Listen to Your Heart: My Life in Ireland and Canada

By Shivaun Gannon

In this vivid account of nearly 100 years of passionate life, Shivaun Gannon takes us through eras, countries, and changing fortunes with her enchanted storytelling. Born into a large, spirited Irish nationalist family, Shivaun spent her childhood in the garden of Ireland, speaking Gaelic, cycling in the Wicklow Mountains and swimming in the Irish sea, as electricity, motorcars and wireless radios made their first appearances. A young woman when WWII broke out, she describes with heartbreaking and powerful clarity the parties, near misses and losses wrought on Ireland through the personal lens of her deeply involved family of doctors, nurses, motorcycle dispatchers, aeronautical engineers, and her own marriage and early family life in the midst of war. Post WWII, the Gannons made the difficult decision to emigrate, sight unseen, to Canada leaving behind deep, proud Irish family roots to begin life anew with six children in Winnipeg. There, harsh winters, poverty, as well as opportunity, incredible resilience and family bonds take the Gannons on a rollicking journey full of music, invention, faith and strength.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jan 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781426995033

Shivaun Gannon

Shivaun Gannon (née McCormack) was born in 1919 in Wicklow, Ireland. The seventh of nine children, she studied music in France and physical education at Ling Swedish College of Gymnastics in Dublin. In 1941, she married jazz pianist Joe Gannon, and in 1957 they immigrated to Canada with their five children, and their sixth was born soon after. There, she was a beloved Physical Education teacher and consultant for the Winnipeg School Division No.1 for 25 years. Shivaun has lived on Pender Island, BC, since 1984. She has 24 grandchildren, 7 great-grandchildren and loves to stay up late, wear fashionable clothes, make marmalade, play golf, do qi gong, and most of all, tell stories.

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© Copyright 2011 Shivaun Gannon.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN: 978-1-4269-9502-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4269-9505-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4269-9503-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number:2011916622

Trafford rev. 12/29/2011

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Contents

ONE

faith

two

wentworth villa

three

st-malo

four

o’daly’s bridge

five

summer school term

six

granny plunkett

seven

fiat adventures

eight

acushla

nine

swimming lessons

ten

adventures on the sea

eleven

wicklow town

twelve

the church & convent days

thirteen

lourdes

fourteen

daddy

fifteen

a new beginning

sixteen

montigny

montigny

seventeen

bienville

eighteen

verdun

nineteen

homecoming

twenty

coming out

twenty-one

ling college

twenty-two

wild party years

twenty-three

life before marriage

twenty-four

war breaks out

Twenty-five

lough derg

twenty-six

jig

twenty-seven

the dresses

twenty-eight

engagement

twenty-nine

the hempels

thirty

clodagh

thirty-one

wartime wedding

thirty-two

honeymoon at ashford castle

thirty-three

married life begins

thirty-four

finding yonder

thirty-five

yonder

thirty-six

olly arrives

thirty-seven

cosca

thirty-eight

caravan holiday

thirty-nine

early family life

forty

bill

forty-one

holiday on mount maulin

forty-two

mammy

forty-three

vonnie

forty-four

ita

forty-five

mount anville

forty-six

losing yonder

forty-seven

treetops

forty-eight

geri

forty-nine

val rosa

fifty

leaving ireland

fifty-one

arrival in winnipeg:

853

fifty-two

peter

fifty-three

early days in winnipeg

fifty-four

joe in winnipeg

fifty-five

my career begins

fifty-six

unsung heroes

fifty-seven

father warzak

fifty-eight

summers by the lake

fifty-nine

john

sixty

our musical family

sixty-one

summer jobs

sixty-two

leaving home

sixty-three

bill spends time in the seminary

sixty-four

long hair & bellbottom suits

sixty-five

pacific salt

sixty-six

germaine & don’s wedding

sixty-seven

family wedding album

sixty-eight

ufo encounter

sixty-nine

shivaun &

germaine’s road trip

seventy

adventures abroad

seventy-one

pender to present

Our Place In Irish History:

the plunkett family legacy

Joseph Mary Plunkett

Patrick Joseph (P.J.) Plunkett

Saint Oliver Plunkett

Gannon Family Tree

Gannon Family Tree—Plunkett Branch

Sources

Acknowledgements

To my darling Joe and loving family

ONE

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faith

W hen I stand on the steep grassy hill at Yonder, looking out over Browning Harbour at the ever-changing blue mountains known as the San Juan Islands, I can close my eyes and bring myself back to the salt sea air of Wicklow, the little town where I was born. I recall with fond memories how it looked to me from the end of the New Pier, nestled between the beaches and the rolling hills surrounding it. When the moon shines silently through the tall Yonder cedars, casting shadowy webs across the lawn, I don’t need to close my eyes to imagine how my life began with a bounce in the darkness, one March morning 92 years ago.

