmingham, and tried to persuade me to stop going altogether.

The following weekend, my girlfriend arrived in Oldham, having finally taken the courage to tell her parents what she intended doing. I could see that my mother wasn’t best pleased. She felt that I needed complete rest and that meant not seeing anyone. She had always been concerned by the fact that I was busy with some project or other, all the time. I remember her asking me at home in Dublin if I would just relax and rest for one evening, at least. Both she and my father were even less pleased when I announced to them that I had proposed and that I had given Jo an engagement ring.

My father had collected my wages on Friday, and he was very upset when he saw the amount of money on my pay envelope. He felt that I should’ve been handing up a lot more towards my keep. That really annoyed me, and I told him that I was giving up more than him. Also, I was now saving to get married. I was nineteen years of age and I’d had enough of being ordered about and having my life disrupted by this man, and his thoughtless moves. So I had decided that I needed to get out as soon as it was feasible to do so. A two-bedroom house came up for sale in Roscoe Street at the princely sum of two hundred pounds. It wasn’t in bad condition, considering its age and I decided to buy it. I wasn’t prepared to live under somebody else’s roof when I got married, so I was intent on having my own place, no matter how humble. It needed some work and my intention was to carry this out before I moved in. Suddenly, I found I was the talk of the family. Not one of them had bought a house in the past, and some of them at least were speculating about the price and wondering where the money had come from.

Jim met his future wife while working at the plastics factory. He had gotten used to better conditions in the RAF, and decided to sign on again. His decision was helped by the fact that my mother took in a lodger. We awoke one morning to discover that there was a stranger in the spare bed that was in our room. He had met my parents in the pub the previous evening. My mother took pity on him because he had been thrown out of his digs that afternoon, and she invited him to stay with us. The tenement attitude to the homeless was still with her, by all accounts. The fact that he was Irish didn’t cut any ice with us, but we didn’t want to upset her, so we didn’t make a fuss about it. Jim had been undecided up until then, but this made up his mind finally.

When he told our parents that he was rejoining the RAF, my mother took in a second lodger. This lad was a product of the Orphanage School system in Ireland. He was a brilliant pianist, but a raving lunatic. My younger brother Bill and his pal Peter took him under their wing, and arranged gigs for him, drinking free beer all evening as their share of the fee, at the two local hotels where he played. Then my sister Olive found that a coat she had left hanging on the back of her bedroom door was cut to shreds. Con, our lodger was the culprit, and we encouraged him to move on. When he moved out my, mother was clearing out a chest of drawers that he’d been using. My sister was helping, and as my mother opened one of the drawers, she found some tissues wrapped around something that was beginning to smell. She peeled back the layers and clutching her breast said, “Oh, dear Jesus he’s gone and mutilated himself.” She was holding what for all the world looked like a penis. On further investigation however, and much to her relief she discovered it was a piece of tripe that had rolled itself into what looked like a piece of the male anatomy. My sister almost fell down the stairs laughing. What he was doing with tripe in his drawer in the first place, no one has ever been able to figure out.

Bill was also an excellent darts player. One evening, he was practising in the hotel bar when his dart landed in the “Bull.” He threw the second one and it stuck into the back of the first. “Do that with the third and it’s free beer for the evening,” the Landlord said. He threw the third dart and low and behold, it stuck into the back of the second. The landlord, true to his word, honoured his bet and wouldn’t let anyone touch the board for the rest of the evening. Needless to remark, Bill was first choice for the hotel darts teams from then on.

I made up my mind to move as soon as it was possible to do so. But first, I had to get my girlfriend’s parents’ permission to marry. She was eighteen and I was just a year older. They finally relented, amid great jubilation between my fiancée and me. My parents reluctantly agreed also and we set about planning our wedding. She was a member of the Church of England and had been taking instruction in the Roman Catholic faith. So, in celebration, she decided to be baptised into the Roman Catholic Church. That removed any problems we were likely to encounter when making arrangements to get married. The day came, and on the 19th September 1957, we were married in St. Anne’s Roman Catholic Church in Alcester Street, Birmingham. The reception was held in the church hall, the hiring of which had kindly been arranged by the priest who had been instructing her. Our friends from Keay & Company were there, together with members of both our families. Her father disappeared before the service, along with my brother Gerry. They were both in need of a drink and found a pub nearby to slake their thirst. They spent the rest of the day together, like long lost brothers. All went well and we spent two weeks honeymooning in Dublin.

