On Christmas morning, we would race to the sitting-room, where Santa always left our toys and books in specific corners. He would have thoughtfully written our names on a piece of card on top of each individual pile, to avoid any mix-ups or arguments.
The toys I would love to go back and play with would be the tiny tinkling piano, the kaleidoscope which kept me quietly entertained for hours, and the Etch-A-Sketch and the fantastic books which came from my mother’s pen-friend in America. Books featured largely, and we always had three or four each, including annuals like Oor Wullie, The Broons, The Dandy and Beano. And one of the biggest treats – a whole Cadbury’s Selection Box each.
After we had played with the toys for a while, my mother would make us sit down and eat lovely fresh morning rolls filled with boiled or scrambled eggs. Then, we would get dressed in our best clothes for ten o’clock Mass, where we would meet all our friends and neighbours and have a great chat about the presents we had got.
We had an early dinner of goose (which came from our grandfather in Ireland) with potato stuffing and roast potatoes, followed by home-made trifle. Afterwards, the children would be deposited in the biggest bedroom where we would sit in front of the fire eating our Selection Boxes and reading the American books like The Bobbsey Twins and Little Women.
The rest of Christmas Day slipped by as we watched films on television and played our new games of Bingo or Snakes and Ladders with Mum, Dad and Papa. Later we would all sit and listen to my elder sister Teresa’s new pop records on the radiogram, eat more chocolate and read. Very few friends called to the house that day, as it was tradition to spend it with the family.
Reviewing my choice of day to relive as a child, I can think of a few other days I might well have picked – Easter Sunday, with all the same excitement over the Easter eggs, and wearing our new dresses and straw hats to Mass. Then, later, if the weather was fine, going on a picnic to the “Big Hill” to roll our hard-boiled eggs down it and then eat them along with sandwiches and Irn-Bru.
I would also love to go back and spend an ordinary day around the house, spending time with my parents, Papa, and my sisters and little brother. School was fine, but not fine enough for me to relive for one precious day, so I would probably pick a Saturday when I was around twelve years old. I would get up early, before my parents and siblings, and sit with Papa drinking a cup of hot milk and a slice of toasted Mother’s Pride plain bread.
Although I loved all the chatter and banter of a big family, occasionally I loved those quiet mornings with just me and Papa. Later, I would go up to the library to change my clutch of books and chat to the librarian and any friends who were there. It was always interesting as you never knew who you might meet. I would then come home and have something like a Scottish pie or a Bridie, and then I would set off out again, over to my neighbours who I ran errands for every Saturday. I first would go to Rose, who was an invalid, living with her husband, Joe Alenskas, her adopted son Joseph and her brother James. I loved going to their house because Rose treated me more as an adult than anyone else did, plus she was very funny and used bad language, which my parents never did.
I would head up to the local Co-Operative store with my list of shopping, calling for my friend, Ella, on the way. We would dawdle around the shops for an hour or two then meander back. Then, clutching my half a crown from Rose, I would make my way further up the street to Mrs Collins, and after chatting over some of her home-made cakes and a glass of her dandelion (non-alcoholic) wine, I would go for her shopping which would earn me another half a crown. In the evening we would have dinner around the kitchen table and afterwards I would go down to a friend’s house to sit in her bedroom listening to records.
When I look back at my choice of days to relive, I can see it was all about enjoying my family, neighbours and friends – and talking, eating and reading. Not a lot different from today except I might be chatting over a glass of wine as opposed to an Irn-Bru!
Looking back generally, I have countless pieces of advice I’d give my younger self.
Love and cherish all the people who are good to you. Let them know how much you think of them. They won’t always be there and as you get older you will realise that love is the most important thing in life.
Try to find your own path in life, the things you love doing etc., as it will make you a happier and more fulfilled person. Whilst being as kind and thoughtful to other people as you can, don’t put yourself last. It’s very important to live your life for yourself and not feel resentful that you spent most of your time pleasing others.
Be grateful for the good things in life. Always thank people who have been kind to you or given you gifts or shared their precious time with you. When we do something nice for someone and are met with ingratitude, it puts us off doing it again. Ingratitude is something people might notice and remember about you.
Talk and explain why you are doing things in a certain way, how you feel about situations, whether you like something or not etc. Other people can’t read our minds, and if we aren’t clear then wrong assumptions can easily be made.
Friends come in all shapes and sizes. Don’t judge or dismiss other people because they are different to you – and be as kind as you can to everyone. Don’t judge people on their looks, their race, religion, class or their ability at things. When I was younger I had several much older friends who I learned from. Now, when I have grown-up children, I have friends who are much younger than me – and I still learn from them!
Notice all the beauty around you that nature and other people give us – flowers, artwork, beautiful scenery, music. Just looking at beautiful things does our heart and our mind good and relaxes us.
