Walter Macken
Page 40
In January 1967 he received a letter from a songwriter in England, Peter Hart:
Millbrook House,
Guildford,
Surrey.
January 2nd 1967
Dear Mr Macken,
I have recently returned from Co. Donegal after a motoring holiday in the west of Ireland. I am a writer of lyrics and music, and have for a long time been interested in writing a stage musical about life in the west of Ireland.
During my visit, I met Fr James McDyer of Glencolumbkille and I think his story would make a good basis for a musical. I am writing to ask whether you would be interested in writing the dialogue. I have read most of what you have written and it has given me great pleasure (especially ‘Rain on the Wind’ and ‘Mungo’s Mansion’.) I also believe that such a subject could only be written by an Irishman.
You will probably like to know what qualifications I have. I have written the score for a musical version of Charles Dicken’s, ‘A Christmas Carol’, which ran for two Christmas seasons. I have also won two Ivor Novello awards for the film theme – ‘The Wind Cannot Read’ – and for a children’s song, ‘Nellie the Elephant’ …
I hope you will be interested in this project, if so I will gladly send you all the published information I have about Fr McDyer. I should add that Fr McDyer has given me permission to dramatise his story. I visualise a large production with a star of the calibre of Peter O’Toole in the lead. I do not think there has been a musical set in Ireland since ‘Finian’s Rainbow’. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Peter Hart
My father replied positively to Peter Hart’s suggestion, explaining that the musical he would write would have to be fictional and merely based on Fr McDyer’s life. My father felt it was a new challenge to write a stage musical, although while working in the Taibhdhearc he would have written various musical pieces. He admired Fr McDyer enormously and he and my mother went to visit him. Peter Hart came to Menlo to discuss the project and my father began to work on it immediately. The title he gave to the musical was God’s Own Country.
Tomás Mac Anna, the new Artistic Advisor in the Abbey Theatre, wrote to my father in January updating him on the plays they had on – Tarry Flynn, the dramatisation of the Patrick Kavanagh novel was a great success, and plans for the season included Brian Friel’s Cass Maguire, Dion de Boucicault’s The Shaughraun and a dramatisation of the Brendan Behan novel, Borstal Boy. Mac Anna also told my father that the new Peacock Theatre would be opening on 1 May. But the most important piece of news he had to tell him was that an American TV company was planning to record a version of his script for the opening night of 1966 – Recall the Years. The Abbey needed my father’s help to cut it down to the sixty minutes required by the American TV company. They planned to film it between 20–25 March.
A lot of what was happening in the early months of 1967 was speculative: Norman Spenser wrote that they needed to get another celebrity name attached to The Scorching Wind. Pat McGoohan was not free in 1967, so they sent to the script to Richard Harris who was looking at it. They also tried Paul Newman but while he liked the script he was wary of taking a part that required an Irish accent.
One of my mother’s letters to me in February had a worrying paragraph:
Daddy’s tummy is not really better at all but at least it’s improved – he also says that he will have to have that operation done some time soon, when he can manage it, horrible thought but there you are.
Despite all the disruption, moving house and so on, my father continued writing and probably from August or September 1966, he wrote his second children’s novel, Flight of the Doves. It took him about three to four months to write a children’s book, so I imagine he started it in Oughterard and finished it in Menlo. It was a very contemporary story about two young orphan children, Finn and Derval, who are living with their cruel Uncle Toby in England. One night they escape and make their way to Ireland on a ferry. They arrive in Dublin and succeed in making their way across Ireland to their Grandmother O’Flaherty who lives in Connemara. By early March of 1967, he still had had no response from the publishers about this new book. He refers to it in this letter to my brother:
Menlo,
Galway.
March 2nd 1967
My dear Wal,
Thanks for your letter. Now that Peggy has a typewriter, she’ll keep you on your toes. Macken modesty is merely the exposition of Macken truth – it’s just that, the rest of the world won’t face it. In the midst of your news we were pleased to note that there is a possibility of you being here April 1 and 2. Hope this transpires. In case it does, I gave orders for the boat to be painted today so that it should be ready in a few weeks. Up to this the lake was no place to be with all the high cold winds. I had a nice letter to day from a an Irishman living in Fife, Scotland, saying how much he enjoyed ‘Brown Lord of the Mountain’. He is an Irishman who works as a caddy on St Andrew’s Golf Course in the summer, a bachelor, 55 years old, who would love to go back to Ireland but the booze has got hold of him – it was a nice vivid letter – and is one of the real rewards of writing.
My poor typewriter gave up the ghost today so I have brought it in to be fixed. It will take a few days. I’ve been bashing it pretty hard latterly anyhow. I’m struggling with the musical play. It’s all very subtle. You just want to entertain people, not shove messages down their throats. If there is to be a message it mustn’t be obvious or you’ll hear the click of the seats as they all go home. Anyhow it’s a change from the usual and I hope it turns out all right. I’ll keep you informed.
We have heard nothing since about the film so it’s looking a bit dicey. We haven’t sold Gort na Ganiv yet. We haven’t heard what Macmillans think of ‘The Flight of the Doves’, so there are a few swords hanging over our heads. The best thing to do is to keep working and that’s what we are at. I don’t know what we would do if we made a million and didn’t have to work. Get rid of it fast would be the answer so you would have to keep working.