On a dark winter morning at our house, Wentworth Villa, Mammy, who was expecting me, her seventh baby, was coming downstairs on her way to daily Mass, little knowing that my brothers had left a bamboo cane across the banisters after their game the night before, of jumping over it to land in the hall below. She tripped and fell doing all she could to save her unborn babe and herself. She suffered some nasty bruises and the fall tossed me onto my side in her womb. A few weeks later on March 20, 1919, when it was time for me to be born, they say my elbow presented itself first causing a huge problem—this baby lay in a ‘breech position.’ In later years the family accused me of trying to elbow my way into the world. In fact I think that my very active life began in the womb: first with a bounce followed by a prolonged lateral extension!

While Mammy suffered patiently through the long hours of hoping and praying for this baby’s breech position to right itself, Miss Hayden, the midwife who had been with her for the birth of all my brothers and sisters, assisted her. In those days it was a no-no for a doctor to attend a member of his own family. Daddy, although he was the Chief Medical Officer for county Wicklow, had to remain downstairs in our drawing room, anxiously praying for us, having been informed by the local attending doctor that there was a chance that my mother and I might not survive.

Mammy, whose beloved Papa had died in her arms only two years earlier, clung to the mother-of-pearl crucifix he had held in those last moments. She cried out to him for help in saving her baby. She always said that it was my father’s faith and her Pappy that got us safely through that ordeal.

It took faith to bring me into the world and 10 months later, when once again I was in grave danger, with little or no hope of surviving a bad bout of pneumonia, it took faith to keep me here. Daddy’s medical colleagues, who had come down from Dublin, in consultation agreed that there was nothing that could be done. Without despairing, he decided to take me to Templemore, a small village in Tipperary where reports of many miraculous cures had taken place at a holy grotto that drew hundreds of the sick and disabled. Percy Stephens (our family driver), my parents and a nurse set out with me, a very sick baby all wrapped up that night for the 300-mile trip to Templemore.

Travel anywhere in Ireland at that time was extremely hazardous. They left after midnight, hoping to avoid the roadblocks and snipers that lined many country roads during skirmishes between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and British Black and Tans. Driving all through the night we arrived safely at the grotto where my parents placed me in the area for invalids, behind a panel of glass and then joined the other pilgrims outside, in prayers for the sick. Mammy told me that as she prayed for me she also asked Our Lord to forgive her for doubting in the Templemore miracles. While they anxiously watched over me through the window, catching Dad’s eyes, they said that I suddenly smiled, reaching up one hand to him; this was the signal for him to ‘gobble’ it up, in what had been a favourite little game of ours!

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Baby Fa-11 months

As Daddy and Mammy hugged each other he said, She’s turned the corner! I know she’s going to get better! With their faith and my little hand I grasped back onto life, and after swallowing my first spoonfuls of water in days, I made it through my second miraculous recovery.

two

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wentworth villa

W entworth Villa was the haven of my happy childhood. Our two-storey house, shrouded in Virginia creeper, was only a two-mile walk to the beach, crossing one of the bridges over the river Vartry. The mouth of the river ran through Marina docks into Wicklow Harbour, which was bound on two sides by the Old Pier and the New Pier. The local tennis club was just across the road from our home. Five miles south was Brittas Bay, with its golden sand dunes running down to three miles of lovely long beaches. Looking north was the ridge of the Wicklow Mountains that separated the counties of Wicklow and Dublin on the East coast of Ireland. Now that I live in British Columbia, with its mountains, rivers and sea, my mind often drifts back to my childhood play-days in the county often referred to as the Garden of Ireland.

