by Alice Taylor
She cared for the ailing Nonie with kindness but with great firmness. Nonie’s mind was inclined to wander but Ellie jerked her back to reality. Some evenings Nonie would have the table set for three when Ellie came in, and Ellie would demand: “Who’s that extra place for?”
“That’s for Jack,” Nonie would answer.
“For God’s sake,” Ellie would declare in exasperation, “Jack is above in the graveyard for the last twenty years: he’s hardly going to come down for his tea!”
Ellie’s firmness held Nonie in the real world for years when she might have slipped into confusion. Ellie was not one to pay lip-service to her duties but carried them out unswervingly because in her world life had its responsibilities and you looked after your own. Though advanced in years she carried a workload that would have exhausted a far younger woman. When I remarked to her on her amazing stamina she smiled in amusement and said matter-of-factly, “One day I will drop down stone cold dead, and that will be that.”
Fr Seamus had great respect for her, and of all the priests that she had worked with he was her favourite. Not, of course, that she ever said so; indeed she treated him like a wayward son. Once when he had arrived back from holidays she said to me: “He’s back now but I’m not going to pretend that he is by asking him if he enjoyed his holiday, because he did not think it worth his while to tell me that he was going.” He had told her all right, but she had not heard him.
From the time she took over the duties of chapel woman she never missed a morning opening the church on time. But one morning she was not there, and we knew that something had to be very wrong. She had got a very bad pain in her leg during the night and Fr Seamus had taken her into hospital. Her departure caused repercussions around the village. There was nobody to open the dispensary, the children were surprised to find their sweet shop closed, Nonie had no one to care for her and the parish was without someone to keep track of all the comings and goings to do with the church.
The doctor procured a bed for Nonie in the nearby cottage hospital until Ellie was back in circulation again. Two of the neighbours tidied the sisters’ house in preparation for their return. Fr Seamus had gone to see Ellie a few times that day and reported great progress, but later that night when he went in to see her she died quite suddenly. Because he had great affection for the stalwart old lady who had soldiered with him for so many years, the Mass he said for her the following morning was a celebration of love and the church was filled with her presence. She and her family had been one of the mainstays of village life for many years, and with her going the door of the little sweet shop closed for good. The following day when we laid her to rest in her family plot behind the church, one of the wreaths placed there by her old friend Mrs Hawkins, who prayed in the other church in the village, bore a fitting epitaph for Ellie: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” Shortly afterwards Nonie died too. The tradition of the dedicated chapel woman who regarded her work as a vocation rather than a job had come to an end.
THEY WERE GREAT WOMEN
SHE HAD COME to the village back in the forties, one of that gallant band of midwives who travelled the rough roads of rural Ireland by bike or pony-and-trap to deliver babies until the need for their services disappeared. In 1930 she had gone to Dublin as a young girl to train as a midwife and on finishing her training had been appointed to a maternity hospital in Lower Leeson Street. Then she returned to Cork where she joined the staff of St Kevin’s nursing home, and when a vacancy arose she came back to Bandon to work in Miss Beamish’s Home. In 1943 she was appointed by the Southern Health Board as local midwife in Innishannon. Her district covered a wide area and her only means of transport was a bicycle.
The Nurse was of medium height and her ample figure exuded serenity; she had a warm and comforting smile and in later years acquired the air of being everybody’s favourite grandmother. Her long, pale face was framed with soft grey hair and though her figure had filled out over the years her hands and feet remained slim and dainty. She never raised her gentle voice and her small hands were fast and efficient. You felt in her presence that no matter what emergency arose she would be in control. During my traumatic days of early motherhood she called regularly and calmed me with her reassuring advice. When medical calamity befell any household in the village we ran to the Nurse’s house for help.
During her years as local midwife she brought seven hundred children into the world and was proud to claim that she never lost a baby. She always referred to them as her babies, even after they had had babies of their own. She spoke with great feeling, too, about the mothers.
“They were great women,” she said, “there is no other way to describe them. They were patient, strong, grateful people. No matter how humble the home and how large the family, the new baby was welcomed and there was rejoicing. The father was proud, the other children excited, and the grandparents were happy.”
She was the first person that the mother called on to talk about her pregnancy, which they sat down to discuss over a cup of tea. Over the following months they visited each other regularly while the nurse supervised such things as weight, veins and other details. There were no vitamin pills in those days but she sometimes recommended the drinking of stout or a mixture of milk and stout as extra nourishment. Many mothers worked quite hard during pregnancy and often cycled, which kept them very fit.
As soon as the time came for the baby to be born “going for the Nurse” was a job to be entrusted to somebody reliable, usually the father. If he went to collect her in the pony-and-trap then she travelled in comfort, though over the years she experienced all sorts of different means of transport. On one occasion a farm cart with a bag of hay in the middle of it arrived to escort her, on another a horse-and-butt which the farmer had been using during the day to draw cow-dung from his farmyard to the fields, and in his rush for the Nurse had forgotten to wash out. Once a butt arrived that did not need washing as most of the base was missing, and the Nurse was carried along with her legs dangling over the rough, mud-spattering road. Sometimes the messenger arrived on foot and then she pulled out her bike and cycled, often in bad weather, deep into the country.