On the way across the Irish Sea aboard ship, she informed me that she wasn’t a virgin. But she quickly added that it was due to the fact that she and her family had run the streets so much, because of her father’s behaviour. Her doctor, she assured me, could confirm this. I wasn’t a total idiot, and while I accepted her explanation, I took it with a large grain of salt. While we were on O’Connell Bridge one afternoon, she left me to visit the ladies toilet just off the bridge on the quayside. When she was in there, four of the girls I knew from the Friday night dances in St. Peter’s Hall came walking past. “Hey, there’s Éamonn,” one of them shouted and all four were around me like bees to a honey pot. We had exchanged a few words and they asked me if I would be at the dance, when my wife came out of the toilet.

“Oh, meet my wife,” I said and before I could say anything else, they disappeared as if by magic.

“Who were they?” she demanded to know, looking as if I had done something wrong. I explained, but she was in no mood to accept my explanation and got into a hell of a huff that lasted for the rest of the day. I knew that she was a little possessive, from previous experience, but this was nonsense, I thought. I was learning things that might have changed matters regarding our relationship, if I had been aware of them before marriage. I might have waited longer, except that my hormones were running riot and we had become intimate of late. I felt that I was obliged to marry her as a result. Such was the influence of the religious teaching that I’d been brought up with. We returned to the little house in Roscoe Street, and set about furnishing it, etc. I returned to Rose Weatherproof, Ltd. the plastic coat factory.

One day at lunch in the factory canteen, I was sitting across the table from my father and the factory manager. Just right of them sat a young woman. She asked in a voice loud enough for all to hear, “How do you like living in a brick house instead of a mud hut?”

I could see my father watching what I would say or do. “How old are you?” I asked. Before she could answer, I said “About my age, I reckon… right?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Does your brick house have a garden?”

“No,” came the reply.

“Does it have a bathroom?”

“No.”

“Does it have electric light or gas?”

“Gas,” she said.

“When you want to take a bath, do you go to the local council bathhouse?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Well, I was born into a house with gardens back and front. It also had a bathroom and an indoor proper toilet. Not one of these harbingers of disease called tipplers. We also had an electric cooker to compliment our lights. My father is sitting two seats away from you, ask him why he gave all that up to come and live in this backward kip!” Both my father and the manager burst out laughing and applauding at the same time. The manager turned to her, and confirmed that he had visited Dublin on a few occasions and he could never figure out why any of us would leave such a lovely city. If looks could kill, I would’ve died right there and then.

Gerry came to Oldham on a visit one weekend while my wife was visiting her family in Birmingham. I showed him around the house and he noticed that there were gas pipes in the cellar. “Do you use gas?” he asked.

“No, we have electric,” I answered.

“I’ll strip all that away for you and get rid of it,” he said.

“Fair enough,” I said.

“Right, leave me to it and I’ll see you later.”

“I’ll be in me Ma’s if you’re looking for me,” I said, as I left to go. “I’ll be back soon,” I shouted as I closed the hall door. I returned within the hour, but there was no sign of Gerry. He had stripped the place clean of the lead pipes and gone to a local scrap dealer. I never saw any of the money he got for the lead, and he had his drinking money for the weekend.

My sister Rosaleen got married the following March. We all travelled to Birmingham for the Saturday wedding. It was the most hilarious wedding that I’ve ever been at. She had to make her way to the chapel on a Birmingham Corporation bus. She was dressed in her white wedding dress, and accompanied by her bridesmaid. My brother Bill was best man, and he like wise had to get to the church on the bus, while the groom and his parents travelled in a taxi. Her husband, whom none of us had met previously, and who looked like an out-of-work jockey, was one of the McCormack’s from Gardiner Street in Dublin. We had humble origins, but these were common as muck and behaved accordingly. Their attitude and their language were appalling. They liked to portray themselves as tough guys, perhaps because of the famous boxer called “Spike McCormack,” who came from the same street.

