It all started off so well.  I’d always been a happy go lucky sort of person. Life had been easy and straightforward.  My parents had moved from Ireland to London when we were young.  I was the second eldest of six children.  I had a happy childhood, and hardworking parents.

We came of age in the 60’s and the world was our oyster.  After the drabness of the ‘40’s and early 50’s, rock and roll took over. Bill Haley, Elvis, the Beatles and The Rolling Stones were in the forefront of music.  There were other great bands and singers from America, like the sound of Motown, the surfing songs of The Beach Boys.

We swung our hips from side to side to “Rock Around the Clock” in our big skirts with layers of net underneath. We jived to “You Aint Nothing but a Hound Dog”.  Knew all the words of the Beatles songs, “Ye, Ye, Ye”, and all the great songs of that period.  You were either a Mod or a Rocker. If a boy was a Rocker, he had hair slicked back with Brylcreem, long sideburns and drain-pipe trousers.  Boys wore Italian suits with jackets to their hips and hair like the Beatles if he was a Mod.  The scooters (Lambretta’s) were the Mod’s mode of transport, before the Mini’s took over, and motorbikes were for the Rockers.  Girls wore long straight hair, or back-combed into a bee-hive if it was short. The Mini-skirt, shift dresses, vibrant coloured materials took over. Discothèques, shortened later to Disco’s, were the places to be seen dancing on a Saturday night.  Money went further and clothes reflected the optimism of the time.  Mary Quant was a leading fashion designer and Carnaby Street was the place for the in-people to go shopping for all the new trends.  Of course there were plenty of shops on the High Street too.  It was a great time to be young and carefree with employment opportunities and money in our pockets.

After spending two years in Australia, I moved back to Ireland. When that special someone came into my life, it was the cherry on the cake.  How I loved him. He was what all the love songs were about. He brought sunshine into my life like I’d never dream’t of. Over the years, and two children later, we moved to a country town where he ran his own business and built our own house. Five or six years on, and we had lost our home through bankruptcy.  We moved addresses several times, spent periods of separation while he worked abroad.  All the time I held on to the hope that things would get better.  His drinking increased and he became a stranger.  We talked less and argued more, going round and round in circles. We moved back to Dublin, and then to Bray, on the east coast. The Sheriff came to the door one day while I was painting the front windows, five months pregnant with my third child.  He looked in the house and said “there’s nothing worth taking”, and left me in peace. I thought I saw a look of compassion on his face.  Eventually my children gave me the courage to call a halt to it all.  Even at that time, in spite of everything, I still loved him. When his father died suddenly, I thought this would bring him to his senses.  Alas, it made no difference. I initiated the legal route but being the controlling person that he was; he turned his back on us and moved to England.

I continued to live for my children in Bray, in a run down house, making whatever improvements I could.  My mother had a saying, “necessity is the mother of invention” and I discovered I could paint and wall-paper with whatever meagre means I had. Many a time I walked through a nearby park, tears falling down my face.  What would become of us?   I cooked and cleaned for people who owned a pub.  Sold scratch cards door to door for a while with my youngest son by my side, who was five years old by then. I did some hairdressing for a few elderly people who were housebound.  One old lady asked for a perm and I said “I’ll risk it if you will!”.  It turned out fine thankfully. Eventually, as my children got older, I did a computer course in the local Technical College, and eventually went back to work full-time as a receptionist in a local solicitors office.  I stayed there for ten years before going back to secretarial work in Dublin.  We were beginning to rise from the ashes.

I was never really alone in spite of everything.  Friends helped me through and my children were my inspiration and salvation.  How I managed it I don’t know, but eventually, I bought a new house, with a garden, and started again. It was the year before house prices sky-rocketed. As the years went by, and some I hardly remember, I managed to find myself again.  I became the person I always should have been.  I had faith in God, inherited from my parents, and the same determination to make a better life for my children.  I’m not a church-goer any longer.  Once in a while I light a candle. My children join me in church for Christmas and Easter celebrations.

One sunny Sunday morning I stood on Bray beach, where we live, with my dog, in awe of the beauty around me.  I looked up to the sky and thought “God must have known I’d end up on my own to have brought me to live here’. I’ve found peace and contentment, with the knowledge that someone up there is guiding my path.

The children are married with their own lives now. I love my life with my dog and cat, but I’m never lonely. I have my children, grandchildren, and some good friends. I felt more lonely and isolated while I was married.  Nothing stays the same forever. Kindness can be found where you least expect it.  There’s always the odd cloudy day before the sun shines again, but life is good.