She came prepared to stay overnight or for as long as she was needed, and brought with her no form of painkiller except her reassuring presence and medical know-how. But although she did not dispense any drugs she still administered therapy and alleviated pain in her own way. She sat with the mother and held her hand, comforting her during her labour. She instructed and encouraged and always she prayed, and as she herself recalled, “The mothers prayed too. We would pray together and it all helped. I trusted in God for everything. I always felt close to God in my work through the years. He always helped me to get to my mothers when they needed me. And,” she would add once more, with admiration ringing in her voice, “they were great women.”
On many occasions the mother had her own mother present at the birth and often a good neighbour. The Nurse was high in her praise of the neighbours and the support they provided. When asked about the fathers and if any of them were present at the birth, she said, “No, it was unheard of in those days. But they were always near by keeping the fire going to boil water and to make tea, and the children helped him as well so it was a real family affair.”
When the baby had been safely delivered the mother had to stay in bed for seven to ten days and the Nurse called every day. Usually the baby was baptised the day after it was born, even though it meant that the mother could not be present; often it was the Nurse or the godmother who took the baby to the church.
Hers were the hands that welcomed many a new life into the world, and they were also the ones that eased many a tired one out of it. When a death was slow and laboured and relatives found it difficult to cope on their own, the Nurse came quietly to the rescue like a serene swan gliding over troubled waters. She sat by the bed soothing the dying and sustaining the living, and when life had finally ebbed away she laid out the dead person with dignity and the
minimum of fuss.
Her own life had not been without sorrow: her husband had died suddenly and left her with two small children. Her mother had come to live with her then and she had been able to keep on working, and she was helped too by the generosity of her neighbours, a kindness which she never forgot. “The people of Innishannon were outstanding and it was many a fine bag of potatoes and vegetables that I got in those days.” When in later years her house was damaged by fire her neighbours came together again to help her to rebuild it.
A job she adopted as she grew older was decorating the altar with Nonie and later Ellie, and preparing the crib at Christmas. She who had brought so many children into the world enjoyed the annual preparation for the Divine Child. Every morning she walked up the steep hill to Mass and when she could no longer walk she was brought by wheelchair.
As befitted a person who had laid out so many people in their own homes she, too, died peacefully at home where she had been cared for by her family. That night as I looked down at her face, tranquil in death as it had been in life, I remembered how she had described “her mothers” and thought, “You were a great woman.”
PORTRAIT OF A VILLAGE
WITH THE GRADUAL departure of the old people from the village, the pattern of coming together casually at the corner and in the houses died out and was replaced by a more structured social system. There was a corresponding increase in the number of organisations, all of which hinged around the parish hall, the Bridge hall and the Rovers’ dressing rooms. I was never an organisation person but when an art class started in the Bridge hall I knew that this was something to satisfy the inner me. It was an opportunity that I had always hoped would come my way, because deep within since childhood had lain a slumbering ambition to become an artist. Not a great artist, just one capable of producing a recognisable picture on canvas. There was no passionate dream to walk in the footsteps of Turner, simply a hunger to create.
Our artist teacher who lived outside the village was generous and inspirational. Her motto was: “You can if you think you can.” I agreed with her philosophy, but none of my family shared my opinion when they viewed my efforts. My first attempt was to paint a local castle on the banks of the river Bandon, but it came out looking like lumpy porridge. When one of my sons enquired with a puzzled look on his face, “What’s that supposed to be?” I knew that I had definitely gone astray. However, I was not daunted. Bitten by the painting bug, I discovered that if an artistic genius had not been sleeping within, a dormant paintaholic had certainly been awakened.
Once a week a small group of us assembled in the hall where we painted, chatted and compared notes on progress. But these weekly sessions were only a small portion of the time I needed to fulfil my increasing hunger to paint. I set myself up in a corner of the kitchen where the smell of paint and turpentine overpowered the normal aromas of baking and cooking. Culinary efforts were far down on my list of priorities. When fellow addicts came into the shop they made their way to the kitchen, where we discussed perspective, depth and different colours. My sons who came looking for late dinners rolled their eyes to heaven and prayed for a return to normality. However, when school lunches were contaminated by turpentine they decided that enough was too much. In the interest of family health I was evicted from the kitchen and ordered upstairs to an old attic where the lighting was better and the climate not so critical.
The threat of strangely flavoured sandwiches had been removed, but a new danger now manifested itself. Once I had escaped to the attic I felt no inclination to come back down. Hungry faces peered around the door, enquiring as to the lack of bubbling saucepans on the downstairs Aga, but they were dismissed imperiously with a sweep of the paintbrush, or threatened with a palette knife and a wail of “Don’t break my concentration!” My maternal instinct became buried beneath the profusion of colours running around my brain, and my need to get them co-ordinated and onto canvas. The pictures were in my mind but getting a bridge built from there to the canvas was the problem.