My mother and father kept asking how their daughter managed to get mixed up with this bunch of “scallywags.” My aunt Annie wore a wide brimmed hat especially for that day. A few of the groom’s people were heard asking loudly in a broad Dublin City centre accent, “Who’s the Hoor in the hat?” The reception was held in his parent’s house. When we got there, they pulled a sheet off one of the beds and threw it across the kitchen table to use as a tablecloth. That was bad enough, but when my mother pointed out that there were skid marks on it, my aunt Annie fainted. We all fell around the place laughing. The laughter grew more intense and a lot louder when we discovered that the wedding breakfast consisted of stew. There was only enough food for half a dozen people anyway, and there was no drink whatsoever. His parents and mine were offered food and the rest of us were told to f… off and get our own. Most of us headed for the chip shop. I thanked my lucky stars that my wife wasn’t there. She had gone to visit her mother. The 29th March 1958 is a day that will live in my memory forever. A couple of years later I called to see my sister and her husband one Saturday and caught him knocking her about. I stuck him against the wall and taught him a lesson he’s never forgotten. You don’t mess with the Sheridans.

Back in Oldham, my eldest sister and her husband had taken my lead and bought an old house that was bigger than the one they rented in Roscoe Street. Frank, my sister’s husband set about cleaning it up. After making it habitable, he set about cleaning up the rubbish that had been left by the previous occupants. There was a fireplace in the cellar and he lit a fire and began to pile the rubbish on to it. Among the items that had been left, there was an old armchair and he pulled this up in front of the fire and settled back to enjoy a cigarette. Suddenly, there was an explosion, and the contents of the fire were blown out into his lap. As luck would have it, the explosion extinguished the fire, but it blew loads of soot into the cellar, covering Frank from head to foot. My mother was upstairs visiting my sister, Alice. They got a hell of a shock at the sound of the explosion and looked towards to cellar door in trepidation, wondering what had happened to Frank. As they approached the door nervously, it opened and Frank stood there looking like Al Jolson, the famous jazz singer, who dressed up as a “minstrel.” His hair was standing on end and all they could see was the whites of his eyes and the white around his mouth where he had licked his lips. Both of them collapsed laughing. Frank wasn’t very amused to begin with, but saw the funny side of it when he saw himself in the mirror. And what might otherwise have been a tragedy turned into a great joke. My mother had trouble amid bouts of laughter, trying to tell the rest of the family that evening about what had happened. Better yet, when they were relaxing with cup of tea after Frank had cleaned himself up, my sister switched the television on. As they watched the programme Alice, pointing at the screen said, “Look that guy has a face like your Dick.” He had just taken a mouthful of tea, and it spurted everywhere as he burst into laughter. My mother spilled her tea on her lap as she roared with laughter. Frank had a brother named Dick, and my sister meant to preface her remark with, “your brother.” Just goes to show how careful we all need to be in what we say and how we say it.

On returning to the cellar next day and checking through the rubbish, he discovered that there was still a large quantity of .303 rifle ammunition mixed through it. He collected all of the remaining bullets and took them to the local police station, and was promptly arrested. The IRA had only recently called off its campaign in the North of Ireland. One would have to wonder about the police. Why would an IRA suspect present himself at a police station with a handful of bullets? Frank was trying to be a good citizen. Sometimes a guy can do nothing right.

Jim was married on the 26th December, 1961. It was his twenty-seventh birthday. He was on leave from the RAF, and the wedding was held in St Mark’s Roman Catholic Church Aston-under-Lyne, near Manchester. The reception was held in the upper room of a pub in Ashton. This time, we had a proper meal and the drink flowed freely. All went well until the end of the night, when we were leaving. His wife had too much to drink and insisted on having more. When Jim told her that the bar was closed, and that she had had enough anyway, she flew into a terrible rage. “Ooops!” I thought, “This should prove to be an interesting relationship.” My mother was absolutely disgusted by this and felt that Jim had made a big mistake in marrying her in the first place. He, however, being the gentleman that he was, sorted things out with his wife very quickly. It was the talk of the family for a long time afterwards.

