December 1st, 2000

Delia died in Lewisham hospital at 4:01am on Monday, November 27th. She had a hip operation which went well, but lots of complications set in, heart and chest problems and finally bronchial pneumonia.
It was a sad shock for the families. We all thought Delia would go on forever. We had seen her very ill before, but she always beat it. Mary and I were there the night before. Mary did her hair and she talked about Tom and Maureen being in to see her. She was to see somebody on Monday about arrangements for coming home.

Delia didn't have a very great self esteem. She would never believe how much she meant in our lives and how much we shall all miss her. Christmas won't be the same without her. She always spent Christmas here, and the last couple of years we all spent the day together at Patrick's house. I think there were 23 of us last year. It's a shame that the little ones only remember her as she was in late years. They'd never believe the fun she was when she was young. A party or a dance was not complete unless Delia was there. Once we were at a dance miles from home, somebody had an old jalopy and about eight of us packed in. We weren't worried about road safety. When the dance was over in the small hours, we all set off in the pitch dark, and the lights failed, we held a torch and Delia was next to a window, so she had to hold the torch out the window for about four miles. It was great to be young. We used to go to Mary's and Sean's and play cards for pennies. The rows Delia and Sean had over the cards, Myles enjoyed it more than the game. Well, they are all together up there now.

Delia lived in a block of flats, which were mostly for old people. Most of the people were on benefits and it did rile Delia to have to pay full rent and council tax on top of all her other bills. I offered her the dubious consolation of not having to go cap in hand to anyone. Delia worked at Orpington hospital for about twenty years. She looked after the doctors and they thought the world of her. She went to the Greek Islands on holiday with one doctor and family, who later went to live in America, she still had cards and presents from them and when they came back to London on visits, they always visited her.
Delia touched many people's lives. Thank God she has seen all our families grow up and bring up families of their own and she has helped along the way. She made many friends. She was an institution in her own right. May God bless her.

It's been a bad week. On the Monday morning the hospital phoned Mary Dallison, who then went to pick her mother up. I was just coming downstairs at 7:30 when they called here for me to go to see Delia at the hospital. It was a terrible moment. We hadn't heard anything. We would have spent the night with her. John was with her when we got there. We sat with her for about an hour. Her once busy gifted hands were still, as was her loving heart. I didn't realise that she had such small hands for all the tasks that life had in store for her. Mary and Anne took the day off and after dropping the children at school they went in to sit with Delia for a while, they are very upset. Mary has been making arrangements all week, also Mary Dallison. Anne will have to take time off next week. Delia has been abroad to more places than any of us. But they were all pilgrimages. Fatima, Lourdes, you name it, she was there. Michael once said to her, "why don't you ever go on a nice holiday, Auntie Delia?" Well, the Greek Islands was a nice holiday.
When all of this is over, it will be strange not hearing Delia's voice on the phone, not going down to the flat. Sometimes we had arguments and she'd say, "if you only come down to annoy me, why don't you stay at home?" and I'd say, "that's a nice welcome". Then we'd have some tea. I'll miss her.

August 26th, 2000

Today we go home. It was really nice at Casa del Salvia.
Yesterday we went to the aqua park. There were hundreds of children there, lots of water rides. The children had a wonderful time. Last night we went out for a meal to San Maguil restaurant and bar, Michael will remember going there last year. Proprietor was very nice, treated us to coffee and a brandy for Patrick. It was also a nice journey, all good roads and views to make you stop and stare. No more now. Please God we will have a safe journey home. Goodbye to Casa del Salvia.
Maybe one day we will go back.
This year, Patrick, Sarah and family are going touring in Ireland. I hope the weather will be good and they will keep safe on the roads. One of these days I will have to go and see the families there, I haven't been for more than four years.


2001
Well I did go to Ireland for a week at the end of August. Went with Martin and Guiliana by car. It was nice to see all the folks again. We stayed in BnBs this time. It is more independent and easier for the families we visited. I did stay with Kathy and let Martin and Guiliana go touring. I enjoyed two days of chat about old times.

August 16th, 2000

Here we are, back again in Spain. We arrived on Saturday evening. We are staying at the same house as last year, in the mountains, about 12 miles from Malaga. I came with Patrick, Sarah and the children. This was originally a small farmhouse, with three small rooms and a large kitchen where probably everything was done. Cooking, eating, socialising, etc. There is a huge fireplace and all original fittings.
The owners have built a whole new extension, three bedrooms, two shower rooms, a very large sitting-dining room and a big courtyard.
It's very funny, Michael stayed with us last year and he had the old part of the house and now the children keep saying, "Can we use Uncle Michael's bathroom?" and like going into Uncle Michael's room. I wish he was here this year. We miss him. Patrick misses him.

