by Jimmy Magee
It did cross my mind that perhaps the powers that be felt I simply wasn’t good enough to be trusted with big games. When the thought that it was a reflection on my work crossed my mind I told myself, ‘Well, why I am doing any of them?’ So clearly it wasn’t about a decline in the quality of my work; but to this day I just don’t know why I wasn’t selected. I probably didn’t fight enough for it; I might have questioned their decision but was brushed off with a simple ‘Sure aren’t you going to the championships—what more do you want?’
I managed to cast off the bitterness and enjoy the rest of the tournament. I was fortunate enough to cover the Netherlands, who had a top-class team with the likes of Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard and Ronald Koeman. Ireland were desperately unlucky to lose 1-0 to the Netherlands with a goal in the dying minutes that was clearly off-side. Similarly in 1984 I was fortunate enough to cover the games of the French team, who were the ultimate winners.
The morning after the English game I was going to collect a rental car, which was across the square from the main cathedral in Cologne, when I noticed that there were four Irish guys on a bench looking the worse for wear. I was wondering to myself, ‘What the hell are they doing here? The match was in Stuttgart yesterday! That’s almost four hundred kilometres away!’
‘Ah, the Memory Man!’ one of them shouted in my direction.
‘Ah, it’s the Memory Man!’ another piped up.
I was trying to walk fast, as I had a schedule to keep, but I also didn’t want to be rude to my compatriots, so I went back to them.
‘You’re the Memory Man, right? You know everything, right?’
‘I am indeed. What do you want to know?’
‘Where’s our bleedin’ hotel?’
‘You’re in the wrong city, lads!’
I laughed along with them. They had got on the wrong tram after the match and then got on another tram and then decided to take a taxi and ended up 370 kilometres away.
Reflecting on it all, it’s hard to believe that it took us a staggering twenty-four years from Euro ’88 to qualify again for the Euros. But, unfortunately, we don’t have the same quality of players today as we had in Jack Charlton’s era.
Chapter 10
| DOUBLE TRAGEDY
After all these years I still become emotional when I think about 1989, undoubtedly the most difficult year of my life, when I lost both my wife and my mother within months of each other.
The year had begun on a real high when the ‘Late Late Show’ had a special edition to commemorate my broadcasting career. It was actually the first of two special shows the ‘Late Late’ did about me. The first one was a beautiful surprise, because I hadn’t got the slightest idea about it when I walked onto the set to be warmly welcomed by Gay Byrne, a friend whom I’ve always had great admiration and respect for. I thought I had been invited on to do a piece about Ireland’s two great cyclists, Seán Kelly and Stephen Roche, who had won the Tour de France only two years previously.
Marie, Lord have mercy on her, had obviously been a party to the whole ruse, but I genuinely never realised that a special show was being planned for me. I arrived in RTE that evening and said Hello to everyone in the lobby and then went up to get my make-up done. When I arrived in the make-up room Seán and Stephen were already there and chatting about cycling. As I greeted them, the floor manager rushed in and announced, ‘There’s a slight problem. Two of the guests are held up at the airport. Jimmy, is there any chance you would go on first?’
I shrugged and replied, ‘I’ll go on whenever you like.’
He then turned to Stephen and Seán and asked them if they were ready and said he would bring them down first and come back for me. When I eventually went downstairs Gay met me outside the door of the corridor.
‘Ah, Jimmy. I’m so glad to have you here. It’s very nice of you. I’m sorry to have to do this out of order.’
I replied that it wasn’t a problem, and I walked into the studio with him and sat down. What I didn’t know was that while Gay was chatting off stage the show had already been going out live. Apparently Gay opened the show by saying, ‘Good evening and welcome. We have only done a few of these before’—which was true, as up till then they had done a special ‘Late Late Show’ only on Noel Purcell, Maureen Potter and the Chieftains—and he then said, ‘We have another of those, a very special man, and now I’m going to go out and meet him. And he knows nothing about this.’
So he went off stage to get me, which he has never done before, and brought me in and sat me down. Sitting in the other seats were Father Michael Cleary, Barry McGuigan and Harry Thuillier.
We talked for a while, and then Gay announced, ‘I think we should take a commercial break.’
It still hadn’t dawned on me that the show was all about me until, during the break, my eyes wandered around the studio and I noticed Marie, Paul, Linda, June and Patricia. Even then I just thought, ‘The cheeky so-and-sos never told me they had tickets for the “Late Late Show”!’—because I knew I hadn’t got them tickets. Then I saw another few friends; and then I began to recognise more and more people.
When Gay came back to his seat I asked him, ‘Is there anything going on here?’
‘No. We’ll let you go off in a few minutes, as we know you have another appointment.’
‘Yes, I have an appointment, but it can wait.’
‘Do you like to sing?’
‘No, I can’t sing.’
‘Ah, come on.’
Reluctantly, I got up and sang a song—out of tune, of course. Then I sat down and said to Gay, ‘Listen, is this all about me?’
‘Have you not rumbled it by now?’ he laughed.
