Leaving the Emerald Island for England

Not one of my siblings remains in Ireland. One by one we made the move across the Irish Sea. Of course, Helen went even further afield and ended up on the other side of the world. For me, however, the move never seemed truly final and all through my middle years we would talk of when we would one day return to Ireland.

Mike finished his studies in the summer of 1962 and his degree ceremony was that autumn. I applied for my MA at the same time so that we shared conferring day. That evening both those who had received the MA and the recipients of honorary degrees who came from various other countries attended a formal dinner in Trinity. Not long before this time some Georgian silver plates had been unearthed in College. The first course was served on these plates - –twelve oysters in front of each guest. I had never eaten oysters but from the comments around me they were a luxury. I hadn'’t a clue how one ate them. Sitting opposite me was a lady historian, Professor Otway-Ruthven. Someone asked her if she'’d like their oysters and she accepted. I waited till she started eating before I tackled mine. On my right sat a well-known Dublin surgeon, Mr Pringle, who had been to public school in England and to Cambridge University. He told me that his ear next to me was his deaf ear! On my left was a young lecturer whom I knew by sight and he was full of fun and mischief. After the meal came the brandy and cigars for the men so I jokingly said to my companion that it wasn’'t fair, so he called in a loud voice after the waiter, '’Waiter, you forgot to offer Patricia her cigar'.’ The waiter, without blinking an eye, turned back and held a cigar out to me which I accepted and then he flicked a lighter and held the flame out to me! Everyone was watching! I just said, '’Please, may I keep it for later?'’

That evening Mike and I were attending the International Students'’ ball with a Malaysian couple who had become friends with Mike in his Economics class. I left the dinner when I saw Professor Stanford take his leave, as he was the member of staff delegated to preside over the ball at the Shelbourne Hotel. We danced the night away and Mike lit up his expensive cigar! One of his lecturers, Professor Tate, was there and he teased Mike about the tax he’'d have paid on that cigar. Our Malaysian friend was driving a Mini and on our way home in the small hours he ran out of petrol: he and Mike went in search of an open garage while his friend and I sat waiting in the car on the street outside Trinity. She spoke of the restrictions women suffered in Malaysia and said she envied me the freedom I had. Mike had also been friends with Hamza Majeed, who was a nephew of Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaya’'s first Prime Minister. Hamza offered to fix Mike up with a Government job in Kuala Lumpur but I declined because of the heat.

Other friends from those Trinity days were Liam Reason, a top civil servant, and Gerry Smyth, who worked with the electricity board, and Martin O’'Donoghue, who later became a Minister in the Irish Government. Gerry lived in Orwell Gardens and his father was a well-known Dublin Garda (policeman). Gerry invited us to tea and his father began telling us that the only connection he had had with Trinity before his son became a student there was when a red-haired woman medical student left him standing in the middle of the busy street one day on traffic duty in College Green, holding her bicycle while she dashed in to lectures! I kept quiet for he was talking about our Freda and I knew that story well but if I admitted to being a contemporary of Freda’'s they would all know I was over three years older than Mike!

Mike obviously was now over-qualified for the job he was doing and he wanted to switch to teaching. He had a temporary job in Dundrum Technical College but it was low-level teaching. A friend of his in CIE, Tommy Power, had gone to England and had trained for third-level teaching. Mike decided to apply to do similar and he was offered a place in Garnet College in Roehampton for September, 1963, to study for a certificate.

We decided that our future would lie across the Irish Sea so I applied for a job in the spring of 1963 and I just picked three areas - Surrey, Essex and Westcliff-on-Sea. I was offered interviews in all three places but chose the Westcliff offer of a job in a girls'’ high school. I was free to choose the subjects I wanted to teach and I chose Religious Knowledge, Maths and English, so at Easter 1963 I attended a course in Cardiff on teaching Maths. I was about to switch to secondary teaching so it was good to meet teachers from England and to learn about secondary level teaching.

We had lots of outings over the week with visits to places of interest and I returned to Dublin quite confident and happy about the changes that were coming to our lives. The Education Officer at Southend-on-Sea took me under his wing immediately. Firstly, I had to have a chest XRay to check for TB. He escorted me to Southend Hospital and asked them to take me immediately and they did. Then he found really good lodgings for me with a teacher, Peggy Taafe, who taught music in the private school in Thorpe Bay. She lived with her mother in Westcliff-on-Sea on Ailsa Road.