Lorenzo, Mary and the family are coming tomorrow. It is Isabel's birthday. It is quite hard to find the way here, but they made it last year. We will have a barbecue.

It's great that there is still a place like this in this mad modern world. No traffic, no people, no neighbours. Just some horses up on the hill and flocks of goats grazing on the mountains. It gets dark at about 9:30 local time and quite suddenly. Not much twilight. The mountains turn black and then the lights appear in the little houses, you don't know how they cling to the mountain sides. We went out to dinner on Sunday evening. It was a nice social occasion, but ah, a rather hazardous journey.

Today the family have gone to the seaside. I opted out, I couldn't risk getting any more bites, the family haven't a bite between them. My last count was eight. Anywhere there are biting insects, I'll get bitten. I'm having a lovely day, lots of nice things to eat and a cassette player with lots of tapes. I've finished 'Driving over Lemons'. It was good. The family have just got home, now they are all in the pool. It is hot.

Well, Mary and Lorenzo and girls came on Thursday. We had a lovely evening. Patrick did a barbecue, and we had a little cake with candles for Isabel, and we had melon which was delicious. We went up the mountains to Comares(?) on Friday. It is a little village on top of a mountain with views you couldn't imagine, and hundreds of paths and little roads criss-crossing the mountains and tiny white houses in the distance. It was bad going up, but coming down it was hairy. I just held on to Tom and closed my eyes. We stopped half way home and had a nice meal. Mary's family went back at nine o'clock.

Yesterday, (Saturday), we went to the fiesta in Malaga. It was very colourful. There were thousands of people. It was hot in the town. Everywhere was beautifully decorated, canopies over the streets to keep some of the sun off. The women and girls wore festive dresses. There were stalls selling everything you could imagine. There were also quite a few beggars. We had tapas and drinks at tables on the pavement. Patrick made a great curry when we got home.

I go in the pool when the sun goes off the terrace at about seven o'clock and the water is lovely and warm. Today is Sunday. We all got up late. We don't know where the church is. I have my Mass book so I've been reading the lessons and Gospel for the day.
We are going out somewhere for dinner this evening, another hairy journey. If I never drive up or down another mountain road it will be too soon. Well, we did go out on Sunday evening and had a lovely meal at a place near Periana, right beside a lake. Michael was with us at the same place last year. On the way there, Patrick took us the long way round. The road was good, but it wound around the mountain. It was about nine o'clock and all the villages were lighted up. There are no words to describe it. It was wonderfully, terrifyingly beautiful.

On Monday, we went to meet Mary and Lorenzo and the girls. We had breakfast and then went on the beach. We lay on beach loungers all afternoon. They all had a paddle or a dip, I didn't get my toes wet. We walked around in the evening and then had a nice big meal. The children played on a bouncy castle. We said goodbye to the family at about ten thirty. We got back at twelve o'clock.
Mary phoned today.

Wednesday was Mary's birthday. Patrick phoned her last night. Yesterday we went to visit a family near Gibraltar. They came from Brighton. A doctor and his family. They own a house with pool and lots of ground. We had a nice day with lovely lunch. We got home at twelve o'clock. It was a very long journey. About 200 miles round trip. That will be our last long journey.

Today, Thursday, we are having a nice easy day at home. Patrick and Sarah are just gone to the shop at Riogordo with Lucy and Thomas. Martin stayed with me and is drawing a big spider. It is so peaceful, not a sound in the house, not even a mouse. I am siting at the table in the big living room writing this and looking at out at the mountains. I am listening to Luciano Pavarotti on a tape. I've got five new mosquito bites, nobody else is bitten. Total number fourteen.

June 1st, 2000

Welcome to our newest gift from God.
Myles and Jacquie's little daughter was born last night at Lewisham Hospital. I have just been to see them. A little sister for Joseph and Myles. They both wanted to hold her at the same time. Myles asked all sorts of questions about the baby, and Joseph asked "are you alright mummy, did it hurt?" - he's only eight.

My fourteenth grandchild. Rosemary Annabel McMorrow.
She will be called Rosie. Seven pounds, four ounces at birth. Another Christening, another birthday. May God bless her. May the sun shine on her. May the rain be soft and warm and may the breeze be gentle on her back.