Had a nice week-end with Ultan here. Weather bad but it gave him a chance for some extra sleeping. Talk about the Mackens being thin in modesty, they are sure heavy in sleep. We’ll have to get into the garden one of these days and dig some more.
All the best. Hope things work out well for you.
Love,
Your Father
He still was nervous about the publishers’ reaction to the second children’s book – but they loved it. Macmillan in New York said:
13 March 1967
Dear Walter,
You are incredible! When did you do it? Why didn’t you mention that you were doing it? Not that I don’t dearly love surprises! Anyway all that matters is that you did do it and it is just grand. We shall publish it in the spring of 1968, which sounds far away and is really almost tomorrow. Thank you very much for another Macken book on our list.
Oh Walter, you are so good. I don’t think there is anyone writing today who can capture the very essence of a child the way you can. As you will see when you see the manuscript, I kept writing ‘great’ in the margins. I think readers will be crazy about the book, and quite rightly! Me too!
During the month of March, news came from Terese Sacco regarding the possibility of my father and mother going to Poland and Russia for a holiday. Terese was arranging the details with both the Polish publishers and with people in Russia where God Made Sunday had sold over 200,000 copies. My father was proud, and he told me there were two words in the title of his story which were normally banned in publications in Russia. His proposed trip to Poland and Russia brought him some publicity. A journalist from the Sunday Independent, Gus Smith visited him in Menlo and a substantial story appeared in the newspaper – ‘Walter Macken to Visit Russia’. At my own newspaper the other journalists were disgusted with me for not having the story before our main rival Sunday newspaper. I had actually been at home with my parents the previous weekend in Menlo and they had talked about the trip, but I did not thi
nk of my father as a news story!
In a letter my father wrote to my brother at the beginning of April, he spelled out how difficult he felt it was for people to understand each other:
Menlo.
April 6th 1967
My dear Wal,
It was very nice having you here for a little while. It’s good for you to see how ordinary people live! If Peggy heard me saying that, there would be murder! Anyhow it was very nice having you with us. Even if – as age advances – one is inclined to think back with wonder and some dismay at the time when you were a boy – nearly 29 years ago now – blimey.
The more life advances, the greater one’s ignorance. How little we really know about another human being, even one’s children After all you are our son. We watched you all the way from the first most wonderful and joyful moment when I heard you were born – all the way up to what you are now and we know no more about you in a way than you know about us – it’s mostly a guessing game. This leaves true emotion and what genius we possess in the sub-conscious or the soul, I suppose, which is the only true plane where people can meet and recognise each other, almost fully. That’ll be the day.
There’s a cold north-easterly blowing today and I am trying to get into the garden to sow grass seed. This wind would just turn it inside out so I’ll just have to sit and look out. What a country for wind. We haven’t heard from Ultan since he was here last, but I suppose he has his own troubles. Mick Lohan and myself intend to bring the boat up to Menlo today, but with the wind on the river, it’s not going to be very pleasant. Anyhow if you manage to reach Menlo in the future, the boat will be there and we can explore this part of the lake.
I’m banging away at the musical – 5 scenes left to do and I hope to get them finished before we go to Sligo on the 22nd. We had another photographer here yesterday. He took some terrible pictures of me and a lovely one of Peggy for the ‘Sunday Independent’.
Fielder Cook is coming to Galway tomorrow to see us. You remember he was the man who directed the film of ‘Home is the Hero’. He’s a mixed-up kid, but he’s a very intelligent man. It will be a change.
It’s going to take us years to get the gardens in Menlo in to shape, but one day they will look nice, if we live long enough. It’s a bit fatal in this room to be writing a letter and looking out at the same time. The only cure is to firmly put your back to the window and look at the wall. I’m trying hard these days to tranquillise myself. I hope I can succeed. I’m taking an occasional zombie pill in the hope that it will do the trick [pills prescribed by a doctor for his stomach aches].
It was beautiful, calm and sunny yesterday in Salthill, a bogus promise of spring, alas. How can you satisfy the heart of man, longing for so many things, not accepting what he has got.
I hope you will have a happy birthday. We will pray for you. I found the two toughest birthdays were 30 and 50, as I think I told you before, but all men are different, Thank God and maybe 30 for you will be a really good one. Next year you can let me know.
All good wishes & much love,
Your Father
My mother wrote me a very nice letter on 12 April, full of news:
My dear Ultan,
It was good to hear you this morning [I presume I had phoned]. Actually I would have written as usual yesterday only that I was feeling awful – funny throat, etc., but Thank God today it is much better. Now anyhow you have all the news – about Fielder who has not changed appreciably – still beautifully turned out, the only thing is that the hair has greyed a bit. He’s the same as ever, likes those funny jokes with Daddy – he has two little girls, six and four respectively. It looks bad about the film, we had letters both from Charles and Norman saying that they had got Stanley Baker as well as David Warner but if they cannot get the money in ten days or so, which does not seem likely, they will have to postpone which means it’s unlikely to come off.