The whole thing was about me! It was a fantastic honour. At the end of the show they brought out this cake and a clarinet, which was Marie’s idea. Why a clarinet? I must have told her during our courtship that I wanted to play the clarinet, I wanted to be like Benny Goodman and I wanted to swing. This was my Dixieland instrument of choice, but I could never afford one when I was younger. There was one in the window of McCullough’s music shop in Dawson Street, and it cost half a crown (12½p) a week, but I wouldn’t have that much to spare, so I never got the clarinet. It was a wonderful gift. I still have it but, sadly, have not learnt to play it.
Several years later Pat Kenny did another special on me when he was the presenter of the ‘Late Late Show’. And, believe it or not, that was another big surprise, because I never imagined they would consider doing a second special show about me. On that occasion I was supposed to be on to discuss motor neurone disease, which at the time had tragically been diagnosed in my son Paul. When I went onto the stage Paul was sitting front and centre in the audience.
When this book comes out perhaps Ryan Tubridy will do another one on me! I’ve actually been on the ‘Late Late’ with Ryan, so I have the great honour of having been on the show with all the hosts.
——
Soon afterwards tragedy struck when my mother passed away in New York. Looking back, I wish I was there more for my mother. She had a huge interest in travel; she loved visiting places and all that. I would have given anything—though financially at the time I couldn’t afford to bring myself anywhere—to be able to walk into the kitchen as a young man and say to her, ‘There’s a round-the-world ticket and hotels and some spending money.’ I would love to have been able to do that for her, but when I did have the opportunity to have enough money to do that she wasn’t there any more, and that’s a big regret.
My mother was about eighty when she became ill. She deteriorated quite rapidly in the closing stages, which was an awful pity. She really loved life and being around people, especially her children and grandchildren.
Near the end she was in and out of hospital in New York, and I flew over a few times to see her. I would normally visit her about twice a year, and I truly missed her when we were apart. I hadn’t lived with her for a long time, and she had a new life, so in a way I had to get to
know her again when she remarried, but at the same time she never really changed for me.
She used to come back to Ireland regularly to visit her grandchildren. She adored them all, but she had a particularly close bond with Paul. Perhaps it’s because he was the oldest, but he was the one that was most likely to be with her. As a twelve-year-old he even went with one of those ‘unaccompanied children’ tags on a flight to New York to see her. She later told me that when she met him at the airport and asked him what he would like to do all he spoke about was wanting to go to a bowling alley; of course she didn’t want to go to one, but he pestered her so much that she brought him, and he practised and practised, and only six years later he became an Irish champion. Eventually he became the manager and coach of the Irish national bowling team. He loved all sports and at school was cross-country champion, and he was a good Gaelic player; he even played in Croke Park and won a medal. He was also a very good golfer, and I believe if he had had more time to concentrate on it he could have been a professional; but then you can’t do everything in this world.
I often think that if there’s such a thing as reincarnation Paul will come back as a jockey. Reflecting on this, it’s strange and terribly sad that they are both gone now.
When I realised my mother was very ill I dropped everything and headed over to see her. I think she knew she was dying. After our last conversation she asked when I was leaving, ‘Ah, Jimmy, when will I see you again?’
There was nothing profound in our conversation, just everyday stuff. I think she wanted to keep the tone light rather than having a really heavy conversation like ‘Look after yourself, don’t be doing this,’ etc.
I kissed her goodbye and told her I’d be back as soon as I could get away. Deep down I knew I would never see her again. I kept myself together until I got out of her apartment.
I don’t know how I got through that time. I’ve got through a lot of stuff in my time now that I think about it. I would cry silently to myself, or cry loudly on my own, but you can’t let everybody else down. People would be looking at me, saying, ‘I wonder how Jimmy is?’ and thinking, ‘Well, Jimmy is just fine,’ because I always stopped myself from breaking down in front of others.
When I left my mother’s apartment I got a taxi and went back to the hotel to pick up my bags to go to the airport. As the cab pulled away I thought to myself, ‘I will probably never see Mam again.’
She passed away about a week later. I knew the second I picked up the phone and heard the voice of my sister Mary at the other end that she was gone. It wasn’t as big a surprise as it might have been for, say, people who are killed in accidents, but it doesn’t lessen the blow nonetheless. Adhering to my mother’s last wishes, they brought her body back home to be buried.
——
I was only coming to terms with losing my beloved mother when we were dealt another blow when Marie died suddenly the same year. She was only fifty-five. At the time she had a chest problem, from bloody smoking; apart from that she wasn’t sick really. She lost a lot of weight and had been unwell for a bit but never really did very much about it. She was unwell in a typical Irish-mother way. You would ask her what was wrong and she would tell you, ‘Nothing’s wrong.’ She was never off her feet, even when ill. I didn’t notice that she had got so thin; it was only when it was too late that I noticed it.
I can’t really remember my last conversation with Marie. It might have been one of those arguments about something—not a real argument, something like ‘What are you wearing that suit for every day?’—the sort of trivial thing when I was leaving the house for work.