My parents didn’t always live at Wentworth Villa, however. They had met in Dublin, and both being very athletic and outdoorsy shared a dream of raising a family in the country. Soon after my father, Bill McCormack, qualified from the College of Surgeons in Dublin, my parent’s lovely wedding happened. From several job options, they chose the one in Tinahely, a small village in the Wicklow Mountains. The only available home for them there at the time was a little cottage, surrounded with lovely mountain scenery, no running water, a turf fire place and an adjacent outhouse. My mother’s faithful personal maid Bessie came with them to continue the loving care she always had for her, but otherwise, they were on their own in these wild mountains—a far cry from my mother’s aristocratic upbringing in Dublin!

It was this natural setting that drew my father to turn down some choice opportunities to practise medicine in Dublin City in favour of moving with mother to live in the country. They saw it as an ideal place to bring up a family, and although at times we teenagers felt somewhat cut off from life in the big city of Dublin, we later realized the wisdom of their decision.

My father’s practice soon spread out into suburbs that included the nearby Humewood Castle family and staff. Mammy shared some of these times in stories, and much later on, while most of the family were at their boarding schools, she took us ‘babies’ (Liam, Charlie and myself) on a special trip to Tinahely and Humewood Castle. We were welcomed and escorted through this famous castle. There were many large ballrooms and music rooms, and in one of the immense drawing rooms I remember seeing a large portrait of very beautiful young girl. I inquired about her and was told that Sir Humewood was bad family news at that time for marrying this London chorus girl!

When the government job for medical officer (MO) for County Wicklow was announced, my father’s application was accepted and they moved to live in Wicklow town. The move was perfect for our whole family, especially Daddy. He walked through the town each day to be at both of his hospitals by 11 a.m. This was a two-mile distance, mostly uphill, and then past the Court House, a very extreme uphill to the hospitals. Our house, Wentworth Villa, being on the main Dublin to Wicklow road, also made it quick and easy to get to for emergency cases.

Wentworth Villa has many warm memories for me, of Daddy, Mammy and the nine of us McCormacks and all the happenings that we shared together there. I was the seventh member of the family, having four big brothers, two big sisters and two little brothers. In order of age we were Paget, Donald, Brendan, Maureen, Germaine, Plunkett, Shivaun, Liam and Charlie. I remember so well the happy nursery years we three younger little ones shared. The family fondly referred to us in those days as ‘the babies’ and I was called Fa, as when baby Charles was learning to talk, he found ‘Fa’ a lot easier to pronounce than Shivaun, and the name stuck! Our nursery looked out across the back garden and up on a hill to the left we could see the big black clock with gold hands on the church steeple and hear the loud chimes of the bell ringing on the hour and every six hours, the Angelus. In the nursery we had stories read to us by Mammy, one of the family, or the nanny. In the winter there was a lovely warm fire to sit around, where sometimes babies’ nappies might be airing on a clotheshorse nearby. I can still see the big well-worn family edition of Grimm’s fairy tales, that had the most unforgettable illustrations, and a His Master’s Voice gramophone that we cranked up to hear Bye, Bye, Blackbird on one side of a 78 record, I want to be happy but I can’t be happy ’til I make you happy too! on the other side.

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Most mornings after breakfast we would play out in the garden until called in at 11 o’clock for hot cocoa and a snack such as brown-bread ham sandwiches after a chilly morning outside. Then it was time for our day-sleep, when the big wooden nursery shutters were closed over, making the room totally dark for a two-hour nap. We had a daily walk after lunch with Nanny, all three of us in our knee-high socks and ankle boots, that Mammy believed would make sure our ankles would grow strong!

Some afternoons as we played with our toys on the nursery floor, the door would open slightly and Mammy would roll in a big Jaffa orange for each of ‘the babies.’ The peel would have slits that made it easy for little ones to peel. Other times we would find this special ‘daily fruit’ beside our pillow (always a prize there of some kind) when we woke from our day sleep.

The garden at Wentworth Villa was ideally landscaped for children to enjoy. We babies made great use of it, between the front garden, the side that spread out between the jungle, the garage yard on the right and the enormous cedar tree, the chalet and a side lawn leading up to the back vegetable garden with fruit trees. The front gate had a large brass plate that read W.J. McCormack, M.D., L.R.C.P.& S (Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians and the College of Surgeons) in black letters. Just inside the gate on the left front railing was a large purple lilac tree next to a yellow laburnum tree, with its long, flexible branches spreading out in all directions—perfect for young gymnasts! The front lawn on the left side of the pathway leading to our hall door was right in front of Daddy’s surgery and referred to as Dad’s lawn.