Myles would be a very grand granddad if he had lived to see all these new grandchildren. Jacobo, Martin and Thomas, Isabel, Olivia and now, Rosie. He won't be forgotten. Myles loved to recite poetry. He had his favourite pieces. He liked to recite the Trimmings of the Rosary, by John O'Brien, It had many verses. And the Face on the Barroom Floor, the Green Eye of the Little Yellow God. He was very popular at the gatherings of neighbours and friends. In 1993 he did an article on Irish Immigration for the Museum of London. There were a lot of his recitations on video and tapes.

May 25th, 2000

We had three aunts, three sisters of my father. In that time of big families, aunt Rosie had one son. Johnny Murray was one selfish, horrible little brat. His father died around the same time as our mother, so he was a mammie's pet. He had a big teddy, one day I pulled out the teddy's eyes, I was only playing with it, he beat me up. I reminded him of it when he visited us in London. He remembered, children have long memories. He grew up to be a nice decent man.

Aunt Bridget had one daughter. She lived about four miles away, about twice a year she descended on us. On the day of the visitation, Delia would be up at cock shout getting everything clean and tidy and making nice things to eat. Late morning she would arrive in a hired car. The driver would also have to be fed. She would be accompanied by her precarious darling, for whom she brought special food and fruit.  Birdie had lovely long hair, she had lovely clothes and shoes and socks. We barefooted gypsies were not allowed to play with her in case we spoiled her clothes or dropped her in a puddle, which we would have done given half a chance, she brought nothing for us, a nice shop loaf or a pot of jam would have gone down a treat. We were glad when the visit was over, and we saw the back of them.

Then there was Aunt Ellen. She was a lovely warm auntie, who always had a big welcome for all of us. She fed us and loved us and no child ever left her house hungry. She had five children and didn't enjoy good health. On the day that word came to the school that she died in hospital, I was about eleven years old. Her oldest daughter Mary was a year older than me and had to leave school to help to bring up the family, there was no welfare or social service then, so families just got on with it. Near neighbours of theirs was a lovely Protestant family. On the day of the funeral, they took the children to their home and gave them a nice time. On a Sunday as we walked to mass in Kilconnell, they would pass us by, cycling to their own church in Aughrim. We were not allowed to visit their church. Thank God times have changed and people are more enlightened.

There is no comparison between the young people today and the same age group of a generation ago. Today kids still play football on the green and it's great, but they mostly hang around the shops and the tavern. They hang around the alley with mobile phones glued to their ears and designer gear. But they are still nice kids. I like young people. I've always been close to kids, so I know their language. On Saturday mornings when our kids were young teenagers, Michael, Patrick, Kevin and Myles would take off to do their own thing. Myles and his friend Michael Dempsey off fishing. They went by bus and train to Tonbridge, fished all day and came home, falling with hunger. Michael and Patrick off to the golf course to look for caddying jobs and search for lost golf balls. Only hunger brought them home. Kevin collected things. He couldn't pass by a bent nail on the pavement in case it might come in useful. His pockets were full of nails and coins, keys and screwdrivers. When he was about fifteen, there was an abandoned car just down the road. He was trying to get some old gadget off the dashboard when two policemen pulled him out of the car and took him to the police station. We were waiting for him to come in for dinner when a police sergeant knocked on the door and told me they had Kevin at the station, accused of possessing house breaking tools. I told him Kevin had no idea of house breaking. He wasn't convinced so I took him to see Kevin's shed. The shelves were full of all the stuff he found here and there. The sergeant said, come with me and we'll take him home.

When we were children, it was very exciting to go mushroom picking in the early morning. On an August morning when the early sun was clearing the dew off the fields, what a sight to see the lovely white mushrooms dotting the field. They were more plentiful on pasture land. We would choose several long rushers, tie a knot at the end of each and thread our mushrooms on the rushers. We would make our way home, garlanded with long strips of mushrooms, then law them out on the griddle or hot coals, with a little salt on each, and cook them and they were really tasty. In our green grocers they have fresh morning gathered mushrooms, but I wouldn't like to guess which morning they were gathered.

When we were married, we lived at 90 Upper Tulse Hill. It was a huge old house, there were acres of gardens and fields. Most people had moved out and the children had the freedom to roam. The whole place was being developed. There was a very old guarded mulberry tree in our garden. The children liked to climb it. We had six children in that old house. Mary was only three weeks old when we moved to our new house here in Downham, with a big back garden for the children to play and a green and lovely big tree just opposite our front windows. The school, church and shops were all near, I have been very happy here.

