Anne's Song Read online

  The aches and pains in my legs meanwhile persisted. They didn't really bother me when I was playing with my sisters or my friends but I'd complain about them at the end of the day. The way I used to describe them was like having a headache in my legs. Eventually it reached a point where it was decided I should be put into a sort of hospital so I could be observed more closely. It was called St Gabriel's Convalescent Home in Cabenteely on the outskirts of Dublin, about an hour on the bus from where we lived. I never questioned what was happening. I was a child and it was adults who made decisions. I simply did as I was bid. Anyway, I was either told or I'd somehow worked out in my head that I was only going to be there for three days and then I'd be back home again. So I saw it as a bit of an adventure.

  What also made it quite exciting was that Maureen was admitted at the same time as me. She'd been told she either had a high blood count or hypertension, whatever that may have meant. These days, she'd have been given some pills. Back then, though, I think it must have been the fashion to encourage bed rest in the hope that whatever was ailing you would go away. It was a bizarre way of dealing with any physical complaint, especially when it involved children. As it was, Maureen remained in Cabenteely for a year while I was there for an astonishing eighteen months, never once being allowed out to visit home. Because so many grownups were telling me it was for the best, I simply accepted the situation as my fate, never questioning it.

  When Maureen and I first arrived, there was a measles epidemic, so the nuns said we had to stay in the convent with them. We were put in a room on our own. Mum used to come and visit us twice a week, Wednesday and Sunday without fail, when she'd bring us what was called our 'pigeon' – biscuits and little treats, kept in your own individual tin box.

  I only found out much later on that, during our first two weeks in the home, there was a bus strike in Dublin. Mum never said anything but, unable to drive and not being able to afford taxis, she hitchhiked across the city. Dad would come with her on Sundays, but he was working in the week. When we had measles, visitors were only allowed to look at us through a glass window. They couldn't come into the room in case they carried in germs from outside. I know Mum found that hard and I remember crying each time she left.

  At the start, Maureen and I were told to stay in bed almost all the time. We'd be seen by a doctor once a week who might say that we could get up for, say, half an hour a day. Then it went up to an hour a day and so on, but if we ever did anything wrong, we'd be told we had to revert to just half an hour a day. It was all very strange. I never felt remotely ill, even though there was a more or less continuous dull ache in both legs – although not always at the same time. And still no one seemed able to explain what the cause was.

  Once the measles epidemic had passed, we were then put on different wards according to our ages. Maureen was only six and I know she found it hard not having her big sister with her. In time, we were allowed to do pretty much what we wanted. I'd get up in the morning and play with the other children, or help in the kitchen and then deliver meals to the other patients. There were only girls in the home, and most of them around the same age as me. There were about twenty girls on my ward, many of them with heart conditions but all expected to make a full recovery.

  We'd listen to the radio a lot; Cliff Richard and Elvis Presley were very popular at the time. Or we'd play draughts or snakes and ladders, if it was winter and we had to stay indoors. In the summer, as long as the weather was nice, we'd be allowed out in the grounds where we'd play tig or hopscotch or skipping games.

  We were taught by a teacher who came in each day, a mixture of lessons including maths and Gaelic which was as much a mystery to me then as it is now. I'd see Maureen at playtime but I was horrible to her. I'd run away from her saying, 'You're not my sister.' I deliberately tried to make her cry. Then I'd go up to her and give her a cuddle and tell her I was only kidding, that I loved her really. I think I just wanted her to want me. So I'd goad her until she cried and came to me pleading, and then I'd hug her and make her smile and have the satisfaction of making her better again. I remember deliberately making my sisters cry when they were babies, just so that I could console them. It was a form, I suppose, of exercising control and I'm not in the least proud of it.