He served for eighteen years and spent time in Malaya and Germany. The RAF ran a scheme that allowed family members to visit their relatives serving abroad for £10.00. Jim invited me and I stayed with him on a camp in Berlin. It had been an officer training camp for the German Army and it had wonderful facilities, including an Olympic-sized swimming pool. I was fascinated to see the double-glazing in the married quarters. They were light years ahead of the rest of us. Pity they allowed a maniac to take over and ruin the country. In a way, I was sorry that the Nazis hadn’t invaded Ireland. We would’ve driven them nuts with our casual attitude to everything, especially timetables. When Jim returned to the UK, I visited him at the camp in High Wycome where he was serving. His wife and family hadn’t returned from Germany as yet. I was allowed to stay in his billet overnight, and almost got arrested by the Military Police. He gave me his bunk while he used the one next to it, with the permission of the lad whose it was. He had gone on a weekend’s leave. I was shaken awake at five o’clock in the morning by the policeman and told to report for duty. My brother had forgotten to tell me that this would happen. I told the MP that it wasn’t me and to call my brother. But he was having none of this and threatened to arrest me if I didn’t get up. Just then, Jim awoke and explained what was afoot. The MP accepted his explanation, albeit reluctantly. I was sorely tempted to join up myself when I saw that they had eight choices for breakfast.

Back to Birmingham.

I had successfully applied for a sales job with a US company, which manufactured printing machines. They had a vacancy in the Birmingham office and my wife persuaded me to apply for it. So we sold the house in Oldham and went to live in digs in Birmingham. This was against all my previous intentions, but I was swayed by my wife’s claim that she would find work easier in her own city, and the fact that Oldham was way behind Birmingham in its social development. The company didn’t supply a car, so I arranged to buy one. Well, it was more like a motorbike with a roof. It was known as an Isetta Bubble Car. There were two types of bubble car on the road at that time. The one I had was a two-seater. It was rounded in shape and the passenger sat beside the driver. It was commonly referred to as a “Spitfire” cockpit. “Heinkel,” the German bomber manufacturer of World War II fame made the other type. The passenger sat behind the driver in this car. Both models had three wheels and it was very difficult to control the car in icy conditions.

I had taken driving lessons while living in Oldham and I am delighted to say, I passed the driving test the first time and was awarded a full driving licence. I picked up the bubble car from the man who sold it to me and was heading home to show it off to my wife, when I found myself in trouble. It was a left-hand drive vehicle and I found it tricky to manage at first. I turned into a street where there were cars parked on both sides. I noticed a Rolls Royce entering the street at the far end. I pulled in, giving way to him. But he did likewise and I then moved forward. As I did so, he also moved forward resulting in us making contact. I immediately stopped and got out to see what the damage was, only to discover that while my wing had been fairly badly dented, the only damage to the Rolls was a streak of blue paint from my car.

The chauffeur began to berate me. While I was trying to explain that I thought he had given way to me, a gentleman in the back of the Rolls got out and asked what was wrong. It was obvious that he’d had a liquid lunch, since he was unsteady on his feet, and slurred his words as he spoke. But he was very nice. It turned out that he was a director of Avery Scales, Ltd., a very large manufacturing company not too far away from the scene of the accident. He told the chauffeur to be quiet while he asked me how long I had my car. I explained that I had just picked it up. I could see that I immediately struck a sympathetic cord, and he suggested that we just forget the whole business. We shook hands as I thanked him and he climbed back into the rear seat and told the driver to move on. The chauffeur wasn’t very happy, but he could do nothing about it and got back into the Rolls and left. “Thank God for decent folk,” I said in silent prayer as I headed home, this time being extra cautious.

While it was nice to have a “car,” I quickly discovered that I was being regarded as the family chauffeur. Certain members of the family took it as a given that I would drive them home after a night out; this was one of the problems I experienced, because I was a non-drinker. My parents thoughtlessly told people that I would drive them home. At one stage, I had six people crammed into this little car that was designed to take two adults comfortably. The final straw came when I was visiting my mother in Oldham; I was wakened from a deep sleep and asked to drive a couple of my mother’s friends home after they’d had a boozy night in the local pub. I was livid, and while I did what I was asked, I told my mother off when I got back to her house. It hurt me to do this, but it was necessary to get the message across that I was not a free taxi ride for anybody.

