A Lost Daughter
When Nan met George she was a seventeen year old beautiful Irish colleen - happy, spirited, carefree and witty. She was the youngest of nine children and according to George spoiled rotten.
‘She’s the only women I’ve ever known,’ he’d say. ‘Who could burn a boiled egg.’
In an age before television most of Nan’s evenings were spent out with her friends. On dancing nights, accompanied by girl friends in high heels, she’d walk the four miles to the 4 Provinces Ball Room in Harcourt Street, joining hundreds of Dublin youth. The girls would dance to the sound of big bands or the records of Frankie Lane and Nat King Cole, hoping that a good looking boy would give them a last dance. Life was an enjoyable adventure.
It was 1953. In Dublin unemployment had doubled and stood at 60,000. Protest marches to the Dail by trade unionists and the unemployed were frequent. It was a time of change. In England, after George VI’s death, Elizabeth II became queen.
On October 10th Nan’s older sister Mag with best friend Kay Kelly were leaving Dublin to seek their fortune in England. Nan went with them to the station to see them off.
Kay had £2 in her pocket and her cousin’s address where the young women would stay. The night before Mag had argued with her boyfriend Jimmy and was about to make a clean break. As the steam train trundled toward West Row Street Station Jimmy trundled up the hill toward the station on his old, Raleigh Cross Framed Bicycle. These heavy bicycles were made of steel with a double cross bar constructed especially for the rough roads of Ireland. As Jimmy’s breathing became laboured he got off his bike and pushed, half running half walking seeking his young love. After a brief discussion Mag clambered onto Jimmy’s handlebars.
‘I’ll be back in minute,’ Mag announced as the pair rode off into the distance.
Nan was left with her sister’s stylish and slim fitting yellow coat that emulated one Audery Hepburn had worn in the film A Roman Holiday. Nan also had Mag’s luggage in a woven raffia box bag. Fifteen minutes later Mag and Jimmy had not returned. As the Guard blew the whistle Nan cursed her sister and quickly boarded the train with Kay. With a sense of adventure the girls travelled to Dublin Docks where the ferry took them to Holyhead.
‘Most of the people on the boat,’ recalled Nan. ‘Were rough and ready. But the atmosphere was friendly. They were just ordinary people looking for work."
After travelling for almost eighteen hours the pair found Rann Street in Edgbaston Birmingham where Kay’s cousin lived. They knocked the door hard but it was two hours later before anybody woke up to let them in. That evening Nan met George. George and his cousin Johnny took Nan and Kay to the pictures. Nan remembers George buying her a Mars Bar.Romance was in the air.
The next day Nan and Kay found work on the assembly lines at the Lucas factory in Great Hampton Street Birmingham where thousands were employed. Nan and Kay worked at Lucas for three days but were home sick. On Saturday 17th October 1953 Nan and Kay were back in Dublin getting ready to go out for a dance.
George had fallen in love with Nan. Eventually the pair would settle in England and become part of the eighty million strong Irish Diaspora. For now George was back and forth between Dublin and England. George wrote Nan letters professing his love and for a short time Nan played hard to get.
There is no love without jealousy. During 1954 George was in and out of hospital in Dublin after developing a duodenal ulcer. As an outpatient George met an orderly, Kathleen, who gave him a watch. Eighteen years old Nan waited for Kathleen outside her house. As she approached her home Nan confronted her perceived love rival.
“Kathleen come here,” said Nan. “George doesn’t want your watch. Leave him alone,” she announced and unceremoniously dropped the watch into Kathleen’s hand.
George died of cancer in 2006 and insisted the words ‘I loved you the first time I saw you. I never wanted anybody else. I will always love you.’ Were included in the tributes that were written after his death.
In July 1955 Nan and George were married in a double wedding with Jimmy and Mag. In September 1955 Nan became pregnant with daughter Bridget. Nan’s life had changed now from being a looked after, carefree single young women to a wife and expectant mother. Both George and Nan travelled between England and Ireland seeking work.
