My Mother – Eileen O’Donoghue born 11/11/20 died 11/12/97

 

My mother was born in Manchester at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month 1920, well you can’t have everything.  She was born in St Mary’s Hospital now demolished on Oxford Road; not far from the Palace, the Corner House and Manchester Chamber of Commerce.  Her father was Patrick Jeremiah O’Donoghue and mother Catherine O’Donoghue (nee Ryan).  Patrick O’Donoghue had been born in Killarney, christened there at the then new Cathedral, and was fifty when my mother was born.  He had served for many years with the British army in South Africa and elsewhere and had rejoined during the Great War to help with horses and at the end to bury the dead.  Catherine Ryan was also Irish she had been born in County Cork and had come over to England in service working in London before moving to Manchester.  They lived as part of an Irish community in Collyhurst, Manchester in a small terraced house – 42, Brydonville Street (long demolished). 

 

My mother was relatively well educated her claim was always to have been top of the class; she retold stories of being marched out of the local primary school by Fr Marshall, a future Bishop of Salford, when the Catholic primary school opened, St Malachy’s. The formation of the school followed a long battle and public enquiry and all the Catholic children marched down through the streets of Collyhurst from the old state school to the new school (1929?).  Her secondary school was St Joseph’s convent where she stayed until she was eighteen, passing all exams and contributing many articles and poems to the school magazine; she loved school and even at 18 (unusual in those days) did not want to leave.  University, for a poor girl from Collyhurst was of course an impossible dream.  Her great gift was conversation, she had a wide knowledge and could instigate and respond to most discussions and debates.  The gift of conversation was not particularly admired by my father, whose nickname for my mother was ‘Dizzy’, or by me when I was younger.  It was only in later years that I realised what a gift it was to bring strangers and people together immediately and to bring a room alive, what a gift that was indeed. 

 

My mother never settled into work in fact one of her prize possessions was a cutting from the Weekly News explaining that Eileen O’Donoghue had had thirty jobs in one year and had never been sacked from any of them. Although rarely used she had excellent typing and Pitman shorthand. Her experiences were always exaggerated but no less amusing as she explained her role packing parachutes during the Second World War or riveting Lancaster Bombers, worryingly for the nation as she never appeared one of the most meticulous of people. 

 

For over fifty years she kept extensive diaries; in later years I would buy her a Boots A4 page a day and I was always amazed to see every inch, margins and footnotes, packed with information.  The content tended to be a free flow of thought and switched from court reports to Cadishead.  She also packed her diaries with additional notes usually written on the tissue paper that backed the silver paper in cigarette packets or the flattened packets themselves.  In addition to her early diaries she kept scrap books of pictures and cuttings relating to film stars and other, including church, celebrities. She had a wonderful talent of finding obscure links between people or events. An example was providing unwelcome commentaries in the cinema such as comments during dramatic moments as ‘he reminds me John McNamara’ or even ‘he reminds me of no-one’.  My mother was also deliberately superstitious reading horoscopes, interpreting cards, avoiding ladders, etc. She attracted gypsies like moths; the most famous encounter being when as a proud mother for the first time she was told by a gypsy at the door ‘children such as these (me, an only child) do not come in dozens’. My mother also dabbled in fortune telling always being invited to read the tea leaves when we visited friends for tea, as you did then, and of course when all tea was loose tea. I cannot imagine the number of tall dark strangers that must have followed those readings.

 

My mother had a relatively sad life – the Irish did suffer in the 1920s particularly during the Great Depression, she spoke of bricks being thrown through the window and fires being lit and all kinds of nasty behaviour.  Her father died when she was six leaving her mother, Catherine, a widow with Eileen and a younger brother John; this in hostile environment before benefits or a national health service.  So times were indeed hard; many of her friends date from these times; Lillian (Clarke) and Marion (Costello), both deceased, were close life long school friends.

 

In fact Eileen became the bread winner on leaving school and John, the only surviving O’Donoghue boy, died at the age of fourteen on Christmas Day of Meningitis.  My grandmother Catherine died when my mother was in her twenties, according to my mother she died of a broken heart having never got over the death of her only son.  The deaths of father, mother and brother in twenty tears must have had a lasting impact on her philosophy of life.  Following her mother’s death she left Collyhurst, went to visit relatives in Ireland and eventually moved in with the Costello family at 49, Bishop St., Whalley Range.  She would recall retiring to Alexandra Park when the air raid sirens sounded to watch the action, as others ran for the shelters.

