by Ultan Macken
The following week they faced the reality of life in a London suburban flat. When my father went to work at his insurance company’s office, my mother was left in the flat trying to come to terms with being a housewife. Among the challenges facing her was that she had to learn how to cook. As the eldest daughter and a working woman in Ireland, she had never learned how to cook. The Crescent house always had maids and none of the children ever had the experience of working in the kitchen with their mother. She spoke to me about those first days in her flat in Ealing:
It was quite a cultural shock in all kinds of ways. Having come from a very Catholic town where everyone was married and living together with husbands and wives in stable family relationships, in these flats you were confronted with many different family arrangements, men and women were living together and there were women living on their own. There was an acceptance of unmarried people living together and this I found shocking as a young newly wed woman. However, I must say that they were all very nice to me. When I told them I couldn’t cook, they advised me to buy some cook books and to learn. But they also showed me and they were really helpful, giving me little tips that they had learned themselves.
My father gives a vivid description of the kind of job he was doing in his second novel, I am Alone. Essentially, it was his job to sell life insurance door-to-door. He cycled everywhere and got on very well with the housewives he called on. Many of them had already bought life insurance policies from the company where he worked and it was his job to collect the one shilling a week they were required to pay to keep the policy going. My father had great personal charm and this was very useful in the job he was doing. It was exhausting work and he did not enjoy it. A typewriter was sent to their flat in Ealing by the family at home to try to encourage my mother to keep up her writing, but she never used it in London. It became my father’s first typewriter and he began to work on it by writing articles for the Irish Independent.
I find it hard to understand how, once she married my father, my mother completely gave up all ideas of working outside the home. With her experience and background, why couldn’t she continue to work as a freelance journalist? When I asked her, she told me my father was very insistent that it was his job to earn wages and to look after her and any children they would have, and that her place was in the home (although in one of the letters she wrote to my father when they were back living in Galway, which I quote below, she refers to writing two articles for the Irish Independent). She provided him with a safe and secure home where he never had to worry about his meals, the fires, the beds – everything in the home was in her care.
They never had anyone in to help with the housework. I believe my father’s privacy was important to him and that he felt if they had a housekeeper or maid their private world would be invaded. He also did not want to have to live like his mother, always having lodgers in their home.
Almost a year after they arrived in London, they were expecting their first child. My mother’s sister, Auntie May, told me that my mother being able to give birth to two children was a miracle, as she had a blood disorder when she was younger which could have resulted in her never having children. But my mother produced her first son on 10 April 1938. They named him Walter and he became known in the family as Wally Óg.
While my mother was in hospital, my father wrote to her:
Britannic Assurance Co. Ltd.
My own darling,
I am writing this under fire for time. I did not arise until half nine and then had to finish accounts. I have left all the washing up for the ‘Bird’ [Auntie Birdie, who was probably taking care of my father while my mother was in hospital] so she will probably curse me. I do not know what the wages are going to be – they are likely to be bad – that is no better than usual.
You can’t imagine how I miss you, Pegs, darling. It’s even about the bloody money, I know it will fly out of my fist as if it never existed. I hate the responsibility of it. I always said you were a wonderful manager and now I am sure of it. How you can make the few shillings go the places they do go has me beat.
So please hurry up and come home to me sweetheart because nothing is the same without you – honest to God. This whole kip-shop has a lousy look to me at the moment and no more than myself, it is crying out for you.
We will have to go back to Ireland and once you and W2 [Wally Óg] are on your feet again, we will get moving. I hate going into the office. I hate the gang in the office and my only consolation is that I will be seeing you in the morning. I can never tell you how much I love you Peg. I never could anyway but just now it is very much worse than usual.
Keep the old chin up because Thursday is not too far away and then I will be with you again. I hope you slept well last night and that you dreamed about me and mind yourself well because you are the only thing in this crazy world that I love and appreciate. The trouble is I am never articulate enough to tell you how much. I must go now and catch the bus darling, so until tomorrow farewell for just a little while until I can kiss you again and have another look at our beautiful son.
Your lonely,
Wally
Life went on and the young couple were constantly hoping and praying that they would find a way to get home. The year 1939 was a turning point. War clouds were gathering and my mother was shocked when civil defence officials called to their door and measured both my mother and the baby for a gas mask. When my father came home from work that evening, my mother told him what had happened and said they had to get home before the war broke out.
7
RETURN TO THE TAIBHDHEARC
Fortunately for my father, in 1939 Frank Dermody was offered a job with a film company in Dublin and he decided to leave his job in the Taibhdhearc. I don’t know whether my father contacted the Taibhdhearc or whether they got in touch with him, but he was offered the vacant position of producer and the family returned to Galway. The exact date of their return is unclear, but the programme for a play called Clann na Gealaighe (Family of the Moon), staged at the Taibhdhearc between 20–23 April 1939 in which my father played a leading role, suggests that they must have returned to Galway before that point. May Kilmartin was also acting in that production.