In the 1950’s emigration reached huge proportions. Over 400,000 people left Ireland the majority travelled to England in search of work. In 1956 the economic situation in Ireland worsened there was a danger of defaulting on its international debt as the balance of payment deficit increased. For the working class this meant large scale unemployment, or low paid jobs. Many experienced poverty, scarcity and deprivation. Occasionally escape was found and millions of Irish people in Ireland felt as if they had their own royal wedding when in April 1956 the Irish/American actress Grace Kelly married Prince Rainer of Monaco.
Bridget was due to be born on May 13 1956 and as that date came and past Nan remembers being bothered by her relatives and friends pointing to her “bump” and asking “are you still there? are you still there?”. Nan having being previously protected by her older brother and sisters was now expected to cope with being pregnant and overdue. Eventually Bridget was born on the 29th of May 1956 at the Coomb Women and Children’s Hospital.
Nan remembered, ‘visitor after visitor after visitor coming to see me and Bridget.’
Bridget was the first Grandchild on George’s side and he had 11 brothers and sisters. All of the relatives came to visit to show their love but for Nan it was endless and exhausting. Her body and her mind longed for rest. Nan had difficulty breast feeding. Bridget kept trying to suckle on the side of Nan’s breast and this left Nan with an infection, in pain and feeling helpless. She wasn’t coping her body was tired and her mind was numb. Nan was released after five days in hospital. There was no help then for young mothers. And there was no such condition as Post Natal Depression. No one to ask, no one to share problems with. The house where Nan lived with her family was opposite an abattoir, the smell was terrible and large black flies buzzed around tormenting the neighbourhood waiting to land to spread the diseases and germs they carried.
Shortly after Nan was released from hospital she had a nervous breakdown, she could not speak and could not hear. The heaven of being married and having children had become a hell of despair. Nan was admitted to Grangegorman Mental Hospital. Her family looked after Bridget.
In the 1950s Ireland held the world record for detaining people it deemed to have mental health problems. For every thousand people in Southern Ireland seven beds were available for mental health patients. Grangegorman was a Victorian building grey and imposing. It was not unusual for the hospital to hold 2000 patients at any one time in open dormitories housing one hundred beds. The hospital was a specialist centre for lobotomy and Electro shock treatment. The hospital pioneered treatments that today would be deemed barbaric. Treatment given to those who had syphilis involved being locked in a room with mosquitos that infected patients with malaria. According to Dr Walsh who began his career in 1956 at Grangegorman Electro current was a treatment given “indiscriminately.”
Nan has little memory of this period just vague memories of other patients including elderly women sitting legs apart unaware that they were showing their knickers. Unsure of how many times she was given electrode current treatment Nan remembers just before it was administered being on a hospital bed surrounded by doctors and nurses. Bright operating lights shone in her face and prevented her from seeing as the electrodes were placed to the side of her head.
After six weeks Nan was freed by a board of doctors who declared her to be sane.
“She’s the only person in this family,” George used to say. “that has a certificate to prove she is sane.”
There were two other legacies from her ECT treatment. The first was a condition called “dropped foot” resulting from damage to neurological nerve endings. The second condition left Nan with almost no hearing. The nerves in her ears had been destroyed so that she was left with only 4% of her normal hearing.
Whilst Nan was in hospital Bridget contracted Gastro Enteritis and died. The cost of burial was £15. There was nobody in the family with this kind of money. When families were unable to afford burials it was customary that children were buried in the graves of strangers. The family priest suggested Bridget be laid to rest at the foot of a stranger who was being buried. Nan was never able to find where Bridget was buried.
And although she was a lost daughter Nan made sure Bridget was never forgotten speaking about her even on the day that she passed. Despite the barbarity of her treatment Nan was never broken and she remained happy, spirited, carefree and witty going on to raise five children who loved her dearly.