 

In addition to conversation my mother’s other great gift was calmness.  She never appeared to get excited or upset and managed to cope with all the disasters, mishaps and upsets that life could throw at her.  Her two great sayings, or two pieces of advice she gave  to me when she realised that I was getting excited by the challenges of life were; one – stop for a minute and think who in fifty years from now will care what action you took today.  If the answer is none the action is insignificant and the associated fear irrational.  Many years later on management courses this concept was repeated in terms of decision making; people who made immediate decisions were at the lower end of the management structure but those who made decisions that would affect the business fifty years from now were indeed the key players.  The second piece of advice was never to hate, fall out or get angry with anyone or anything; it is always a waste of your time and energy – ‘rise above it’.  Her wonderful phrase when faced with conflict was “I do not understand it”.  So when faced with modern art or inhuman behaviour or the Nazi uprising, rather than react negatively to it she would simply say ‘I do not understand Picasso’, or ‘I do not understand Hitler’ or even ‘I do not understand Indian cooking’, the message being that rarely is any view completely wrong. My mother although a devout Catholic never was hostile to any other religion or to atheism in as much as she just did not understand it (or anyone who could not believe).  I think these two simple pieces of advice have affected me more than anything anyone has ever said to me before or since.

 

My mother never worked after she married in 1947, I was born two years later, the only child, the last of the Collins line and her stated sole purpose in life then was ‘to rear’ me; to bring me to adulthood; a very simple and basic concept but one she repeated again and again and one that was not without pressure on the subject of this concern and love. 

 

She liked adventure in as much as she would do things for the sake of the experience rather than thinking it through; this could result in misunderstandings and embarrassment.  She played a role in challenging situations of being ‘happy daft’.  No door or opportunity is closed to you if you can adapt the happy daft philosophy.  I remember Noreen and I being summoned to Davyhulme Hospital because my mother was having an operation for in-growing toenails.  We did not know she had never mentioned it. Unfortunately because she did not drive and  she had to be at the hospital for eight o’clock she had walked from Irlam over Barton Bridge.  She had set off at midnight walked over night and rested on the bench outside the hospital before her appointment.  When we visited, following a phone call, the sister gave us a real dressing down for not giving her a lift and picking her up; or being more understanding to which we could just look at each other in total disbelief whilst my mother smiled knowingly that it had been in her terms, at least, an adventure. 

 

I had many adventures with my mother, most years we would go to Ireland for the six weeks of the summer and stay with her relations or wander to strange parts and stop over on spec in bed and breakfasts (on spec an interesting phrase).  I remember great times on Valentia Island off the West coast of Ireland.  Its claim to fame was that in the early nineteenth century a cable had been laid across to the States for the telegraph it being the nearest point of the British Isles (indeed Europe) to the United States of America.  When we visited its glory days were over, it was a back water, reached by a small rowing boat ferry which carried goats, cows, tractors you name it precariously balanced as they crossed for the two hundred or so yards to the island.  I used to play with the wild donkeys and watch the fisherman land fish I had never heard of then – Pollock and Sea bass.  Of the bed and breakfast, the only memories I have now are an outside midden, no running water and chips cooked in pepper all of which were very strange experiences for me.  Having said that we usually stayed with my mother’s first cousin Aunt Bridget in a two bedroom cottage on one acre of land which had no water, no electricity, in fact a very strange existence but nobody mentioned going to the toilet which we all did in the field. All cooking was on the peat fire and lighting by candles; everyday I went with Bridget’s daughter Mary to collect two buckets of water from a murky well nearly half a mile away; the only water in the house for drinking, washing, cooking and cleaning. Groceries and other provisions were delivered by a travelling grocer Willy Woods and on all Sundays and Holy days we trooped three Irish miles across the fields in our Sunday best to the church in Bartlemy; magic, magic days. 

 

Forty years later when I returned I could not believe the size of the cottage it was minute it was also derelict – Bridget had died, her son after many years on the bottle had died and her daughter Mary, although still alive had been in a home for more than ten years not recognising anyone or communicating with anyone.  Whilst there I met the boys I used to play with those many years a go. I stopped going when I was probably about eleven (1961) but they welcomed me back with ‘the boy who came from England but never came back’, but they remembered which was nice. 

