Many young suitors came my way, and stay in my memories, still. Some played rather a larger part in my life and never had I intended any of them to grow serious, as Jim and I had agreed in 1950 that we would eventually marry and he was happy for me to have temporary boyfriends to take me to dress dances or the theatre or cinema as long as I promised not to let these affairs develop. Saturday night 'Hops' in the Dixon Hall of Trinity usually ended in being seen home by someone and ending with a 'good-night' kiss. The occasional student had a car but mostly it was a walk or occasionally a crossbar on a bicycle. Similar dances in Protestant church halls ensured we fraternised only with those of our faith.

An early example of one who became 'smitten' was Leslie whom I met at the RAF Association and he invited me to my first real ball and then took me out quite frequently till one day he invited me to his parents' home for tea the following Sunday. A mutual friend contacted me to ask why hadn't I told her that I was getting my engagement ring from Leslie after I had met his parents. That threw me into confusion and I immediately rang Leslie and told him I didn't want to see him again. A new man in my life, Brian, invited me to the next RAF ball and Leslie attended it alone and sat himself at the next table and stared at me all night. He later married and a few years ago I was in Dublin for Christmas and saw a loving memory message to him from his widow.

Brian is the one who became so smitten that he never got over losing me and I have never forgiven myself for that. I met him first in the Missions to Seamen where he and I were two of the volunteers. He was 16 years older, an Englishman from Oldham in Lancashire who was working as an assessor in the Dublin branch of an English insurance company. One Sunday evening he invited me to meet him for a meal and a visit to the cinema. Thus began a lenghty period of balls, dinners, theatres, drives in the mountains and days by the sea. He was a lonely soul with no family other than an aunt. His brother had been killed in the war and he himself had been a member of the Royal Engineers and had seen service in Burma. He worshipped me and at one stage i felt so sorry for him that i almost consented to marry him. I was sharing a flat with Pansy, and she was engaged to Meredith and every night when Brian called to take me out, Pansy and Meredith stayed in. One night I was upstairs getting ready to go out when Pansy came running up to tell me Brian had asked her and Meredith to go out so that he could propose to me and he showed her the ring, a family heirloom, she told me, with an amethyst, a purple stone setting. Pansy knew it would be a shock for me so she went down and told Meredith she had a severe headache and wanted to stay in. I knew it was time to escape. Cruelly, every night Brian turned up I went in to hiding and my name turned to mud in certain circles. I am not proud of myself for what I did then and my conscience has troubled me ever since about that stage of my life.

I heard from friends later that he had suffered a nervous breakdown and had returned to England for treatment. On the day Mike's and my engagement was announced in the Irish Times, he rang Mrs Tyrrell and asked her if he might call to see me and she left a lovely supper tray ready for us but said she couldn't bear to be present when he came. He said he would never believe I was going to marry a Catholic and only when he saw us married in church would he accept it. That scared me but I heard no more till after the wedding when he and Capt Tyrrell would meet on Masonic evenings and he would send loving messages to me. We had been members together of a Protestant group called the Criterion Club and it is still n existence in Dublin and Hazel is one of its orignal members. A few years ago I was visiting Hazel and she took me to a coffee morning and Brian was there. I asked if I should speak to him but was warned that he was suffering from senility. He seemed not to remember me but suddenly he hugged me tightly and said he missed never being married. He died soon afterwards and glowing tributes were paid to him. I felt so incredibly sad about it all.

Maybe I was beginning to learn that not all men treat women as my father treated my mother or my grandfathers their wives. Another casual friendship developed into a serious affair. Phyllis' cousin was very wealthy and owned an expensive yacht and a large house with at least two cars. One Sunday he invited Phyllis to bring a friend to join him and his friend, Noel, on a yacht and then for dinner in a very 'posh' hotel. He collected us in his Rolls Royce and what a drive that was! Noel was really good-looking and he worked for the American Embassy in a rather glamorous job. At the end of the evening he asked me to meet him again and the usual round of dances, dinners and theatres developed. One night we were sitting holding hands in the Abbey Theatre when I sensed someone across the aisle staring at me. There sat my Uncle Dick and Aunt Diana, looking so diapproving. Next day I had to face the music and my interrogation started with the question did Jim know about this? I ended the affair and Noel gave up after a few weeks of pestering me and Phyllis. When Anna was little, Mike and I took her to the races at Phoenix Park and I backed a beautiful horse in one race but although it came in first it was riderless. I went in to the ring to see the horse and my card told me its owner was Noel and his wife. There they were, he as glamorous as ever and she a big woman in an expensive fur coat. Phyllis then told me that he had married this very rich woman, older than himself.

There were many others, most of them long forgotten, like ships that pass in the night. In Abbeyleix Tennis Club, a short affair started one summer with one of the brilliant players, a student at UCD at the time, but mostly I remember him for trying to hypnotise me which made me rather nervous. What I feel I enjoyed most with him was the brilliant tennis I had. A guy from Rathdowney partnered me once in a tournament and Aileen rang me maybe 30 years later to say she'd met this guy in the Co-op in Rugby and he told her about the girl he'd once fancied from Abbeyleix and she recognised it was me! There were several clergymen who asked me out from time to time but the affairs were short-lived. One of my star pupils in my first school had a brother in the Royal Navy and once when he was home on leave we met at a parish dance and he asked me out and then he was gone, back to England. Phyllis' brother and I had a brief affair till he turned up drunk one morning at my flat calling out my name and the landlord woke up and sent him packing before his mother knew of it! He and his brother had had a night of drinking before his brother returned to England where he was in trouble for deserting from the RAF. They were county people. Helen once introduced me to a boyfriend of hers in London and he was smitten and he used to send me some very amorous letters which were in my cupboard in school when I left there to become a Catholic in 1956. I guess Jim's and my marriage might have hit rocky ground had he ever learned that his trust in me not to allow any affair to become serious had been misplaced. Mike was so different. I really loved him and he was worth all of the others put together. Once I met him I would have eyes for no other.