They stayed with my father’s mother in Henry Street for a short period and then my mother started looking for a house to rent. She found it in Shantalla and they lived there for a few months. During the 1940s as well as working in the Taibhdhearc and writing, my father occasionally travelled to various drama festivals to adjudicate at them. From what I heard of these experiences, he was a very severe critic. He was such a professional actor, producer and director, that he demanded perfection from these drama groups. What annoyed him was if he gave an adjudication on a particular group and advised them how they could improve, when they came back in front of him the following year in another play, they would make the same mistakes. He found that very frustrating.
While working as an adjudicator, he wrote letters back to his wife and child. Here are some extracts from one of the letters written in Roscommon, where I think he and May Kilmartin were acting as adjudicators for a drama festival:
Greally’s Hotel,
Roscommon.
18/05/39
My dear Pegg,
It is a beautiful morning in Roscommon. I missed you an awful lot last night. I hope you are missing me too. I have no idea at all of the time and am busy writing this before breakfast and as usual I’m starving. May Kilmartin has come down now so it looks as if we can go and have the breakfast and then I can go to 10 mass. You know it’s awful funny to be writing to you like this. It seems years you dote since I have done it before and I find that I have a sluggish pen. The dramas don’t start until 1 p.m. so it looks as if we will not be home until 11 p.m.
The hotel is damn nice except that they have no hot water in the room. They leave it in a little business outside the door. So when I was shaved and dressed etc., I came out the door, didn’t see it and knocked it all over the joint.
I bet the cleaners are saying what nasty man was occupying room 16.
How did you get on without me last night? I hoped you missed me a terrible lot and Wally Óg too. Breakfast has arrived and I will say goodbye and I will post this on my way to mass and we will have great fun reading it tomorrow. I love you Peggy at an early hour of the morning and it’s killing me until I get back to you and little Wally again.
Love Wally
My father’s work with the Taibhdhearc took him away often. I have a few letters from my mother to my father in late June/early July 1939 from Shantalla, while he was in Furbo studying Irish once again. They give a flavour of the kind of life my parents were living:
Naomh Antoine,
Upper Shantalla,
Galway.
Sunday night
My own darling,
Mick Lohan and May have just left, they have been here since six and I am expecting Mother and Mrs Spellman now, Mother is going to have a bath [my grandmother must not have had a bathroom in her own house in Henry Street]. Oh darling, I was very lonely after you last night but it’s good to think that I shall see you on Saturday night. It was nice to have Joan [one of Peggy’s sisters] sleeping here last night. She came down and lit the fire at 7.30 and went to 8 mass in St Joseph’s. I got the breakfast and after doing the baby went to 10 a.m. mass in St Joseph’s too. Captain Seán and Mr O’Connor and all the kiddies were there too, all at Holy Communion [they later became close family friends].
It’s a nice wee cool church to go to – is never crowded like the Jesuits. When you are home again I must try and go to 7.15 every morning. I miss the daily mass. Joan stayed until 1 p.m. and after the baby had his dinner, we went down to Mother and stayed there until 5. I walked home with him around Taylor’s Hill. It turned out a lovely evening here. I hope you get out a bit today, darling, don’t forget you need some air.
Monday 11 a.m.
Darling, I’ll have to finish this as I can’t do a thing with the child and I have to go down and order coal, etc. Anyway, tired as I am the only thing is to take him out, I can’t do anything with him in the house alone. I love you sweetheart and wish you were home – hope I have a letter soon – I’m very lonely. God bless you darling.
All my love always,
Your Peggy
I have a second letter from my mother from the same address:
Sunday night
My own darling,
You will forgive me if this letter is short tonight but I’m really dead tired. Mona and Enda [friends of the family] brought Wally Óg and myself to Ashford, Cong this afternoon, we had tea there and were not home until nearly 7 – they had to take some friends of Mrs Emerson out there to see it and they decided not to go to Furbo. Anyway it was a lovely drive but Wally Óg was dead tired when we came home. He gets on great with Mona and he had his tea with her, demolishing yards of bread and butter.
So I could not get down to Mother at all today but will bring her the money in the morning [my father gave his mother something every week]. I was at 8 o’clock mass this morning, Joan at 10. Joan was really early last night fortunately.