When the month of May came round each year, and the lilac and laburnum trees were in bloom, my heart filled with pure joy, anticipating the glorious summer holidays coming soon: brothers and sisters home from boarding school, daily tennis and swimming, boating, picnics and visitors coming to stay and share our summer fun. Mammy’s lawn on the right, in front of the bay-windows (looking from the drawing-room below and master bedroom above), had some very special floribunda rose trees that thrived under her loving care. This lawn was where all sorts of family games took place. There was also a large drawing room window at the side of the house, so we had to be careful when these games got wild to avoid having a window broken.

Daddy saw patients in his study from 3 to 6 o’clock most afternoons and otherwise for emergency visits; he was on call 24 hours a day. A big treat for us ‘babies’ was when we sometimes got to go with him when he did his country calls, with his driver Percy Stephens. The patient’s family often took us in to see the farm animals, play on swings and spoil us with treats—fruit from their orchard, cookies and lemonade.

The medical study had a pink marble fireplace. A large wall mirror hung over the mantelpiece, on which sat the Chinese vase and copper pieces that are presently over my fireplace here at Yonder. In cold weather, there was always a coal fire glowing. Bright copper ornaments surrounded the fireplace, including a coal bucket on one side and Dad’s antique mahogany and brass bucket on the other side. His study that I loved so much to visit had a big roll-top desk in the center and bookshelves lining the wall behind it. On another wall was a very beautiful, tall antique three-in-one mahogany cabinet. The top section held all my mother’s precious books behind 13 pane glass doors. The middle section pulled out to a desk area, and on the bottom was a large cupboard. The surgery table was to the left of the fireplace and on the wall behind the door was a large medical chest with doors that opened wide, lined with shelves of matching glass jars. The centre section of this medical-chest was a counter on which Daddy made up his prescriptions of Latin-labelled bottles of medication for his patients. I remember the small weighing scales that had a complete set of little brass weights, and all kinds of measuring phials, useful instruments and other medical supplies. Mammy helped to look after some of this, labelling the prescriptions and having them ready for the patients to pick up. I remember being assigned to keep the bottles dusted, polished and replaced in alphabetical order on those shelves. I would stand on a chair to reach the highest ones and remove and replace each bottle with great care. I loved the job and was paid two shillings for my work! On occasion, Mammy would answer a knock on the door by a patient when Daddy was out doing house calls. Once when she asked if the problem was serious, the women responded, "It’s me nairves Ma’am, they do be that bad!" One night a mentally unstable patient, who had run out of her medication, came knocking loudly at the door. Her voice sounded really scary, and more and more so as Mammy ushered her into the study where there was a nice war

194_Germaine%2c%20Shivaun%20and%20Maureen%20McCormack%20-%20the%203%20Mac%20girls.jpg

Germaine, baby Shivaun & Maureen

m fire, to wait for Daddy’s return. The poor deranged lady kept continuously yelling, shouting angrily and paying no attention to being asked to sit down and have some tea. We three ‘babies’ upstairs in the bedroom above the study, hearing this crazy babbling down below, were terrified. The woman kept slipping her hand into a bag she had, and Mammy, fearing she might have a gun, ran to the nearby hotel to call for help. During this time the wild yelling voice, along with the sound of angry fists pounding on the desk below, never stopped until Mammy was back and the ambulance arrived.

Although Daddy worked incredibly hard, he also knew how to have fun. When he popped in to visit us in the nursery, back from his hospital rounds, he often came holding surprises for each one behind his back for us to guess, Which hand is it in? He called me Va or Va-Va, a variation of Fa, and joked that I was little Cindy, and Maureen and Germaine were my two ugly stepsisters! I loved being the lassie by his side as he strolled with me around the nursery hand in hand, singing Roamin’ in the Gloamin’ on the bonnie banks o’ Clyde!