  Although we were supervised, the staff were busy so we'd get up to all manner of mischief. I remember once borrowing knives from the kitchen and one of the other girls and I sat in the grounds scraping all the bark off a tree trunk. On another occasion, one of the other girls and I decided to run away. We weren't unhappy; we were doing it out of sheer devilment. After lights out, we grabbed our coats, climbed down the fire escape and made our way through the grounds and out of the main gates.

  'And where do you think two young girls like you would be going at this time of night?'

  The voice of the local bobby stopped us in our tracks about a hundred yards from the convalescent home.

  'Dublin, Constable,' I answered with a bravado that I certainly wasn't feeling.

  'Then I think you're going to have a long walk,' he replied, 'because you're on the road to Cork. Dublin is that way.' He waggled his thumb over his shoulder.

  As a punishment, my friend and I were put on a side ward. There were only two beds in it and we had to stay put for a week, only permitted to get out of bed to go to the toilet. It was the isolation unit, screened off by glass from the main ward. I can't say it made me upset, just angry.

  Of course I used to have the occasional bout of homesickness during all this time, but I've always had the ability, even as a child, to rationalise these things. I wasn't going home in the foreseeable future so what was the point of wasting my emotions on wishing I could be back with my family?

  I made my Confirmation in the convalescent home and Maureen made her First Communion. I was ten; she was seven. It was at about that time that I went to Lourdes. We had a neighbour in Raheny who worked for an organisation that sent sick people there, and Mum asked her to put my name on the list. However, my mother couldn't come with me. I was put on a stretcher and lifted on to a night train, sleeping in a couchette enshrouded by a privacy curtain. When the party got to Lourdes, I stayed in a hostel with other young people. I was perfectly capable of walking although, on the occasion I was taken to the Basilica, I was placed in a wheelchair and pushed by one of the Boy Scouts. I didn't mind. I was an obedient child even though I was spirited, too. To be honest, I think I rather enjoyed the drama of it all. I remember it very clearly. There was a procession in the evening when hundreds of people carried candles down a hill to the village, an absolutely amazing event for a ten-year-old girl who'd been stuck in a home in Ireland. All you could see were candles in every direction. All you could hear was beautiful singing. Eventually, I was taken to the grotto, dressed in a special robe, and told to get out of my wheelchair and walk through a sunken stone bath filled with freezing water. At the other end, there was a statue of Our Lady. I was told to kiss her feet and, as I did so, I was dunked under the water. The strange thing was that, the moment I climbed out of the bath, I was completely dry in a matter of seconds.

  My mother said she was convinced I was cured while I was there, but of what no one could rightly say. It occurs to me now that I could perfectly well have told the doctors in the convalescent home that the pains in my legs had stopped and then maybe I'd have been allowed home – but that wouldn't have been true. They ached in just the same way before, during and after my trip to Lourdes. Anyway, I wasn't desperately unhappy there, so why pull a stunt like that? Maybe, if I stayed a little longer, they'd discover what was causing the trouble and then I'd be cured and released.

  There never was a convincing explanation and, to this day, I still get aches and pains, immediately below my knees.

  In the summer of 1961, Mum made another trip to England and her enthusiasm for moving to Blackpool was reignited. Again, Dad was reticent. He loved Ireland. Why would he want to move to England? But then Fred Daly, who she'd met on her previous visit, decided to come over to Dublin to convince my father to change his mind.

  Fred was the managing director of a company called Union Printers. He had no connection whatever with show business, but he'd heard Mum sing, and I think he was rather smitten, of course by her looks but especially by her voice. They were chatting afterwards and she told him all about my dad, and Fred was insistent that they should bring the family over to England. There was a huge network of clubs in the UK that simply didn't exist in Ireland. Fred was convinced they'd be a big success because there was a greater scope for the type of music my parents were singing.

  He was tall and slim with a kind face and a nature to match. He was divorced when my mother first met him, although he did have a girlfriend at the time. He may have fancied Mum, but I also think he was genuinely struck by her talent and potential. I was later to grow very fond of Fred, giving him the honorary title of Uncle. He was very kind to me because, apart from my recurrent aching legs, I also suffered from blinding headaches and he would massage the side of my head until I fell asleep. He was a big supporter of Blackpool Football Club and he and my dad took me to my first football match, the start of a lifelong love affair with soccer.

