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School Days

Author: Paula Donaghue
Year: Future

On Good Friday my Mam sent me a photo of herself from her school days. This photo would have been taken in the early ‘60s in Dublin. My Mam and a group of her friends are all dressed as angels, singing some hymn on a school stage. This was when Ireland was very Catholic! I reckon she would have been around 16 or 17.

As I look at the sepia-tinged photo I wonder about my Mam at that age. What was going through her mind during those last years in boarding school. After losing both her parents tragically early in life, her boarding school became a home for her and her friends and teachers her family. I know, in particular, the head became in loco parentis for her, and Mam always spoke of her fondly. Was she nervous when she thought about leaving the only security she had known in her teenage years? Did the city of Dublin scare her slightly? Was she wondering if she should go back to the country town that she came from?

The nuns, who ran the boarding school, sat with her one day and asked what she was going to do when she finished up school.

‘Are you interested in entering the Dominican Order?’ she was asked.

Was she?

She thought about it for a few minutes and then thought about the group of boys she and her friends liked to (illicitly) hang out with from the male-only boarding school not too far away. She thought of the daring things she liked to do like wear denim jeans and skirts slightly above her knee – all things frowned upon at that time – and thought that maybe the religious life wasn’t quite for her.

‘Are you interested in teaching?’ she was asked.

Mam never considered herself academic, by which I think she really meant that she was no good at maths, as she is a very bright and intelligent person. But no, the thought of getting up in front of a class of students and imparting knowledge terrified her. So teaching was out as well.

Clearly the nuns were out of ideas and so they left Mam to mull things over.

It was only by chance that, when one of the other girls in the school mentioned to Mam that she was going into nursing, that Mam had a lightbulb moment about her future. Mam has always been, and continues to be, full of love, empathy, kindness and caring. All these qualities, she felt, would perhaps make her a good nurse.

So, that was what she chose. Her future job now decided, she swapped her school friends for nursing college friends, her boarding school for a flat in Dublin City Centre with some of the girls she worked with. She loved her job and, I have doubt, was excellent at it. For the next few years she spent her time working, studying, playing hockey, going to the movies and falling in and out of love with various unsuitable characters. She was having a wonderful time!

Within the building where she shared her flat, there was a group of boys also sharing a flat. These were the ‘airport boys’, a group of lads who were working, in different departments at the airport. They all shared a central cooker and oven and would often meet in the evenings when they had tried to be the first down to get the stew or soup on for dinner.

I like to imagine that Mam’s and Dad’s eyes met over a pot of bubbling Irish stew one evening and the rest is history but apparently it didn’t happen quite like that. Whereas Mam had caught Dad’s attention it seemed that it wasn’t quite reciprocated. Mam thought he was a nice boy but that was it. It was only Dad’s persistence and belief that they were meant to be together that made Mam soften. Mam told me a story of when she had the flu and was in bed for a few days and Dad kept popping in to check up on her and bring her drinks and medicines and tell her stories and jokes to keep her entertained. Although he may have worn her down when her defenses were at their lowest, his tactics worked, and Mam has always said that her life truly began when herself and Dad got together.

I wonder when Mam looks back at that photo of herself, dressed up as an angel, with her school friends around her, what does she think? Can she ever imagine that she would have been married for fifty three years, have had three children and four grandchildren? That she would have survived cancer and all the other traumas and tragedies that life throws your direction? That she would have had to negotiate three different currencies as Ireland moved from pre-decimalisation, to the Irish pound, to the Euro?

And could she have imagined when she went to a class reunion in early March, before we were locked down, that she would have been transported back to those school days, with the nicknames and all the giggles and laughs as only you can have with people that you knew and knew you all through your teenage years? The ‘Class of ‘62’ WhatsApp group is now alive and well and all the classmates from so many years ago, that only met up a handful of times over the intervening years, are now a source of comfort and support for each other while we are not allowed out.

I think my Mam’s suggestion for the future that she made to her WhatsApp group is very appropriate,

‘Girls, when all this is over, I think we all deserve to meet up for another lunch and a very large glass of wine.’