'That's my girl!'

Finally got around to deciphering a letter my maternal grandfather sent my mother for her 21st birthday in 1958. The cheque for 21 dollars he sent would have been worth roughly £7 ten shillings. A pint of plain cost 1 shilling 6d back then, she could have bought almost a hundred pints, (the sums working that out nearly killed me, and yes, I know it's easy...). Except she didn't drink back then, women rarely frequentd pubs, many of them were men only, and women earned on average 48% less than their male couterparts.

Grandad was a typesetter with the Irish Independent, he went to Detroit in the 50s to gain experience on a new litho machine operating in The Freeman's Journal. He lived there for a number of years and, times being what they were, didn't get home often. UncleTommy was 15 at  the time of the letter and he and my mother clashed constantly. I'm quite sure it was her fault - she had a ferociously quick temper, like her own mother. Tommy was more like Grandad; a funny, gentle, peace keeping man.

Mam and Dad (Seamus) married in October the following year. Thankfully Grandad came home for the wedding. The letter kickstarted a novel I've been working on - on and off, for a number of years, it's based on the time Grandad was in Detroit, 'cept I'm giving him an affair with a younger American female journalist! G'wan the Grandad!.

All of the Kennedys of Glandore Road are dead now, and all barring Grandma died young. Mammy only got another 33 years, not the 79 Grandad wished for her. Tommy was the last to go, he died a few years ago. I discussed the novel with him before he died and, while none of us have the faintest idea what Grandad's life was like in Detroit, Tommy approved of my granting Grandad a tempestuous love affair. If I ever finish it it will e dedicated to The Kennedys of Glandore Road.

 See text of letter and original below. Any errors mine.

Sunday

My darling Elizabeth,

     I am sending this a wee bit early just so that if there is something special you wish to buy for your ‘21^st’ you will have it in good time.

     The  cheque for twenty one dollars is to represent a dollar for each year. You have made me so proud to be able to say ‘that’s my girl!’. And proud of you, I really am - and always shall be, because I know you will never do anything to make me feel otherwise about you.

     It seems such a short time since you were just a wee baby. The years are flying and my earnest wish is that yourself and Seamus will have as happy a life as your Mam and I have had, and that you may be blessed with as lovely a family as God has given to us. My one regret is that I am not with you in person to wish you a Happy Birthday.

     Now, I know I should not, particularly in this letter, strike what may seem a discordant note, I am going to ask you to do one little thing for me.

      I know that Tommy and yourself do have little differences of opinion, and upset each other from time to time. Don’t forget, that in doing so you can upset your Mammy even more so than yourselves. Now I am laying blame nowhere, it’s just one of those things, and I know that Tommy and you will get together for my sake and be real good pals. I know the difference in your ages makes that difficult but you will both do it. 

     You know honey, when you are separated from your family – it is then, and only then, that you really appreciate each and every member of the family.  I know you both love each other deeply, all you have to do is to show it.

So now ‘left arm’ – for that’s as useful to me as my ‘right arm’, loads of love and I hope you have a wonderful birthday- at least another 79 to follow. 

Dad xxxxx

 PS I should also say thanks to Mam for giving you to me.

The Kennedys of Glandore Road

About a month ago I blogged about having to make a decision between two pieces of work, two sets of characters, two novels I have been tinkering with. I wanted to concentrate on one of them, stop shilly-shallying and move it along briskly - I know I can do it once I actually apply myself. Eventually I plumped for 'The Daisy Killer' a novel that is based very very loosely on my grandfather's life. I had mentioned the novel to the last surviving member of my grandfather's family - my lovely uncle Tom Kennedy. Tom was delighted , I told him I was inventing an affair for Grandad in Detroit - a city where he worked for some years in the 50s. 'Well, he deserved it,' said Tom, 'I'm sure he would have a good chuckle over it.'

I was delighted and told Tom I'd be dedicating the book to the Kennedys of Glandore Road and more particularly to him. My lovely Uncle Tom died last night - a young man, he was only in his mid sixties and he joins the rest of the Kennedys of Glandore Road somewhere outside of this dimension we know. They all died young these Kennedy siblings, Norah in her forties, Mam - Elizabeth in her fifties and Tom - the baby of the family - in his sixties.

But by God did Tom enjoy life! He was the a firm believer in living in the moment, rarely worried and always got by. He reared four lovely children in Swords, where I now also live, and his family were always close. He adored his wife Margaret and they were well known about the village - enjoying socialising with others - they have a wide circle of friends and loved a good meal, a few drinks and lively conversation. Tom was a great raconteur - he always had a yarn for you and if he met you out at night nothing suited him better than a chat and a pint - he'd dodge out for a fag and possibly a bet over the course of the evening-he delighted in taking money from the bookies! He was very like Grandad in his gentleness of manner, in his courtesy and respect. A lovely man.

Tom and Margaret were like Darby and Joan - they went everywhere together and were great pals as well as lovers and parents. My heart is sore at the thought of how Margaret must now be feeling. The other half of her gone. But he is truly only gone in the flesh. For Margaret is surrounded by their loving children and many grandchildren. And in every one of those children and grandchildren Tom lives on. In a word, a look, a smile, a laugh.