  Uncle Fred must have done a pretty good job of convincing my father that the family's future lay in England because the decision was made to move there in June 1962. He only had a three-bedroom semi, so it was a pretty unusual offer to encourage two adults and seven children to come and live with you. Actually, it was two adults and six children. I was still in the convalescent home – Maureen had just been discharged – and the doctors were not prepared to authorise my release.

  My parents nonetheless decided to move without me. I remember the whole family coming to say goodbye. It was a very sunny day. And then they all left. I was usually accepting of my fate, but I did cry then. I felt so alone. Although I'd seen my brothers and sisters on my Confirmation in the convalescent home chapel, as well as on my birthday, I'd known that Maureen was on the next ward and that the rest of the family were returning to the home I knew and loved. But when they left to travel to England, I felt very flat. When would I see them again? And where? I couldn't imagine my mum making the long journey back to Cabenteely, just to see me. Whichever way I tried to rationalise it, it felt a bit like I was being abandoned. I remember being very tearful for the first couple of days after they'd said their goodbyes. But I was a tough, resilient little girl and, gradually, I rallied. I told myself that this had been a difficult decision made in my best interests. Also, somewhere deep in my heart, I knew that nothing lasts for ever. One day, although I didn't know when, the situation would be bound to change. Wouldn't it?

  That was the June of 1962. I was eleven and I had no idea what the future held. When they'd discussed leaving, my parents were told that Maureen was fine, they could take her – but if they also took me, the doctors could not guarantee what would happen to me. It would be Mum and Dad's decision and on their own heads be it. That's why, they said, they didn't want to risk it. But it didn't stop them moving to England.

  Now, as a mother myself, I find their decision to leave me in Ireland utterly incomprehensible. I know my mum found it a wrench, but she still agreed to it. Not so long ago, I spoke to my Aunt Teresa about being left behind and she said she'd told my mother that she thought it was disgusting. I was a little girl of eleven being abandoned by her whole family with just my mother's Aunt Lily to keep an eye on me. Lily did come and visit me and I loved her, but it felt so strange imagining my mum and dad and all my brothers and sisters living in another country in a house which I'd never seen and couldn't conjure up in my head.

  Then, in the following October, without warning and just a month shy of my twelfth birthday, I was suddenly signed off. My mother put it down to my being cured at Lourdes, although I felt exactly the same as I did before I went there. My condition hadn't changed one jot but the doctors said I could leave the convalescent home. Heaven knows why. Maybe they thought it would be more beneficial for me to be reunited with my family. If so, no explanation was ever given for my release. I went to stay with Aunt Lily for a couple of days before her husband Alfie, and their daughter Trudie, came with me on the boat to Holyhead. Almost as soon as I arrived in England, I went to the Victoria Hospital in Blackpool for a complete medical check-up – my heart, my blood, everything. Apart from the deep-seated murmur, they could find absolutely nothing wrong with me, an opinion that remains the same to this day.

  I hadn't been out of the four walls of the convalescent home for a year and a half, never mind the unfamiliarity of finding myself in an alien country. The drive from Holyhead seemed to go on for ever through a landscape where everything looked strange and foreign. I tried concentrating on what was going on inside the car in an attempt to anchor myself to something – or someone – familiar. I remember laughing at Trudie while she repeatedly licked her fingers and wet her hair as she put in rollers. I'd never seen anything like it. As we eventually reached Preston, the huge volume of traffic was at a virtual standstill, something I hadn't encountered before. I was so naive that, as we approached Blackpool, I was fully expecting to see an enormous black pool.

