Anne's Song Read Online Free PDF

whatever with show business, but he'd heard Mum sing, and I think he was rather smitten, of course by her looks but especially by her voice. They were chatting afterwards and she told him all about my dad, and Fred was insistent that they should bring the family over to England. There was a huge network of clubs in the UK that simply didn't exist in Ireland. Fred was convinced they'd be a big success because there was a greater scope for the type of music my parents were singing.
    He was tall and slim with a kind face and a nature to match. He was divorced when my mother first met him, although he did have a girlfriend at the time. He may have fancied Mum, but I also think he was genuinely struck by her talent and potential. I was later to grow very fond of Fred, giving him the honorary title of Uncle. He was very kind to me because, apart from my recurrent aching legs, I also suffered from blinding headaches and he would massage the side of my head until I fell asleep. He was a big supporter of Blackpool Football Club and he and my dad took me to my first football match, the start of a lifelong love affair with soccer.
    Uncle Fred must have done a pretty good job of convincing my father that the family's future lay in England because the decision was made to move there in June 1962. He only had a three-bedroom semi, so it was a pretty unusual offer to encourage two adults and seven children to come and live with you. Actually, it was two adults and six children. I was still in the convalescent home – Maureen had just been discharged – and the doctors were not prepared to authorise my release.
    My parents nonetheless decided to move without me. I remember the whole family coming to say goodbye. It was a very sunny day. And then they all left. I was usually accepting of my fate, but I did cry then. I felt so alone. Although I'd seen my brothers and sisters on my Confirmation in the convalescent home chapel, as well as on my birthday, I'd known that Maureen was on the next ward and that the rest of the family were returning to the home I knew and loved. But when they left to travel to England, I felt very flat. When would I see them again? And where? I couldn't imagine my mum making the long journey back to Cabenteely, just to see me. Whichever way I tried to rationalise it, it felt a bit like I was being abandoned. I remember being very tearful for the first couple of days after they'd said their goodbyes. But I was a tough, resilient little girl and, gradually, I rallied. I told myself that this had been a difficult decision made in my best interests. Also, somewhere deep in my heart, I knew that nothing lasts for ever. One day, although I didn't know when, the situation would be bound to change. Wouldn't it?
    That was the June of 1962. I was eleven and I had no idea what the future held. When they'd discussed leaving, my parents were told that Maureen was fine, they could take her – but if they also took me, the doctors could not guarantee what would happen to me. It would be Mum and Dad's decision and on their own heads be it. That's why, they said, they didn't want to risk it. But it didn't stop them moving to England.
    Now, as a mother myself, I find their decision to leave me in Ireland utterly incomprehensible. I know my mum found it a wrench, but she still agreed to it. Not so long ago, I spoke to my Aunt Teresa about being left behind and she said she'd told my mother that she thought it was disgusting. I was a little girl of eleven being abandoned by her whole family with just my mother's Aunt Lily to keep an eye on me. Lily did come and visit me and I loved her, but it felt so strange imagining my mum and dad and all my brothers and sisters living in another country in a house which I'd never seen and couldn't conjure up in my head.
    Then, in the following October, without warning and just a month shy of my twelfth birthday, I was suddenly signed off. My mother put it down to my being cured at Lourdes, although