My Birthday

2nd November 2018:

Yes it's my birthday today, so this morning I rang my 92 year old mother to have a chat about this day 73 years ago.

We had the chat we never had before about the day of my birth.

Did she remember, of course she did; I was delivered by Doctor Duffy and the midwife Nurse Doyle, in my grandfather and grandmothers house in Collougher, Ballinlough, County Roscommon. 
Of course there was no electricity, toilets or running water but there was a lovely spring well about 50 meters away.

I was born about mid-day, weighing in at nine and a half pounds. She was nineteen, very Malawian, married a year and a half and the only bride in the parish for years. That made me a bit of a rarity, so all the neighbours came from miles around and everyone gave me half a crown, which was serious money in those days. 
I asked about the money, but it seems it's long gone!!

Maybe the best story was one old lady, Mary Flanagan, who came accross the fields, and gave me a half crown, into my hand, which I gripped tightly, and then spat on me for good luck, maybe its still working.
The interesting thing is that she sold her house and land to my parents a few months later and lived with us until her relations took her away.

My grandfather's house was a two bedroomed thatched house, as were all the houses around.  Maybe that's why I never feel out of place in our new home 10,000 Km away

We then went on to talk about how hard life was and more especially when I contacted the dreaded  polio virus some months later.

My mother is and has always been a powerhouse and  my rock , despite the fact my father being older and the brightest man, I ever knew.

Imagine, being a nineteen year girl and  an ambulance coming and snatching your only child and bringing him about 24 miles to what was then, in 1946 the County Home, which was previously the Workhouse.

The black hole of Calcutta where I was dumped in with other untouchables with this unknown, and dreaded disease, Infantile Paralysis.

I was thrown in with old folk who, had no place to go and no one to look after them. They were scantily dressed, drinking slops, in my mother's eyes when she visited once a week on the bus. 
Then there were the other unmentionables, the poor unfortunate girls who  had babies out of wedlock, and untouched by men of course. 
How could any thinking health service put kids, like me  with an infectious disease in with other people.

This is a very long story and maybe I might revisit it sometime when I have time and calm down.

What saved my left arm and more was my father insistence on the  "Hospital "getting Physios to work on the group of us. His sisters were nurses in America and sent the word that without Physio, I would be crippled for life.

Anyone who has seen Liam Neeson in the film "Taken", might understand what it took to shake up the system that prevailed . 

All this time, my father made a living, building houses in Longford, and cycled the two hours to Roscommon to see me and put the fear of God into the whole pathetic establishment. 

We don't really know how long I was there, but the Physiotheraphy did the job and I really havent looked back. 

To look at my mother today, there is no indication how hard her life was in those days, but neither of us felt that we were deprived of anything

The pictures shows two of the women in my life, my mother who I know for 73 years and Mary my wife who I know for 55 years. 

These two know each other for 53 years since Mary's mother died and they never had a cross word in all this time. Two inspiring people and I love them both