  Uncle Fred's house was a redbrick semi and posher than where we'd lived on the Raheny estate in Dublin. It was in an area of Blackpool called Layton, some of which was quite smart and some a bit run-down. Uncle Fred's house was in the nicer bit. There was a small front garden and a little raised path leading to the front door. There were two living rooms downstairs and a long, narrow kitchen leading to a yard beyond. The three bedrooms were upstairs. One of them was Uncle Fred's, another was my parents' and Denise, Maureen, Linda, Bernie and I were all in the third. Tommy and Brian slept in the back lounge downstairs. There was also a bathroom and toilet.

  The culture shock was acute. It was pandemonium.

  On top of it all, it was odd being reunited with my brothers and sisters, very odd. Denise still tells a story about my mother saying to her something to the effect that she wouldn't be needed any more because I was coming home. She would no longer be the eldest daughter. What Mum meant was that Denise would be relieved of some of the duties of helping look after the little ones, but she was terribly hurt by this comment. That helped to explain, I think, why Denise seemed rather resentful of me when I got to Blackpool and was standoffish with me at first.

  Generally speaking, my brothers and sisters seemed rather wild, all yapping and scrapping the whole time, almost like strangers to me for a while. They weren't mean to me, and they tried their hardest to include me, but I'd grown unused to the rough and tumble of family life and I'd missed out on so many shared experiences, especially those of Denise and Maureen, the two sisters closest to me. I was like a little mouse after all those months being shut away. My confidence had been sapped to the point where I almost didn't feel like one of the family. I felt very young for my age.

  I realise now that I was shy in their company, which may be a funny thing to say about your own family but it was true. In time, though, I began to be rehabilitated back into family life. Activities that involved all of us were a real help. My dad was keen on Monopoly, so we'd have evenings when the whole family would play. Or we'd all join in card games: Snap or Rummy or Whist, or something called Uno. He always had time for us all. Sometimes, we'd sit and listen as he read us stories from the Bible.

  It was alreadv the middle of the Christmas term, so everyone was at school, with the exception of Bernie who was still a toddler. For some reason, it was decided that I shouldn't start until the beginning of the new academic year the following September. It meant that I missed the first year of senior school, but maybe my parents were still concerned that I should be properly well again before I took on the demands of a full-time education in what was to me a foreign country. Not that I got any tuition from either of my parents in preparation for going to secondary school.

  While I may have been timid to begin with, I was always strong beneath the surface and I started to come out of my shell. Soon I began to assert myself. On one occasion, we were in the park where there was a jazz swing, a large wooden plank that you could sit on as it swung back and forth. I was over the other side of the park on the swings. When I looked over to where Denise and Maureen had been playing, I saw a girl I didn't know ordering them off the jazz plank so that she could swing on it alone. I walked over and asked them what was going on. They pointed to the girl. 'She made us get off,' said Maureen.

  I put my hand on the plank and stopped it from swinging. I turned to my sisters. 'Right,' I said, 'get back on.'

  The girl said, 'No, they're not.'

  I wouldn't back down. 'Yes, they are,' I said, 'and you're getting off

  So she did and we had a fight. I pulled her hair and pushed her and knocked her glasses on to the ground. 1 picked them up, handed them back to her and then told her to push off. I'm not a naturally aggressive person, but I can't bear injustice, particularly when it comes to my own family. I'm a Scorpio, very loyal but with a sting in my tail.

  I liked the weekends, and also when Denise, Maureen and Linda came home from school each weekday afternoon because they were company for me and we could play together, but the weekdays during term time dragged on endlessly. Between October 1962 when I arrived in Blackpool and the following September when I finally started at secondary school, I was stuck at home – at Uncle Fred's – every day. I'd do a bit of housework or watch TV or help look after Bernie. Mum had a job with a football pools company, but Dad didn't work during the day. He relied on the money he made singing in the clubs at night. So it was just him and me and Bernadette who wasn't yet two. With the house to himself, Dad had free rein to do what he wanted.