So in a way, I wasn’t sorry to have moved to Birmingham after all. I was driving a friend of mine from work back to the office one day when there was a clicking sound. Before I could figure out what it was, smoke began to fill the cabin. I opened the sunroof and it poured out of it, just as if I was flying a spitfire that had just been shot down. I told my friend not to panic as I tried to manoeuvre to the side of the road. But he ignored me, opened the door, and jumped out. Had the door been at the side of the car I wouldn’t have bothered but it was at the front. The steering wheel and column was on a universal joint that went forward with the door, when it opened. So the steering wheel went out of my hands and the car zigzagged all over the road. I finally managed to get it to the side of the road, thanking God that there was no traffic about. I lifted the seat, which is where the clicking sound was coming from, to discover that a lead to the battery had caught fire, and the rest of the wiring was in danger of doing the same. I pulled at the cable to remove it. It was red hot and burned into my hands. I held on and managed to remove it, at the same time cursing my workmate for opening the door when he did. As luck would have it, the cable was one that a parking light could be attached to for use at night. This was a requirement under law if a car was parked on the street when it was dark. The lead had two prongs that fitted into a socket, which was attached to the end of the lead, which in turn was connected to the car battery. The metal collars into which the prongs were inserted were making contact with the base of the seat and sparking. This is what made the clicking sound. Thankfully, the fire didn’t affect the workings of the engine and I was able to drive on. My colleague was very reluctant to get back into the car again. I decided it was time for it to go. I drove forty-thousand miles in the bubble car before I sold it. As a matter of interest, bubble cars are now collector’s items and they are worth a lot of money today.

My boss advised me to contact a car hire company in Birmingham city and discuss a contract-hire arrangement with them. Contract hire or leasing, as it is now known, was an innovation, and the company was anxious to get the business. I took his advice, and to my delight, I qualified to rent a new car. The “Mini” had just been launched, and this was the car that I was supplied with. Apart from the lovely smell of a new car, it was a treat to drive. I picked it up on Friday and on the following Sunday, I decided to take it for a run down the M1 Motorway, which had just been built. I was thrilled with the speed that I got out of it, and delighted with the feeling of safety I felt as it hugged the road. On Monday, I happened to be talking to the boss and staff of a Motorcycle Transport Company located at the back of our office. He drove a Humber Hawk and had noticed my Mini as I drove into the car park attached to both premises. “Here,” he said to me as I walked passed wishing them a good morning, “I see you’re driving one of those new Minis, how do you like it?”

“It’s brilliant,” I answered, beaming all over my face.

“I was driving down the M1 yesterday with the pedal to the floor,” he said. “I must’ve been hitting seventy when a little red roller skate passed me by as if I was standing still.”

“What time was that at?” I asked him.

“Around three o’clock,” he replied.

“Shake hands with the owner of the roller skate,” I said, holding my hand out and smiling from ear to ear.

“Well bugger me,” he said, “I think I’ll have to get rid of the Humber.” The three men on his staff had a good laugh at his astonishment. The Mini was the pride of my life. I drove it all over the country and was really sorry to let it go eventually.

I was called to a meeting at Head Office in London. I assumed that it was a Sales Meeting and the usual pep talk. But I was nicely surprised when I was told that my salary was being increased, and that I was to pick up a new car immediately afterwards. The car was a Renault Dauphine. It was blue and it was just lovely to drive, except on a windy day. The engine was at the rear, like the Volkswagen, and the front was so light that I had to keep a bag of cement in the boot to stabilise it. But it was nice to have that “new” smell again. It meant that I had to terminate the hire agreement on the Mini, but sufficient time had passed to enable me to do this without a problem.