When we moved here, Myles started to work for British Rail. He worked night shifts on one week in four. He cycled to work at Hither Green. He had an old heavy bike. He worked an eight hour shift. All our children were young then, and I worried about him cycling home in the early hours. One morning at about 4am, my nightmare came true when the police knocked at the door, asked me if my husband rode a cycle. I described the like and asked them what it was about, I thought he had an accident. He was in the police station in Catford charged with being drunk in possession of a bike. They were two young chaps, I felt like belting them. I asked them why they should think he was drunk. He was riding his bike erratically. I said, you mean he was taking both sides of the road. I told them he had been working the night before and were tired and hungry, not drunk, they wouldn't ride a bike in a straight line. They looked at each other. They must have thought, "we have a night one here". They said we'll have him home in half an hour, Myles made them let him off at the end of the road, not to give a free show the neighbours.
The bike was stolen a few weeks later. I was glad to see the last of it.

Threshing Day

On our farm, the cereal crop was oats and wheat. It was all sown by hand and when it was ready for reaping, it was cut by scythe, and bound into sheaves by hand, it was made into stooks on the field and later built into a big stack in the most sheltered part of the field. Then came threshing day.
The threshing machine was hired and it went from farm to farm until all the corn was threshed. Now they have combined harvesters which does the whole job at once. All the neighbours came to help on that day, and there was lots of nice food. We could hear the threshing machine as we ran home from school and the excitement was great.
The corn was bagged as it came out of the machine, then stored in the barn. The flour was quite coarse and had to be mixed with white flour to make it palatable. Shop bread wasn't bought then, though it was a great treat if ever we got some.
White flour was bought in eight stone white cotton bags. From four lovely white bags, my sister Delia would make a beautiful cotton sheet, all hand stitched. I said there was nothing she couldn't do.

In the late twenties and early thirties the economy was very bad. I remember my father taking the lambs to market and could only get fifteen shillings each, and took them back again to feed for another couple of months. Bull calves were worth nothing. Heifer calves were more valuable and could sell. We weren't poor, except in spirit, there are many kinds of poverty.
There was a big family living near us. Ten children, the last born three months after the father died. They were such a happy family. They had a grandmother. Hardly anybody had a grandmother, so she adopted us all. We loved going there. As we grew up and started going to dances, we all met up there. The mother was great, she never interfered, she just enjoyed us all. There was another family as poor as church mice, but there was such love in that house. We loved to visit there. So that's what I mean about many kinds of poverty. On New Years Eve, I used to walk around the yard, listening to the animals in their stalls. It was so quiet at midnight and I felt so lonely. Next day was alright again, we celebrated the New Year and looked forward to better times, which came eventually, nothing stands still forever.

We always had a lot of chickens, well hens actually. The hatchlings were the chickens. We loved the job of collecting the eggs. We had Rhode Island reds which laid big brown eggs and Black Minorca's which laid white eggs. Several hens would be crowning at the same time and we would be running all over the place to find where they had laid. Several times at the end of spring and beginning of summer, one or two hens would go missing. Well either the fox had got them or they were laying out. Then after two weeks they would appear in the yard with their little family of chicks. They were very clever at hiding their nests under a hedge or in a messy bank.
In the hatchling season we often put a clutch of duck eggs under a broody hen. When the ducklings hatched out, they very soon found the pond down in the field. The poor mother hen got demented around the pond calling to the ducklings, which were having a great time. It was very funny to watch. Sometimes a fox raided the hen house, he didn't just take a hen, but killed several and frightened the remainder. No eggs for a few days.

I think the most boring job we had to do was keeping the hens, ducks and turkeys out of the corn field when the grain was ripening, for hours on end we walked the perimeter of the field. If I had a good book, I would forget the hens. We had no pets on the farm. Dogs and cats earned their keep. The cats kept the mice and rats under control, they lived in the barn and got a bowl of fresh milk at milking time. The dogs had it harder, they mostly lived outside or in an open shed.
We had a black cow and when she calved she went mad for a few days, but her milk was so rich and creamy, she provided most of the butter for the family. We loved the new calves, we were allowed to feed them from a bucket of milk. We'd put our hand into the bucket and they'd suck the milk through our fingers.

My brother John is the only one left now on the farm. He just farms now for pleasure. He keeps a couple of horses for pleasure and some goats and dogs, which he enjoys. Wise man. How we longed for a bike when we were kids, no chance. Delia had a bike, as did some of the brothers, so we pinched them every chance we got. I was eighteen when I got a bike. We had to walk three miles to the shop and carry heavy shopping. We had to walk half a mile for the lovely spring drinking water. It kept us fit. I still love walking.