The headmistress of the school was a dear lady and I was warmly welcomed by all the staff. I became friends with the youngest teacher; she taught PE and she lived in Shoeburyness where her Dad was serving with the army. Soon after my arrival in Westcliff the MP, Paul Channon, wrote me a lovely letter of welcome and offered to help in any way he could. The warmth of my welcome all around really impressed me. I used to go with Peggy to her tennis club and the standard of play there was good. Peggy taught music and one of her pupils passed a scholarship exam to go to the Outward Bound School, Gordonstoun, in Scotland, where Prince Charles was a pupil. This boy became Charles'’ best friend and went on to Cambridge with him. Peggy had an invitation from the headmaster of the school to pay them a visit.

Every half-term I flew back to Dublin but soon Mike found a temporary job at Southend Airport. In September he started at Garnet College. I went there for weekends and often went up by train from Westcliff mid-week just for the evening. We had some lovely walks through Richmond Park across to Richmond and we would pass John Mills’' house on the hill. One frosty sunny day in February I was crossing a road and an open-top Triumph Herald car was coming round the corner and it stopped while the driver beckoned me across. I suddenly stood still in my tracks for the driver was the actor, Roger Moore, whom I recognised from his role as Simon Templar, aka The Saint! My mouth and eyes were open in surprise and he gave me the most wonderful smile and wave and waited till I was across.

Another day I was on a bus to Roehampton when the news of John Kennedy’'s assassination broke. I remember a further historical occasion from that time. Jean and I were on our way to her home one hot summer'’s day when the heavens opened and the most torrential rain fell. We were wearing light summer dresses and sandals and within seconds we were soaked to the skin as we ran for shelter. We reached the entrance to the Southend department store where many others were sheltering. Someone said, '‘It’'s God’'s judgement on us for Christine Keeler!'’ That scandal had broken.

Teaching at this higher level was much more fun and I helped in the PE department with hockey and netball. I was called upon by the County to referee inter-schools hockey matches. That first year of teaching was counted as a probationary year and one day in spring of 1964 the inspector came to test my teaching. It was netball lesson and outside the snow was softly falling and I panicked at the thoughts of having to sit in the classroom unprepared for an alternative lesson with the girls.

‘'Come on, girls. Get changed and be quick about it. Out on the netball courts when you are ready.'’

‘'You’'re joking, Mrs McCormack',’ they called out. ’'It'’s snowing.'’

‘'You'’re not made of sugar. A few flakes of snow won’'t melt you.’'

Out we went but the inspector didn'’t follow. He went to the headmistress and said he wouldn'’t go out in the snow but she could give him an honest appraisal of my ability. She gave him a glowing report and I passed with flying colours and he departed. Then the Head sent a girl out to tell us the coast was clear and we could come back in out of the snow! It was pre-modern ideas in education. English grammar was taught and Religious Knowledge instruction was totally Christianity and the Bible. After-school activities were important. I helped run a Scripture Union group and a private school offered us the use of their swimming-pool after school one day a week and another teacher and I ran this club although I couldn’'t swim. In the summer of 1963 the girls made me promise I would learn to swim over the holidays and I kept that promise by learning in Blackrock open sea baths in Dublin that July and August.

Those were good days and always we had an air ticket for the next trip back to Barton Road. We used to catch the Aer Lingus coach from Kensington for Heathrow and travel on the Dawn or Midnight flights for £10 return! My salary had risen considerably and Mike had a generous grant from London County Council. The future looked bright. We had in the backs of our minds the dream that one day we would return to Dublin. We became close friends with Liam and Maureen Reason; Mike and Liam were planning to buy a pub in Dublin that Mike could run. Pubs were a sure way of becoming rich. I wasn'’t altogether enthusiastic about that idea.

After my mother'’s death in Feb 1964 my father knew he would have to move from his home so he put the furniture up for auction and made arrangements with Paddy Mulhall in Abbeyleix for his funeral when the time came. Paddy was the auctioneer, too. My father came to stay with me in Barton Road that summer and Mike completed his course in Garnet and had a job fixed up for September in Welwyn Garden City, teaching in the college of further education, and I had handed in my notice in Southend. We were offered a three-bedroom apartment, number 98 Springfields, outside the town, at a subsidised rent and I told my father we'’d be letting the house on Barton Road and moving to WGC that September so he arranged to spend his first three months with his sister, my Aunt Fanny, in Ruislip. I was, thus, the last of my family to leave Ireland.