Well, what has me so tired is that I have just finished off two articles, one historic that I started the night long ago in St Jude’s and the other, old stuff about the races, I will post them tomorrow and I am addressing them to the Literary Editor of the ‘Irish Independent’ … When I read them over, I thought they were tripe so I have not much hope for them – still one never knows, and God is good, one might get in and the money would be very useful. I must honestly try to write during the winter when you are home. I am very rusty and much slower with ideas than I used to be.
Now I have a ferocious headache so will stop, dearest. I will post this in the morning. I love you with all my heart and we miss you terribly. God bless you sweetheart and I am looking forward to Saturday.
I am very tired,
Goodnight love,
Your Peggy
And another written the following Tuesday:
Tuesday 2.30
My own darling,
It was grand getting your letter today. On Sunday unfortunately, Enda had to take a friend of his Mother’s as I told you, to Ashford, Cong and took us along too and we had a grand afternoon, but I told you all that in yesterday’s letter, darling.
Joan was in bed with a cold yesterday and I therefore could not arrange to get her to stay in for me last night. They called for me at 9 to bring me out to see you but of course, I had to send them off without me. However, they came back about 10 and had a cup of tea and stayed gossiping until 11. [My father was staying in a guesthouse in Furbo about ten miles from Galway city.] They are really an awfully nice pair.
Anyway the latest sensation is that Billy Emerson is getting married tomorrow in Gort to a Miss Clune from Craughwell, Billy’s mother does not approve but she had to give her consent on account of stopping the affair with Phyllis Browne before, so they are all of a doodah.
We went out shopping in the morning yesterday and I called in to Agnes and gave her the 10/–, Eileen was there and Harry [his sister Eileen’s future husband] came out to talk to us, but whatever it is the baby roars every time he sees Harry.
Downtown we met Des [her brother], he posted the articles and your letter for me and asked could he come to lunch with us today – so I said yes and proceeded to buy two pork chops accordingly. He duly arrived and enjoyed his dinner very much – he says I feed you well …
Des tells me that Daddy sent off his article on Race Week so that washed out mine, however, perhaps they will use the other one. Let’s hope so, so that I can get a costume. Wally Óg is sneezing a lot, I hope he has not got a cold. I was talking to Liam Ó Briain yesterday too [Liam Ó Briain was now chairman of the Taibhdhearc and sent my father out to Furbo], and he said to ask you to write him a letter in Irish, till he sees just how you are getting on and that he will send it back to you with remarks; he also said that he might go out to see you sometime, he is delighted that you are out there and said you should stay as long as possible.
Wally Óg is getting restive so I must stop, my darling, I love you with all my heart, God bless you, and I am longing for Saturday night.
Your Peggy
The fourth letter of this group again from Naomh Antoine in Shantalla:
Weds night
My own darling,
I have been working hard since tea – made two cakes, a sweet cake and a soda cake and then set to and spring-cleaned the kitchen.
It was not so nice here today, lovely in the morning but quite cold in the afternoon. We went down to see Agnes after I had written your letter and stayed talking to her for a good while. The visitors had gone to Spiddal since 3 so maybe you saw them. They did not go to Cong yesterday only as far as Oughterard and were back at six, so afterwards they all went to the pictures, including Agnes. She enjoyed it very much. She is thrilled at the thought of going off next Friday week, and I think she feels the time flying while they are here. [Agnes spent some time living with her daughters in England each year.]
I cannot go to see them in the morning because the baby gets very tired about 11 and I have to put him off for an hour’s sleep. I’ll have to try and mange the money better when you come home darling.
I laid it all out this week, yet it seemed to fly away. I don’t know how we are going to manage to get curtains and things but I suppose it will all come in God’s good time. I must try and buy the lace curtains for the baby’s room out of this week’s money.
So we went all around Salthill in by Threadneedle Road and back to Shantalla, what a walk – I am fagged. However, it should be good for both of us. Met May Fogarty [a close friend of Peggy’s] this afternoon, she was asking for you, and she said we must go down to her again after the Races, she is delighted we have a house of our own at last.
If only you were home, my darling, I could start to appreciate our own house. Wally Óg is coming on great and I really think he misses you a lot, he shouts for you at i
ntervals and looks expectantly at the door to see if by any chance you are hiding outside. He is an awful handful of course, but that is not his fault.
I forgot to tell you in the letter today that I was in the Crescent last night. I went down Shantalla to meet May and Ivor was waiting for me on New Line to bring me way over to the house (Daddy is away); and when I got into the house, he insisted on showing me his college blazer, etc. May showed me all her things she has collected and they are lovely. It was awfully strange being at home again, and I felt awfully lonely and queer while I was there. I was not in the house very long and the maids were delighted to see me. Wally darling, I love you, you know that and I miss you. I’ll die with excitement when you come home again.