When Daddy went for a swim before breakfast, we ‘babies’ went with him to play on the pebble beach shore while he swam along near us. Sometimes, if he had been up all night delivering a baby, he’d have breakfast in bed. We’d rush down to fetch the morning papers when we heard them come through the letterbox. Daddy would ‘study form,’ perusing both the Irish and English horse racing schedules on the sports pages of the Irish Independent and the Daily Express. He had some racetrack contacts, including a very good friend, the famous jockey Paget O’Brien Butler. On occasion, when he had trouble deciding on which horse to back that day, he would ask one of us little ones to place a pin prick somewhere along a row of scheduled runners! We loved Rupert the Bear, the cartoon serial in the Daily Express, and we never missed following the next day’s two verses of these adventures. I remember chatting to Daddy some mornings from my perch in the bathroom while he shaved, watching with interest as he replaced the blade in the razor, lathered his face with shaving cream and with each stroke he cleared it all away! When he set off each morning on foot to do his rounds at the hospitals he wore grey felt Spats that buttoned neatly over his shoes and ankles. I would see him off each morning as he put them on, picked up his hat and Malacca-cane walking stick and was off. He was so gentle and kind, and worked very hard for his patients and the family.

Our parents were loved by the townspeople, especially the poor. Faith, health and education were the most important values held by my parents. Both had come from very well-to-do backgrounds, and had grown up with the best of everything in their home-lives, and no financial worries. As our own family grew to six boys and three girls, however, things had to change. Many of the frills of social affluence were dropped. Priority was given to affording the fees for good private schools. Mammy devoted all her time and energy to running the house, seeing that nothing interfered with my father’s medical practice, giving him and each one of us her special attention. She was a wonderful wife and mother. We little ones nicknamed her Doo-Doo. We loved the aroma of her skin moisturizer—glycerine and rosewater, which she had made up especially for her at the local chemists. We had lots of loving hugs and comfort from Mammy who was there for us at all times. I so well remember hearing her footsteps running up stairs to rescue me as I woke up crying from a day-sleep and the comfort of those loving arms, and the delicate Doo-Doo perfume as my face pressed into her shoulder. Being allergic to wool next her skin, she wore only silk or cotton dresses under a wool cardigan in cold weather. One of my many fond memories of her was when one night, at 3 a.m., I awoke up sobbing that Eamon, my teddy bear, had been left out in the garden, and Mammy got up and went out to rescue and return him safely to me. She shared with us several books from her own precious collection of childhood books, among them The Owl and The Pussycat and Who Killed Cock Robin. She taught me to read from her very old edition of Reading Without Tears. I can still see the etched illustrations, and new words listed above the story for each lesson. Mammy also encouraged me at an early age to draw, paint with watercolours, and sew using her very unusual sewing machine, one that had a ‘chain stitch’ feature. I was eight years of age when I made my first cotton dress from a pattern. Unlike my older brothers and sisters, I spoke Gaelic long before I learned to speak English; before I was even talking, I was settled down on a cushion to listen during the older ones’ Gaelic lessons given by a tutor called Thomas Garvey and all were asked not to speak English to me!

The following story shows how my lifelong, keen ‘dress sense’ took off when I was two. Mimi de Fages, my godmother, sent a beautiful dress for my birthday. It was made of pure silk Chinese shantung (champagne colour), and embroidered in bronze. Mammy stored it carefully in a top drawer of the big press on our upstairs landing; it was only to going to be worn on special occasions. We had a nice old gardener called Mr. Fox whom I fondly called ‘an madra rua’ (Gaelic for Fox). As he worked away in the garden one day, I decided he must see my lovely birthday present. Making my way into the house, up to the landing clothes press, and standing on a chair I managed to sneak the dress from the drawer! When later I was discovered parading around the garden in my best dress, I received a ‘no-no’ I’ve never forgotten!

My two handsome baby brothers Liam and Charlie, three and four years younger than me, both had blond curls, large blue eyes and thick eyelashes. At times they looked like twins, and both were full of fun and very musical. I was so proud of them and loved helping to care for them so much that I was sometimes referred to as the little mother. The three of us entertained the family during the holidays with recitations accompanied by actions. I’ve eight white sheep, all fast asleep, and two old dogs close by, was one the boys did, and a favourite of mine went:

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!

It’s not so very, very far away;

You pass the gardener’s shed and you just keep straight ahead—

I do so hope they’ve really come to stay.

There’s a little wood, with moss in it and beetles!

And a little stream that quietly runs through;

You wouldn’t think they’d dare to come merrymaking there—

Well, they do.

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The Babies, Fa, Liam & Charlie

We once made up a little song and circle dance that became a command performance everywhere we were taken to visit, including the hospital, the Wicklow Convent and Mount Anville, where Maureen was at school. We made up Rupert Bear games where I was Rupert and the boys were the wild pet monkeys—Beppo and Bimpo!