She went to bed that evening and she didn’t wake up. I was going out early and I had been up half the night, because I had been in late, and I was getting a bag to head out again when I found her. It was a horrendous experience. I don’t know how long she had been dead.
I ran into the next-door neighbour’s house; I don’t know why you would do that but you do in such moments of sheer panic. They rang for an ambulance, priest, and all that, and then I faced into the daunting task of telling our children that their beloved mother was dead. It was something that simply empties you of any emotion.
The funeral was a blur. It took me a very long time to get back to anywhere near normality after Marie’s passing at such a young age. When I was a young teenager I had to become head of the house, and now when Marie died I had to become the minder of children again, though they weren’t exactly young: the youngest, Mark, was nineteen, and we helped each other to get over it together.
It’s now more than two decades ago; and when Mark left home I was on my own again, which can be lonely at times.
What kept me going at the time—and still now really—is the future. What am I going to be doing in the future? Where am I going to be? To be in London this year (2012) for the Olympics, or Brazil in 2014 for the World Cup? To be in Rio in 2016 for the next Olympic Games after London?
I moved on without any great plan after Marie died, but I had work commitments and I was determined to meet my obligations. If anything, it would distract me. However, I couldn’t sleep well afterwards and it took me a while to sleep properly. I didn’t cry as much as I should have, because I think it is good to cry. But I didn’t. I didn’t really cry when Paul died either. I cried inwardly, but I never cried in front of people, as I didn’t want to make an exhibition of myself.
It did take time to get over waking up in the night and Marie not being there, or being welcomed home with a small row. ‘Where were you until this time?’ Funny things, or stupid things, like arriving in late and putting the key in gently and tiptoeing upstairs and then thinking, ‘What am I worried about going easy for?’ I can let chairs fall now without anyone hearing—that’s a realisation. I never feared I would let myself go after she died, and I wouldn’t do that, and I’m not going to do it now.
Marie was extraordinarily good to me. She did so much for me. I probably never really told her how much I appreciated her and how much I valued everything she did for me and our children. When you are mixed up in show business you are not home as much or as often as you should be. She always hung in there, no matter what happened. She encouraged me in those early days when I was doing loads of sponsored programmes and events, and things were looking up. I knew there was a long way to go but things were looking good, when all of a sudden all the programmes went off the air, from no fault of mine: sponsors’ contracts had run out. I would be making less money and then even less again, but Marie never panicked too much or complained during those tough periods. She was extraordinarily good with me, and patient; she could have told me to go out there and get a ‘proper’ job, but she never said that.
When I think about her today I fondly remember how we travelled together. When the children had grown up she came with me to a lot of places when I was away working. We went to Asia, Australia, all over North America and all over Europe together. We were at the Niagara Falls in Canada, dressed in the yellow oilskins to stop the spray on your neck. We had good times together.
I suppose my fondest memory of Marie would be of the patience she had with me. There I was scooting around the place, and she would ask where I was going next. I kept reassuring her that next year I would be earning more money, and she would just say, ‘Okay, I believe you.’ Thankfully, it turned out that I was right. But she wasn’t there to see the best days of it.
It’s been more than two decades since she passed away, but I never got involved in another serious relationship. Life is like a ledger: there’s a credit and a debit side. Ideally they should balance. Do they always balance? No, because occasionally I’m a lonely man. I was thirty-three years married to Marie. I think I have handled her loss well, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t miss her or get lonely.
Funny enough, I like living on my own now, but I don’t want to be on my own all the time.
I still wear the Claddagh ring given to me by Marie on my ring finger. I also wear my father’s wedding ring on
the other hand, which would have been given to him in 1932. I have worn this since he passed away. I’m not a ring man, but I always wear those two. I used to take my father’s ring off when I washed my hands but stopped doing this after I went away without it one night when I took it off in the toilets of the old Metropole in O’Connell Street. After I left the restaurant I suddenly realised I wasn’t wearing it. I dashed back into the hotel and went downstairs and asked the attendant if he had a signet ring with the initials P.J.M. on it.
‘You’re lucky,’ he said, ‘because an honest man found it on the washstand and handed it in,’ and he handed it back to me. It taught me a valuable lesson, and I’ve never taken it off from that day to this. I would take neither one of them off unless I truly had to.
I almost had the rings stolen from me when I was doing a signing session at Tallaght Town Square, around the time it had just opened. A rough-looking fellow came over and said, ‘Give me something.’
I asked what I could give him. ‘Give me something. Give me a ring!’
I told him, of course, that I wasn’t giving him my ring, and even if I wanted to I couldn’t take it off. He was telling me he would get it off for me when the security man came over to see if I was all right and asked what was going on, and he moved the fellow on. He then said to me: ‘See that guy? I bet he wanted your ring.’
I said yes, and he told me he probably said he would ‘take it off you.’ And he added, ‘Don’t doubt him, because he’s just out of jail. He took off a woman’s wedding ring with a hacksaw.’
As I said, you meet some people!
Chapter 11
| WORLD CUP AND OTHER TOURS