 

I said my mother never worked that is not quite true she had a number of other adventures.  In 1961 or thereabouts we sold our house, 10, Francis Ave., Eccles and moved into a shop at 205 Liverpool Road, Patricroft.  It was a family business 8am to 9pm a sweet and tobacconists.  I gorged for a number of years on the sweets, especially four a penny shrimps and blackjacks, ice cream and pop. The tobacconist element satisfied my mother’s lust for cigarettes a lust that would finally kill her. It also supplied the lust of the underweight school kids who could not afford packs of five so bought them individually.  Unfortunately the shop became subject to a compulsory purchase order and was demolished.  That was in 1966 or 1967 ostensibly for a road widening forty years later the road has still not been widened.  I do not know the financial arrangements but part of the deal was moving from that shop into council accommodation we moved to 31 Lane End, Eccles.  One of the primary considerations in the location was to stay in St Mary’s R.C. parish.  The house had previously been run as a brothel all be it a one or two women brothel but it did lead to a number of interesting callers.  It was positioned right at the heart of Eccles with a triangular garden (under which I discovered evidence of much older buildings). It had a very solidly built small air raid shelter and we had a garage built. The home was convenient and it was handy, but as a two bedroomed council house it was the source of great embarrassment to me in front of my new grammar school, middle class friends.  My mother of course could not understand my embarrassment and as always over time she was proved to be right.

 

My mother had a couple of other adventures she never drove a car or learned to ride a bicycle so she only travelled by public transport and then rarely, but these two adventures involved shops a number of miles away from home.  One was a grocery business in Flixton, 51, Oak Road, which must have been an interesting experience I cannot imagine she ever opened before ten or ten thirty.  The second was a very interesting shop on Regent Road opposite the now Campanile Hotel it was housed in a big Victorian Structure with a big glass window complete with original bulls’ eyes. It certainly was a second hand shop and through that second hand shop passed works of art, antiques of immeasurable valuable and tonnes and tonnes of tat.  My mother of course ran it as a charity knowing that in her early days Mays the pawn brokers in Collyhurst had rescued her mother many times and the people that were bringing their possessions into that Salford shop did not really want to part with them but needed money to buy basics.  Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately because it must have lost money all the time, this shop was also demolished for road widening which in this case did in fact take place.  Later in life she would travel (as the widow of a railwayman she enjoyed privileged train travel) to places like Delamere Forest and Grange to look after animals for families who became friends.  In line with her undoubted lucky streak the animals inevitably went missing but always reappeared before their owners returned. The free travel also enabled her to take interesting holidays ever year.

 

I finished university in 1971 married in 1973 and after my father died in 1975 my mother lived alone.  When her first grandchild arrived, Patrick in 1976 – we were living in Irlam, my mother had left Eccles and was living in Partington as an adventure and to forget the memories she had done a house swap.  It had been a big mistake and with the help of Noreen’s father Mr Fahy she bought and renovated a house in Cadishead, 51, Atherton Lane, this enabled my mother to be close to her grandchildren and of course to baby-sit when required. Her time in Cadishead generally was relaxed and happy she made many friends through the neighbours, Pam and Alf – ones I remember, and the library.  She even had a gentleman friend who was affectionately known as ‘big Willy’. She also had a couple of bad experiences including being mugged after collecting her pension and living alone and being trusting she was duped at the front door at least once.  My mother lived in Cadishead for twenty years until her death in 1997 (Dec 11^th).  In fact that is not quite true because my mother was so ill that she came to live at Monton Green with us for a couple of years before her death.  In  those two years she got to know the precious grandchildren better and they learnt to know her ( although I cannot believe she sent eight year olds across the busy road to buy cigs!). 

 

My mother spent most of her latter years reading, writing and smoking but her mobility and health deteriorated rapidly. She was in and out of Ladywell Hospital and eventually died as a result of smoking – with emphysema, badly swollen legs, weak heart and flooded lungs.  Throughout her life she had insisted that smoking was doing her no harm because she did not inhale.  She had started in the 1930s when everyone smoked and film stars etc were never seen without a cigarette. She was also an insatiable, if not particularly discerning, reader, books, magazines, soup tins, anything.  The recurring picture I have of my mother now, is her standing on her mottled legs by the fire reading a book through half squinting glasses, and regularly flicking ash into the coals (even the ‘coals’ of an electric fire).  If no fire was near she would flick it into her hand before eventually, surreptitiously, treading the cooled ash into the carpet. 

 

My mother certainly in later years had little concern for her appearance; generously I would say she dressed for comfort rather than fashion. I often thought this wonderful gifted and talented lady had been wasted because she had not fulfilled her potential or had not achieved any public recognition for her wisdom and gifts. With hindsight however I now realise she achieved all she wished to achieve; she spent a happy life doing what she wanted to do, reading what she wanted to read, thinking what she wanted to think. When she died she confidently knew that she had no enemies and everyone she had ever met had only praise for her. ‘Do not have any expectations and you will never be disappointed’ was one of her anti ambition rallying calls; a clear recipe for happiness if not success.  Of course her sacred memory lives on; even after fifteen years I cannot believe she’s gone and even today everyone I meet reminds me with a smile of some little anecdote regarding her discussions, kindness, quirkiness  or adventures.  Eileen lived in very interesting times, depressions, wars and tremendous technological change; may she rest in peace.