Life is exciting – live every day as fully as you can. Get all the things you have to do (like homework and any chores) over with so you can spend the rest of the time doing things you love.
Look after your health as you want your body to stay in good nick as long as possible. Definitely do not smoke! Apart from the horrible smells that will hang around you, it gives you lines and wrinkles – and smoking kills people. My beautiful younger sister was a heavy smoker from her teens and died much too soon – leaving three small children – because of it. Be wary of alcohol and drugs too – they can alter your brain forever and make you do things on the spur of the moment that can have huge consequences.
Walk as much as you can and notice the great feeling it gives you. Notice what’s going on around you whether it’s in the town or the country. Try out as many physical things you can, like swimming, running, badminton etc., until you find something you love. Competitive sports aren’t for everyone and there are lots of other things out there.
If you read constantly you will never be bored and you will always be learning. It fills all the boring little gaps in your life while you’re waiting – books, magazines, online features. Join a library – apart from the books, you can borrow DVDs and CDs and you can even read magazines for free! It’s also a fantastic place to find out what’s going on in all the nearby towns. Books are friends for life! I can still remember all the brilliant books I read as a child and I learned from every one of them.
Experiment with subjects in school and with hobbies until you find something you love. It can be anything from learning to play the guitar, knitting, chess, drawing, writing stories. There are loads of things out there so there’s got to be something you will enjoy – and you will meet new friends who like the same things as you.
When something serious is worrying you, talk to your parents or a close relative or a nice teacher about it. Try to remember that things change quickly and a week later the problem might all be forgotten. If you have to work things out or make an important decision – give yourself a break from it by doing something nice and then, when you are more relaxed, the answer will often come to you.
If you want to do something or have something, and feel it is out of your reach – imagine having it already. It really works! (Not completely always – but of
ten.) It’s called visualisation and people like famous athletes have used it to imagine themselves winning races.
If you’ve made a mistake, done something stupid or hurt someone – apologise! Your body often lets you know if you’re in the wrong because it will niggle away at you, making you run the incident over and over in your mind, and sometimes it gives you a sinking feeling in your stomach. We all make mistakes and if you are in the wrong an apology will sort it out 99% of the time.
Learn how to manage money as early on as you can. I was rubbish at it and spent every penny I earned from my teenage Saturday jobs on buying clothes and going to discos. If I had to go back in time now, I would save one tenth of everything I had so that I always had something put away if something big like an unexpected holiday came up. Extra money also lets you buy gifts and treat other people, and the feeling you get from being generous is bigger than receiving gifts!
While spending time with family and friends is really important, discover the joy of spending time on your own. Apart from reading and your hobbies, take time to just sit thinking about nothing in particular. It’s relaxing and good for you.
Lastly, be kind to yourself.
Geraldine O’Neill has published ten novels and written numerous short stories and features for newspapers and magazines. Her books are set in the almost-forgotten Ireland of the 1950s and 1960s. Her writing covers many themes, but the common thread that runs through her work is that of emigration. She grew up in Cleland, Lanarkshire, in Scotland and has lived with her family in County Offaly since 1991. She trained as a school teacher and has enjoyed many years teaching in Scotland, England and latterly, at her local school in Daingean. You can find out more about Geraldine at www.geraldine-oneill.com.
Story 39: Light Within the Dark
Louise Phillips
A number of years back a woman I had briefly met asked me a straightforward question. “What kind of a childhood did you have?” My answer was both short and swift. “Don’t go there,” I said. Thankfully she took the hint, and didn’t. But I still remember the emotional torrent behind my response, even if the woman in question wasn’t aware of it. Internally, a tsunami of emotional defence-mechanisms jumped into place. The truth was: I couldn’t go there.
Yes, like many, I’d often reflected on my childhood. But to share, to open up, or to discuss any of it, other than with those closest to me, felt as if the large gaping hole lying beneath might still be capable of swallowing me up like quicksand.
I look on writing this piece as an opportunity, not just for me, but for anyone, young or old, who has looked back and seen, felt, or experienced, things they wished they hadn’t.
If I was a child again, I would tell my younger self that there is always light within the dark. I would also tell her not to be so scared. I would ask her to trust me when I say the world around us is made up of all kinds of people and things – some of them can make you feel afraid, some of them can make you feel sadness, but even those who wittingly or unwittingly cause you pain often have a bigger picture that as a child it is impossible to recognise or understand. Children are like sponges, they soak up everything, but there is one component that is more important than anything else: the knowledge that someone cares. If I was a child again, I would whisper to my younger self, “Even those who cause you sadness can love you deeply.”