When I got back to the office in Birmingham and told the secretary what had happened, she threw her arms around me and kissed me on the lips. This took me by surprise, especially as she was ten years older than me, but I put it down to exuberance and thought no more about it. Shortly after that, I was told that I would be needed to work on the company stand at the print exhibition in Earl’s Court in London. Arrangements were made for me to stay in a hotel close by and I spent the week enjoying the atmosphere and the excitement of my first exhibition. During the course of the week, I demonstrated the machine that I was working on to a few Cypriot visitors. They explained that their workshop had been totally destroyed during the troubles on the island. They were very impressed with my demonstration, and having visited other stands, they returned next day and wanted to buy nine machines. You can imagine how I felt as I asked them to take a seat and have a coffee, while I spoke to the General Manager about the best way to handle payment and shipping. He spoke to them and asked them to return the next day. When they had gone, he told me to forget the deal. I wanted to know why and when I asked him to explain he turned his back as he told me to, “Just forget it.” I spoke to my immediate boss and he told me that the visitors were Turkish Cypriots and that the General Manager’s mother was Greek, and he would not do business with the Turks. His prejudice cost me a whole heap of money in commission; not to mention considerable embarrassment when the customers arrived back on the stand next day. But, he was the boss and I had to “grin and bear it.”

The branch secretary arrived on the stand on Saturday, and I was asked if I might drive her home when the exhibition closed. I was delighted to have some company on the long journey, and I readily agreed. I took the road that runs through Aylesbury, Bicester, and Banbury. We stopped in Aylesbury for dinner, and laughed about the fact that there was none of the famous Aylesbury Duck on the menu. The meal was very good however, and we were very relaxed in each other’s company. “Do you mind if I share something with you?” she asked.

“No,” I replied, “Sure aren’t we friends?” I said, not knowing what to expect and thinking of that kiss.

“It’s very sensitive,” she said, “and I don’t want to cause offence.” I didn’t know what the heck was coming next and fully expected that I was about to learn something about myself that was annoying or upsetting her, and possibly others in the office.

“I’m intrigued,” I said leaning forward so that she could speak in a lower voice.

“I’ve two pieces of news for you. First, you remember Arthur Helbing, the representative from the finance company who called on us last Wednesday?”

“Yes I do,” I said, “He was a very nice guy and I may have some business for him soon.”

“Don’t bother,” she said, “He’s been arrested for murdering his girlfriend.” That took me totally by surprise. He’d been such a gentleman when he came offering finance for machines that we sold to clients. “It appears that she wanted to end their relationship and he phoned her, pretending that his car had broken down and asking her to help. When she picked him up, she drove back to her flat where he appealed to her to stay with him. When she refused, he strangled her.”

“Oh, my God,” I said, “He seemed such a timid guy.” I sat stunned for a few moments and after gathering my thoughts, I asked her what the next piece of news was.

“You’re a lovely guy, and I hold you in very high regard. I think that you ought to know how Ray and Jill feel.” My wife and I were lodging with the Branch Manager and his wife at the time, and there was a distinct atmosphere lately, which made me feel very uncomfortable. I told her this. “You’re very perceptive,” she said, “Jill phoned me the other day to tell me that she had gone into your bedroom to tidy up when she noticed a pungent smell. She discovered that it was coming from a chest of drawers, and when she opened one of the drawers she found that it was stuffed with used sanitary towels.”

“Oh, my dear God,” I said, with mouth wide open as my jaw dropped. “I had noticed a smell alright, but thought that it was coming from the bathroom, which was right next to our bedroom.” I felt ashamed and disgusted and didn’t know where to look.

“Jill said that she had heard all sorts about the dirty Irish, but was very quick to add that this wasn’t true. She greatly admires the fact that you shower every morning, and that you’re as tidy as though you were living in a barracks. She’s appalled that one of ours should not have learned basic hygiene, particularly where sanitary matters are concerned.”

I was dumbstruck. “I’d better get to hell out of there quick before the relationship between Jill, Ray, and myself is completely ruined.”

“I’m sorry to have told you, but I felt that it was important for you to know.”

“You were right to tell me and I appreciate knowing, I’ll straighten her out as soon as I get home. That explains the reason why I found the house locked up when we got home last Wednesday. I had to get through a downstairs window. I thought that they had forgotten that we were out. Oh, my God!” I was in shock and couldn’t eat, at least not for a while. This was worse news than the murder she had just told me about.

