While I was in the training college and during my early days of teaching, I met up with Freda again. She was in Trinity College studying medicine. Her exploits continued.
During a lecture one day in the lecture theatre where there were rows of tiered seats she set a small glass marble hopping down from level to level till it rested at the lecturer's feet! Needless to say, all attention was on the marble as it 'plopped' down while Freda's face wore its customary expression of innocence!
Another day she joined our Biblical Diploma class which was taken by Rev Jenkins who had a habit of pushing his glasses down his nose and closing his eyes as he delivered his lecture. Freda chose to sit to his left where everyone could see her as she mimicked every movement and expression of his!
In her second year she was in lodgings in Clontarf. One morning she decided not to get up so eventually, her landlady went up to her room and entered to find Freda just lying there staring up at the ceiling and refusing to speak so finally the landlady called an ambulance and Freda was taken to the Adelaide Hospital. My friend June visited her and as June was wearing a green coat Freda just lay there muttering: 'There's a green tree growing by my bed. Take it away.' Over the following week the nurses would take in her meals on trays and would later collect the untouched meals, yet Freda was thriving, so the doctors hatched a plot. As usual the meal was taken in and as soon as the nurses returned to collect the tray the doctors had hidden outside her room and when they burst in they found Freda sitting up in bed wolfing down a barbecued chicken! Her parents were summoned from Limerick and she was taken home for a rest!
Dublin at that time had a well-known policeman, called Gárda Smith, who was on traffic duty in College Green one morning as Freda approached on her bicycle. She just rode across the moving traffic and as she reached the middle of the road Gárda Smith caught the bicycle by its saddle. Freda hopped off, grabbed her gown and books and dashed across and in to Trinity. When she returned at lunch time she spotted her bicycle chained to the railings so she demanded it back but her demands were not met; finally, she cajoled the porters at Front Gate to ask for the bike! Fifteen years later Mike was in Trinity and a Gerry Smith who was in his class invited Mike and me to his home to meet his parents. His Dad was the same Gárda Smith and he told us the tale of the day this red-headed medical student left him holding her bike!