We grew up in poverty. Many others did too, so nothing unusual there. The difference comes in part from the where, and in part from the how. I was born in Mount Pleasant Buildings, one of the worst squalor-holes of Dublin city. There were fewer than three years between my brother Tom, my sister Phil, and me. We were born likes steps of stairs, one after the other, and I was the youngest. My mother became pregnant twice after me: the first baby, a girl, died of cot death when she was five days old; the second and final pregnancy was a boy. He was stillborn at seven months. My mother referred to both of them as her angels in heaven. Looking back, poverty and poor nourishment must have played their part. But it wasn’t poverty or poor nourishment which overshadowed my childhood; it was the overprotection of my mother, and the anger of my father.
My mother didn’t want us to mix with other children from the tenements. She looked on our accommodation in an aspirational sense, as “temporary”, but one that lasted until I was eleven years old. Undoubtedly, she was ashamed of where we lived, and this shame lodged firmly in all our psyches. She didn’t want others, including those at the school we attended, to know where we lived, so she concocted a false address. We actually lived at 25 Mount Pleasant Building, but the flat was on the outer edges of the tenements, forming part of Oxford Road, so to everyone outside of our family, including those at school, we lived at 25 Oxford Road.
It’s not an easy thing to live a lie as a four-year-old. In fact, even now, lying makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. I’m the world’s worst poker player. I hate lying, which is possibly why writing fiction feels like a good thing to do. Making things up when they are make-believe is okay, but lying isn’t.
One difficulty was that I couldn’t bring friends home from school, and I couldn’t befriend those at home either. It meant at times living a kind of secret-agent existence – one world not knowing about the other. On school mornings, I would stand on the front steps, looking up and down Oxford Road. If I saw someone I knew from school, I would stay in the shadows and, as soon as the coast was clear, I would dart up the street in an effort to get past the tenements before anyone had seen where I had come from.
It’s hard to write these things because knowing that as a child I had an inbuilt sense of shame about where I lived, which led ultimately to creating an inbuilt sense of shame about myself, is difficult. Our outdoor play restrictions meant that, for a large part of my childhood, I was cocooned within the world of a tiny flat. The main respite was school, which I loved, and trips to the library with my mother, or the odd visit to the pictures with my father – funny that both of these external environments were extensions of a fictional life.
For the most part, I’m a confident person, one who communicates with ease, but those early days have left their scars. I recognise that I missed out on developing elements of social interaction that others experienced. I also recognise that even as an adult there are times I can still feel as vulnerable as that young schoolgirl hiding in the shadows, the one who was ashamed for no good reason. If I was a child again, I would rewind that tape. I would tell my younger self that she should be proud, that her feelings of not being as good as everyone else were false, superimposed by a shame she was too young to quantify or understand. I would tell her she did great, and there is always light within the dark.
The light for me was that I came to love books; those trips to the library opened up my world. When I went to the cinema, the heroes and heroines on the big screen were larger than life – they fascinated me. I dreamt of one day becoming a writer. I also dreamt of being a singer, even though I hadn’t a note in my head! My imaginary world became my best friend, because I needed one.
As an adult, I can reflect on aspects of my mother’s life that I couldn’t understand as a child. I can see clues in photographs. There was a time when my mother used to make our clothes. There are black-and-white photos of myself and my sister in pretty dresses, ones that my mother had sewn. Then things changed. We started getting our clothes from second-hand shops, and we smelt on account of the fact that we were rarely washed. We had lice in our hair, wore shoes belonging to someone else. This wasn’t just because we were poor. I know that now. Having gone through post-natal depression on each of my three pregnancies, I now partly understand what my mother must have gone through after losing both her babies. Back then there was no help for women who lived my mother’s life. She would have been told to get on with things. She sank for a long time. I know that too, even if as a child I couldn’t understand it. I have utterly no doubt that she loved us, and if I could go back I would hug her for no good reason – I would hug her every minute of every day, be
cause it was hard for her too.
My father was an angry man. If I was a child again, I would tell my younger self that none of his anger was because of me. Like my mother, his world was harsh. There was little work, and many mouths to feed. In my lifetime, I got to know two fathers, both of them the same man. I got to know the father who pushed his grandchildren in their buggies, who played with them, and loved them with all his heart. As a child I had known the aggressive man, the one who would take his anger out on us, and who made my mother’s life a living hell. To everyone else he was someone who cracked silly jokes, who opened the front door with a smile. But once that door was closed, he changed. I know alcohol played its part too. It always darkened his mood.
I recall thinking how much better our life would be if he were dead. I have a memory of looking at him in the back bedroom of the flat that myself and my sister shared with our parents, and thinking how much happier we would all be if he was gone. As I contemplated this, I worked out that we would have no financial support without him. At the time, I was six years old.
I doubt his childhood had much love, which is partly why the flat always changed for the worse with him in it. His anger hung over us, waiting to erupt. Sundays were the worst, because on Sundays there was never any work. I can still go back over forty years and remember being that little girl.
“Your da’s here,” I can hear my mother say.
If I Was a Child Again Page 23