The secretary was very supportive and tried to reassure me as we drove home. “It’s not your fault,” she kept saying. “How could you have known what she was like? We all have our secrets.” Nothing she said could ease the pain that I was feeling. When I eventually arrived home after dropping her off, it was too late to do anything about this matter. I resolved to sort it out next day… Sunday. When I talked to my wife about it next morning, she didn’t seem to take on board the seriousness of the matter. Nothing I said seemed to be getting through to her. Then she announced that she was pregnant, and she wouldn’t be using sanitary towels for the immediate future. So I wasn’t to worry, as if that was the answer.

After Mass, I drove over to see my brother Gerry and his wife Pat, and asked if there was any way that they could put us up, at least temporarily. They had moved to a newer bigger house and had a spare room that we could have for as long as we wanted. I immediately drove to the home of my boss and announced that we were moving out, straight away. The boss and his wife seemed relieved and we parted on good terms.

As I drove away with our few possessions, I made a resolution to get a house of our own as soon as I possibly could. In the meantime, we gratefully settled in to our new digs at the top of my brother’s house. His wife was very welcoming and tried to make us feel at home. Although the house had been redecorated and repaired by the Council, it hadn’t been fumigated and was infested by bedbugs. I was forced to get some empty bean tins and place the legs of the bed into these to try to prevent the bugs from crawling up the legs of the bed. Another quick move was decided on, there and then. Soon afterwards, we found digs near to where my wife’s family lived. We thanked my brother and his wife and packed our suitcases once again.

We shared a house with an old couple who were struggling to make ends meet. It was nearer to my workplace also, but uncomfortably near to my mother-in-law. Despite the fact that she didn’t like me, she decided to use my flat as a place of refuge from her husband. I would arrive home each evening to find her asleep in my armchair. I soon got fed up with this and told my wife to get rid of her. She did, but only to the extent that her mother left just before I got home every night. I knew this because the chair cushion was still warm. My wife denied that her mother was there at all when I asked her about it.

My wife insisted on us visiting her mother’s house every Saturday, despite the fact that there was no welcome there for me. I was reluctant to do this but complied to keep the peace. There were a number of reasons for my reticence, not the least of which was that her father would arrive home drunk. Also, there was never a fire in the grate, and used cups and saucers littered the dining room table. Her mother would sit at the table wearing two overcoats. The first time I agreed to accept a cup of tea, she shuffled out of the room and came back carrying a kettle. She poured some of the hot water into one cup swished it around a few times before pouring it into the next one. This was her method of washing the dishes. I could’ve lived with that, after all I was used to hardship. But the tea she made was as weak as could be and it tasted vile, especially to one who had been used to drinking strong army tea. She was so lazy that she didn’t bathe, and she began to smell so badly that local shopkeepers barred her from their shops.

One Saturday when my wife was nearing her time, her father came home in his usual drunken state. Some words were exchanged between them, and he took a swipe at her. Quick as a light, I was out of the chair and grabbed him by the throat. I dragged him outside, into the yard. “Now you drunken scum, let’s see what sort of a man you really are. Go on, throw a punch at me.”

“You wouldn’t hit an old man,” he groaned.

“I’ve had enough of you, and have put up with your snide remarks about the Irish. But you crossed the line when you raised your hand to my pregnant wife. Now, let’s see what you can do.”

He was stunned and rooted to the spot. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean any harm.”

“Let’s get something straight right now,” I said, “You behave yourself in future, or I’ll bury you in this yard. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” he said all sheepish, “I’m sorry.”

I went into the house and told her to get her coat; and leave right away or stay for good. From that moment on, his attitude to me changed totally. All of a sudden, I was his son-in-law and a hero who didn’t take nonsense from anybody. He would tell his friends… “You don’t mess with the Sheridans.”

