Why does this website exist?

My name is Patricia McCormack (formerly Patricia Hartford). I am nearly 90, yet I am still enjoying life to the full and I love to hear of others who do the same.

This website was put together for me by my daughter, Anna, in June 2014 so that I would have a place where all of the stories I would tell her through her childhood could come together. (I had no idea about the work involved until I went to visit Anna in the summer of 2015 (age 87) when her Hetta Huskies team was in the middle of making their various websites 'responsive' - and I found myself expected to work on it all day, every day!)

I was born in 1928 into a proud but poor Anglican family in a small town in rural Ireland. My father and mother, cousins, had eloped against the wishes of their families and my mother had gone into service in England whilst my father fought in the WW1 trenches. The war left him in poor health for the rest of his life so although he became a renowned ecclesiastical woodworker, he was often too ill to work and I grew up in the kind of poverty which is unknown, today. I can still feel the pain of an empty stomach and remember my mother struggling through many pregnancies (16 in total), despite only 5 children surviving to adult.

I was grateful to escape the poverty of my childhood by winning a scholarship to study in a select all-girls boarding school called Rochelle, near Cork. The war did not touch us directly but During that time I lost my much loved little sister and my childhood suitor to TB but when I graduated in 1945, I emerged into a new post-war era but the world was not my oyster.

Although I brought my child, Anna, up to believe that she could do anything that she wished, the same was not true for me. Desperate to attend university and to become an academic boffin (mathematics and philosophy were my passion), I did not have the funds to do so. Hence, I had to enter Trinity through the ‘back door’ (teacher training college), and this was one of my enduring lifetime regrets.

Nevertheless, I did manage to travel extensively for someone from rural Ireland in those years; first to the UK to visit my elder brother and then, in 1950, through a skeletal bombed-out Europe, to Weinheim in Germany, by third-class train, to meet my pen pal: a young German girl who had, like most young Germans, been conscripted into the Hitler youth during the war, and who, therefore, would never be allowed to take up her own dream of teaching. That was an innocent summer for us both: one of travelling by oxen-drawn carts to remote mountain villages, picking wild strawberries and listening to old men playing accordions outside their houses in the evenings.

In 1957, 8 years into my teaching career, I set off on a daring adventure with another young female teacher. Our goal was to follow the old Roman roads, at about 20km/hr, on an old Lambretta scooter. We were to go from Dublin, by boat, through Holyhead and then London, right down to the South of Italy. Our ‘expedition kit list’ was comprised of borrowed canvas rucksacks, cotton shorts, tops and sandals (since neither jeans nor sneakers yet existed) and back-up headscarves, skirts and blouses for when visiting churches. Cheap plastic raincoats were shredded before they even reached the continent but the memories remained precious throughour my life.

In 1959, marriage to a catholic meant estrangement from at least some family members and finally, in 1963, after almost 16 years of teaching in Dublin, my husband, Mike left CIE, and we followed in the footsteps of many Irish and moved to the UK. We settled for c. 5 years in the South (Southend on Sea and Welwyn Garden City), and enjoyed the rush of life in the city in our prime. A job for Mike, teaching Economics in Wolverhampton Polytechnic, finally pulled us to the Midlands. My first post (from 1968 - 1970) was in Belt Road Girl’s School until I had my daughter, Anna in 1971. I returned to part-time teaching in 1975, teaching communication and general studies to miners in Cannock College and this lasted until 1988, when Anna was 17. For my final teaching of years I returned to schools (Deansfield School, Wilenhall and Coven) and then finished with 5 years of supply teaching, primarily in Wolgarston and Deansfield.

Travels during Anna's childhood revolved primarily around family holidays in Ireland but we also managed a big trip to visit one of my sisters who had emigrated to live on a farm in the South Island of New Zealand. On return, we spent some days introducing Anna to the sounds and sights of Asia, whilst visiting friends in Hong Kong and Kowloon.

I took up writing when Anna left home since she had asked me to spend some of my newly freed time writing down my memoirs for her. I began doing some family research and I also completed two Home Study writing courses, one on journalism and the other on ‘Making the Most of your Life Experiences’. These, a 2007 Writers' Summer School course at Swanwick, and a Master Class in travel writing at the Royal Geographical Society in London at the ‘Explore Conference’, (in-between helping Anna to coordinate the conference) and a computer studies course, with Mike, in my old teaching college, all helped me to kick-start my writing years and opened a new world of opportunities.

Since then, I have submitted nearly 50 real-life stories and poetry to a site called 'toowrite', had two stories published on the BBC People’s War site, (one was awarded a star as recommended reading); a story in a mappazine, Ken360, run by Luce Choules of www.foldedsheet.com; and three stories on www.travelmag.com.

My first travelmag story was published on 22nd January, 2008 and the last, in September 2014, was an account of my last journey with my husband before his death - a wonderful trip down the Lofoten Islands in August 2014 with my daughter, her husband Pasi, their son Eliel, Pasi's parents and my childood schoolfriend, Hazel (Anna's godmother).

My daughter has always been an explorer and adventurer. Being part of her life has given me the opportunity to enjoy activities I could only dream about otherwise. When, in May 2006, for instance, she led a paraplegic crossing of the Greenland ice-cap, I acted as the team support, daily reporter and PR person at home, managing the expedition website, 'byhandsandfeet'.

Being Anna’s PA and PR person, writing for local newspapers, magazines and local BBC, was quite a big job when she was a young adult but I met some really wonderful people as a result and also ended up edited a north pole (2006) and south pole (2009) expedition book for Kari Suomeli with whom Anna's husband, Pasi, partnerd for the first Finnish unsupported expedition to the South Pole.

One of the more surprising things that I ended up doing, was proof reading Bushcraft Magazine between c.2008 and 2014 but it was a joy to continually be challenged to learn new things through my retirement years.

Anna and Pasi now live in Finnish Lapland on an award-winning (Responsible Travel Gold Award for Animal Welfare) husky farm with their son, Eliel, and I spend my time travelling between the UK and Finland to see my wonderful grandson. I believe I have lived my life to its full, and fully intended to keep doing so for as long as possible.

Patricia McCormack