Menlo garden is really beginning to look something – even tulips out – I’m just going out now to plant some things I got from Alma – she was here on Monday night and was asking for you.
You must try and get home if Wally Óg comes to say mass here. Daddy says he will write to you tomorrow, so that you will get another letter. God bless you old son, I miss you. I have no one here to give me pep talks.
With love always,
Mammy
Easter 1967 was special. We attended the ceremonies at the cathedral. Again my father and I did a lot of walking and on our long walk on Easter Sunday, I mentioned that I thought my mother was depressed – just a feeling that I had. Of course, after I returned to Dublin, my parents discussed together the things I had discussed with them. My father wrote me a wonderful letter, which unfortunately I have mislaid, but I remember one particular section off by heart:
Your mother told me that you had told her that you felt that I might have given you an inferiority complex. I am really sorry if I have ever hurt you in this way. Someone asked me once what were the best days of my life and I told them when one son was ordained and when the other son was awarded his science degree. I am just as proud of you and your accomplishments as I am of my elder son.
Looking now at photographs the late Jimmy Walshe (of the Connacht Tribune) took of my father in April 1967, you would never believe that he was only fifty-one at the time – he looked a much older man. The stomach aches he had for months were a sign that his health was failing. Finally on Sunday 16 April, his doctor had him admitted to Calvary Hospital for tests. He had great fun in hospital, talking to the nurses and doctors about their lives and questioning the doctors about the tests they were doing. My mother’s sister, the warm-hearted Auntie May, came to visit him every day, bringing in flowers.
Finally, on Friday 21 April, the hospital released him, telling him that he would possibly have to have a minor operation, as they thought he might have some kind of a blockage in his intestines. He was home by 4 p.m. and enjoyed a cup of tea and a piece of cake in the kitchen. He phoned both my brother and me. He sounded in good form and told me that he would have to go into hospital to have this minor operation, but there was nothing seriously wrong with him.
That night, I went to the 95 Folk Club in Harcourt Street, as I often did. I arrived home about 1.30 a.m. and I could not sleep. At 4 a.m., one of the members of Opus Dei, living with my brother in the house in Harvieston in Dalkey, rang to say that my father was seriously ill and that my brother would be picking me up at 7 a.m. to drive to Galway. On the drive down that morning I asked my brother to turn on the RTÉ Radio News and the second item on the headlines stated baldly – ‘Walter Macken, the author and playwright, died at his home in Galway this morning.’
That was how we found out that our father had died.
A relative thought that we had been told and so contacted RTÉ news. We drove to Galway and on the way into the city we stopped at Calvary Hospital and went in to see my father laid out in the morgue. We prayed over his body for about twenty minutes. Both my brother and I have strong faith, and did not feel that his spirit was present in the room.
We left the morgue, went to our cousins’, the Lohans, house in Woodquay, and went upstairs to see my mother. I will never forget that look she gave us as we went into the bedroom to her. She wrapped her arms around us.
We learned that when they returned from their walk on the prom on the Friday evening, my father had had his usual fry and then they went to watch television. At 11 p.m. they went to bed, but my father could not sleep so he told my mother that he was going to go out into the living-room to try to sleep on the sofa (where he often took afternoon naps). At around 3 a.m., she heard him making a sound. She went out to him and he was dead. The doctors later determined that he had died from a massive heart attack.
POSTSCRIPT
THE WORD AFTER
Although he died on 22 April 1967, my father’s work continued to be published. In 1968, his children’s book, Flight of the Doves was published in both England and America. A year or so later, a new boo
k of short stories, The Coll Doll and Other Stories, was published. Island of the Great Yellow Ox was made into a three part television series in a joint BBC/RTÉ co-production and was broadcast on BBC and RTÉ in 1971. In 1970, American film director Ralph Nelson made a film of Flight of the Doves, which was released world-wide in 1971.
My mother continued to live in Menlo and royalties from my father’s books continued to flow in for her annually. I had lived at home with her for three years from 1967 to 1970, and then I moved to Dublin to work at RTÉ. My brother Walter was re-assigned to Galway from Dublin which meant that he was able to see her regularly. I married and had three children, and we made regular visits to my mother.
In 1990, when my wife and I agreed to separate, I left RTÉ, taking an early retirement package and went back to live with my mother. It was a special time and I learned so much about my father while living with her in Menlo from 1990 to 1992. She was a woman who loved routine and every night before she went to bed, she crossed off the day on her calendar. At Easter 1992, after morning mass, I said goodbye to my mother and went to Dublin to see my daughters. I rang her that night, but she did not answer the phone. I was surprised, but thought she might be out with friends. I rang her again on Monday night and Tuesday night. Finally, on Wednesday one of Walter’s colleagues in the university residence phoned me to say that my mother had died.
I believe that she died on Easter Sunday night, as that was the last day marked off on the calendar – 19 April 1992. Her burial was the following week, on 22 April 1992, with my brother Walter celebrating mass, as he had done for my father twenty-five years earlier. Finally she was re-united with the love of her life. She was eighty-three when she died, was suffering from a mild form of alzheimer’s disease and had begun to have difficulty walking.