If you enjoy doing something you can only get better at it and gradually the pictures began to take shape. Downstairs in the kitchen I had my own panel of art critics ready to offer opinions when I placed my artistic efforts on top of the fridge for their appraisal. There was one trait that all my children had inherited from my father which I sometimes regretted, and that was his honesty. They were blunt and direct in their criticism and if they judged anything to be “fairly good” I knew that it just had to be brilliant.
Painting opens your eyes to the world around you. You see derelict sites and old stone walls in a new light. Trees in all seasons and the footpaths in the nearby woods in autumn became fascinating to watch. Our painting group exchanged ideas and we never tired of discussing the same topics: a common bond united us. Eventually we decided to go public and hold an exhibition.
This was to be no ordinary exhibition: it was to be a celebration of pictures, flowers and shared enjoyment. We came together one Saturday and scrubbed out the parish hall; everybody brought flowers, driftwood and anything else that they thought would add interest to the exhibition. One of the group who was a member of a flower club created beautiful flower arrangements which filled the hall with their colour and fresh smells. Then we arranged the pictures on the walls. Pictures and flowers blended together in a riot of colour.
Late on Saturday night as we viewed our exhibition we felt a glow of pride. The whole hall was a glorious mix of colour and light. Willing and unwilling husbands had come to assist with the layout. The exhibition was not to be about selling pictures (many of us had very little to sell by the time family members had decorated their walls with our work). It was about sharing our enjoyment, and we hoped that the whole parish would come.
On a beautiful June Sunday a retired English major who lived near the village and had been a well-known water- colour artist in his day opened the exhibition. Due to the noise of passing traffic and the fact that he had a deep, throaty voice which rumbled beneath his red cravat, we did not hear one word he said. But it made no difference to the sense of occasion that prevailed. Locals poured into the hall and were joined by passing tourists. Two of our group sat inside the door welcoming people as they came in and the rest of us drifted around the hall making sure that everybody felt welcome and enjoyed themselves. All day people poured in, and after the cows had been milked the farmers came. Later still, when the pubs had closed, all the happy drinkers came to have a look at what we had on exhibition.
It was a success beyond all our expectations. When they had viewed the work on display some people went home to call out other members of their households because they felt that they were missing something worthwhile. The whole parish came to have a look at the many aspects of the village and scenes from around the parish which we had painted. But an old man captured the spirit of the whole day for me when he stood in front of a picture of an old rusty, broken-down shed which was hanging on the wall and modestly priced at £50.
“By God,” he said, “it takes some bating to paint a picture of my own shed, and try to charge me £50 to take it home to look at it.”
THE CARERS
THE WARM JULY sun poured in through the stained glass windows of the little church, casting coloured shadows on the heads of the silent congregation. The sounds of the singing birds came through the open windows. A pigeon cooed peacefully. Into the silence Fr John’s soft voice flowed with the wonder and the love of God.
It was a day of rest set aside from the ordinary, a day to meditate, to think and to make space in the mind for things other than the practical. Outside the church the garden was a sea of colour. The flowers like waves of prayer celebrated the beauty of nature and the glory of God. They were nurtured and cared for by Brother Mitchell, and when you saw him kneeling at work in his flower beds, it was to know that prayer took different forms in this holy place.
Early that morning I had walked up the tree-lined avenue while the dew still clung to the surrounding hills. Through
the trees in the nearby field I could see horses appear and disappear in the drifting mist. A cock pheasant crowed on the headland, his bright feathers contrasting with the dark green briar-covered ditch. As I stood to listen and to watch, a hare shot past, its speed startling me. The countryside was celebrating the birth of a new day.
St Patrick’s Upton, just up the road from our village, is a special place where the people of God not only preach his word but put it into practice daily. Here priests and nuns care for the adult mentally handicapped and give them a useful, dignified lifestyle. People who could not survive in the outside world have a special, caring world created for them here. Yet they are part of our community; every summer the entire parish comes together to run the Upton Steam Rally to raise funds for them. The steam rally was the brainchild of Fr Con and in its early years I catered for the steam-engine men in our guest-house. Because it took off better than anyone had expected we had moments of panic when we had more men than beds, but Fr Con was calm and serene and brought us all smiling through the chaos. He has now gone to heaven but his rally is still oiling the financial wheels of Upton.
On that June day as I walked through Brother Mitchell’s flowers I watched the handicapped people sitting on the grass listening to a football match on the radio. Spanning in years from twenty to sixty, they sat together in groups laughing and shouting with excitement at the match. A little apart from the others Ned walked, picking daisies with the joy of childlike discovery in his happy face. A child in the body of an adult, he carried the joys of childhood around in his head. Standing there I felt that I was in the presence of something beyond my understanding. Later that day as we gathered around the altar in a celebration of the love of God I thought of Ned, and later still I wrote this poem.