There was a large kitchen at the back of the house in Wentworth Villa. It was always warm and inviting to sit by the glowing coal—burning range, where the large black iron kettle was always simmering, and all kinds of baking was going into or coming out of the oven. A long toasting fork hung nearby for making toast in the days before electricity came to Wicklow. I learned to make sauces (without lumps), scramble eggs, fry bacon and eggs, and cook vegetables on that wonderful old range. I can remember drying my very long curly hair in front of the glowing red fire that was peeping through the bars of the grate. On the wall to the right of the range, near the ceiling, there was a row of bells numbered from 1 to 7. Each one was connected to a room throughout the house, and in the old days before we lived there, by pressing a button beside the fireplace, a bell rang to summon one of the staff to come. Down the centre of the kitchen there was a long table on the stone flagged floor and last thing every night both the table and the floor were thoroughly scrubbed clean for the next day. The pantry off the kitchen had lots of shelves where the milk, butter, cheese, eggs and vegetables were kept. It was cool in there, on the north side of the house.

I remember the huge thrill it was when we got electricity in the early 1920s. No more oil-lamp holders on the walls (all turned out by 11 p.m.!). Turning switches on instead to light up the hall and all the rooms was sheer magic! I remember feeling worried at hearing that Germans were installing it: how could we trust these men, our WWI enemies? It was hard for me to believe that instead of someone having to light each of the table and wall oil-lamps in the hall and every room all over our house with a match or a flint lighter every evening, we were getting electric light glass bulbs with some hanging from the ceiling, that could be turned on and off by a switch! Then when I heard we were getting an electric ‘cooking stove’ in the kitchen it not only sounded like something magic, again, it was hard to believe that rings hot enough to cook on would only need to be switched on and off!

I also remember the excitement one day, way back in the ‘20s, seeing Daddy carrying in a huge box with ‘WIRELESS’ printed all over it. He put it down on the drawing room floor and he called us all to come and see what he was lifting out. This was our family’s first ever radio. It was big, heavy, dark brown and about the size of today’s average computer box. I think that I was a wee bit scared when Daddy tuned it in for us to hear people talking, because I remember having to run behind it, feeling sure there had to be someone there to see! It seemed like absolute magic to Liam, Charlie and me. It was always referred to as ‘Dad’s wireless’ and Mammy treasured it until she died in 1949.

All of my older brothers and sisters went to boarding schools from their early childhoods onwards. There were two main reasons for this. First, in those days the standard of education was much higher in most private schools than in country-town day schools. Second, the emotional trauma of having to leave parents and home behind during school terms was, rightly or wrongly, considered to build character and strengthen one to face life with courage in the years to come.

There are indeed many pros and cons to this philosophy. The unbearable heartache and loneliness of boarding school life for family and home on the one hand, and on the other, such things as school spirit, lifelong friendships and sharing experiences with others, while far from the support of one’s loving family. The joy of getting mail from home, of Sunday visits to the Parlour, when Mammy came laden with tuck goodies such as fruit, cookies, a pot of jam, fruitcake, candy or chocolate was wonderful. There was always the heavenly thrill and excitement of coming home for the holidays! All this was supposed to make a man of you and develop endurance and courage. We ‘babies’ had a governess, Miss Kinsella, and were home-schooled until I was 12, Liam nine, and Charlie eight years of age.

The boys and girls in our family were very athletic. From an early age we took part in all kinds of sport: cricket, rugby, tennis, swimming, field hockey, boating, golf and horseback riding. Encouraged by our parents, the three eldest—Paget, Donald and Brendan—set the example to be followed by the next three—Maureen, Germaine and Plunkett. We ‘babies’ grew up filled with pride and joy, hero-worshipping our big brothers and sisters as they took part and did so well in competition. The mantelpiece in our drawing room was laden with championship silver cups, trophies and medals from their achievements, either at local tournaments, the annual Regatta or at their boarding schools. They encouraged us little ones to join in the fun of family activities during the holidays. I was allowed to join their mixed field-hockey matches when their friends brought a team down from Dublin. We also had a family membership at the tennis club across the road from our house, where tournaments took place on Saturdays. I learned to play as soon as I could hold a racquet! It was heaven to hear the squeaky roller being pulled by a donkey in May, when