At a later stage in our relationship, I began to understand his reason for behaving as he did. Shortly before our wedding, I was allowed into my future in-law’s house. Every Saturday morning before he went to the pub, I noticed that he cleaned the house from top to bottom while my mother-in-law sat on her fat backside. They didn’t share the same bed and hadn’t for years, according to my wife. They never spoke except to snarl and argue. They had three children, all girls. He had been told that she had done her duty and that was the end of any further sexual activity. There was also the strange notion going around that a man wasn’t a real man unless he had a son first. No wonder he was drinking heavily, and causing problems at home. My wife’s two sisters began to look on me as their hero and they became very attached. So much so, that at one stage, the second eldest who was a staff nurse in Birmingham General Hospital told me that she was considering having a baby. If she came to a final decision on this, she said that she wouldn’t mind if I was the father. “How cold and calculating is that,” I thought to myself, although I must admit to being flattered. This coldness was to manifest itself in my relationship with my wife, not many years later.

Then, happy day, our daughter was born. She was a lovely healthy ten pounds and I was thrilled with the whole idea that I was her father. From the first day, after she came home from the hospital I nursed her, sung to her and when she was old enough to sit up, I took her everywhere with me. She was named Catherine, after my mother. This didn’t please my wife or her mother but I insisted and that was that. As she grew older, my wife became terribly jealous of my obvious love and displays of affection for our daughter. Then she passed a particular remark to me one day about my relationship with my daughter. It suggested that the displays of affection were unhealthy. I was disgusted and I began to suspect that the relationship that she had with her father wasn’t as healthy as it ought to have been. I remembered her explanation about the loss of her virginity and wondered. Her remarks annoyed me, and I became selfconscious about holding my daughter. So much so, that it took me many years before I learned to hug my children. But this was after I had entered a whole new relationship.

Just about this time, it must have been around the year 1960; an article appeared in the Letters to the Editor in the Birmingham Sunday Mercury. A guy by the name of Monroe wrote it and it was virulently anti-Irish. Perhaps he was related to the ex-governor of Mountjoy Prison in Dublin, who was given a hard time by the IRA when my father was incarcerated there. It annoyed me so much, that I sat down immediately and penned a reply. I pointed out that my countrymen were not just in the process of re-building their cities and doing many of the menial jobs that the natives wouldn’t do. But they had earned the right, in any event, through their service in the British Armed Forces. A total of 250,000 of my countrymen served during the First World War. Two of them were uncles of mine. One was killed and the other lost a leg at the Somme. My father, I went on to argue had served in the 8th Army in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, and had been wounded while helping an English colleague who had been hit. As for me, I argued further, I never wanted to come to England in the first place and would be returning home at the earliest opportunity. In the meantime, should the security of the state be threatened and my services required, I would not hesitate to join the armed forces. My attitude is… if one is making a living in England then the least they can do is to help in times of need.

The repercussions from my letter that was listed under the title in the newspaper, In Defence of the Irish, amazed me. I was invited to travel to Valentia Island, off the coast of Kerry, to speak to the people there. My daughter’s godparents were from Valentia. The husband was visiting his parents at the time that one of them was ill. His wife posted a copy of the newspaper to him and he showed the letter to his neighbours in the local pub. The Irish workers in Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds, a large engineering factory in Birmingham, where my sister Rosaleen worked, wanted me to speak to them in the canteen during lunch. I became something of a celebrity among the Irish. But some of the local Birmingham people saw me in a different light, and many of those employing Irish workers were becoming concerned at the reaction of their staff. The neighbours stood in a group outside of the house where I lived as I left for work, and nodded to each other as a couple of them said in a voice loud enough for me to hear, “He’s the guy who wrote to the Mercury.” If this behaviour was meant to intimidate me, it didn’t work but it certainly had its effect on my landlord, who asked me to leave his house. One of the guys at work refused to believe that I had the command of English to write such a letter. When I said that I had indeed written it, he then insisted that I’d had my schooling in England. Feelings were running high all around. The newspaper editor was so inundated with mail that he published an editorial, stating the matter was now closed and no more mail on the subject would be accepted. Hindsight is a great thing, so they say. If I hadn’t been so naïve, I might have capitalised on the situation and entered politics. I would’ve had no problem with garnering the support of the Irish at large.