I could ramble on for hours about Tom, tell loads of stories about him but there is one that I feel is particularly apt for it shows his sense of humour - that which kept him buoyed up even in the darkest days and nights of his illness. Tom's Dad, my Grandad- died when I was about fourteen. Grandad had been in the printing game as had his father before him and Tom was also involved in printing. In the funeral car Tom sat in with the driver and I sat behind with my mother, grandmother and other elderly relatives. Tom lit up his ubiquitous cigarette and started to regale us all with stories about his Dad - a man he loved very much. Grandad had been very friendly with the Kirwan family - a long established undertaking firm in Dublin . At one stage they were wondering how they could go about advertising their business and brought up the subject with Grandad. Grandad promptly came up with the legend 'Kirwan's Kosy Koffins Make Korpses Komfortable'. My mother, the driver and I all burst into laughter - smothered quickly by the look on the Great Aunt Norah's face. That was Tom - a man who celebrated life and enjoyed every minute he drew breath. A life lived in the only way it should be - fully.

Coladh Samh Tom - I'll miss you. x

I need your opinion.......

Ok. I need help. I've been faffing about for the last year with two novels and several unfinished stories and I really need input from others to channel me in one direction only. Both novels will be written because the characters are very much alive to me now but realistically I need to follow one set for a few months and see what happens to them. I have an ending and a beginning for one so that'll probably be the first one I'll write. Here is the core, the pitch of the story - what I need to know is-would your read it? Do you like books that are set in the past? In environment outside of your own, Do you like love stories? Stories of unrequited love in particular and tales of lost opportunities?

My working title is The Daisy-Killer and it is a fictionalised version of some parts of the life of my grandfather Tom Kennedy. Family are all ok with this. Both Tom and my grandmother Evelyn are dead as are their siblings and unfortunately so too are two of their children. Tom was born in Dublin and in the mid 1930's he married a woman from Edinburgh in Scotland, no-one has any record of where they met but I have him taking a trip to Scotland on holiday and meeting Evelyn, my grandmother. After a distant courtship by letter she comes to Dublin and they marry. They had three children - very well spaced. Evelyn found sex horrific - her frigidity stemming from her unbelievable tough up bringing in the tenement houses of Edinburgh and Leith and a mind that was dogged by depression for all of her life. I'm speculating as to the underlying causes of Evelyn's dislike of sex of course, my mother told me my grandmother was frigid but I have no way of knowing if that is true.

Tom settled for he had - he was too decent a human being and devout a Catholic to do otherwise. He worked as a stone man (a typesetter today)and was never out of work. But it was a trade - not a profession which really didn't make it easy for them to buy the beautiful three bedroomed house on Glandore Road off Griffith avenue, this was about 7 years after they married. It necessitated a big mortgage even though they had saved a large deposit thanks to Evelyn's thrifty nature and determination to have this big beautiful house. Tom liked to gamble and he loved a pint - nothing to excess but he really didn't have the money for either addiction. So when, in the early 1950s, an opportunity arose for him to earn really great money on the Detroit Free Press he grabbed the chance. His oldest daughter was already in the States and was courting a Dublin boy over there, his second daughter was in her late teens and working and his son had just started secondary school. He lived in Detroit for five years - sending home money often. He only came home twice for a holiday in that time. My mother married in 1959 and I know
he was home by then, he worked with Smurfit's Print and Packaging until he retired. Betting on a few horses and drinking a few pints. Sitting in with Evelyn watching TV when she wasn't too depressed to be in bed. He died of a heart attack in a single bed in the boxroom of my grandmother's little suburban palace in 1976.

The title comes from something my mother told me. Evelyn hated daisies, they ruined the look in her lawn and every summer she followed Tom around the garden pointing them out as he sprinkled weedkiller on them. One summer day, a year before he died, my mother was visiting them, sitting out the back enjoying the sunshine as the went about their daisy killing. A plane passed over head and Mam said Tom lifted his face to the sky and she never ever saw such a look of yearning on anybody's face. She knew he wished he was elsewhere. Mam was an inveterate romantic and that look combined with my imagination is populating the story (see, I've already made up my mind!)So in the novel I'm giving Tom a love affair in Detroit - a passionate affair with a feisty American journalist. But will I let Tom stay with his imagined lover in the States instead of coming home to this god-forsaken bog after his five years? Or should I impregnate that lover and give him an even bigger moral dilemma? Is it right to change history for the sake of a story? I suppose it is - once I'm not claiming it as fact.

I have to go now folks . I've a book to write. BTW the other book is about a man from a Pakistani family in Limerick who falls in love with a sexy young Kildare woman and is ostracized by his family. It doesn't help that his love is a witch! But I can't find the ending on that one that isn't totally corny ( based on fact but I need a denouement - maybe that one is a screenplay!) Then I have this other idea about a young Irish girl who is of Eastern European extraction and wins an X Factor type competition which eventually destroys both her and her family. Then I have this idea about....see, this is why nothing actually gets done!