Maquire Family History & Genealogy

I do not recall where I got this interview from. I honor Rory O'Connell and Mary for their work. I share it for those with families that originated in Northern Ireland, those who lived and work in London through the blitz of WW2, producing munitions and living in a girl's home. Mary is not in my family, I do not know her, but her story could be my mothers' story. I treasure this and hope you will enjoy it too, perhaps gain some insight into the lives of your forefathers and foremothers.

93.50
Interview with Mary Maguire
Date: 10th February 1993
Interviewer : Rory O ‘Connell

R1/

Q. Mary Maguire reel one. Can you tell me where and when you were born?
A. I was born in County Fermanagh Northern Ireland on the fifteenth of…1915, 6th June 1915
Q. And can you tell me about your family. What, what did your father do?
A. My father was a small farmer.

Q. And was he from that part of Ireland as well?

A. Yeah. That part of Ireland Yes, four generations of them.

Q. And did you have brothers and sisters?

A. I had one sister and two brothers.

Q. What can you remember of your childhood? What’s the earliest thing you can remember?

A. I remember it was very carefree. We just played in the fields and walked the fields to school.

Q. What was school like?

A. We didn’t get a…. We didn’t go to school until we were seven. And there was three weeks at school when I, when I was… Oh and loved school. And when I went to get up in the morning to go to school my mother came up to the room to me and she was crying and she said ‘Darling you can go back to bed there’s no school today’ she says ‘School was burned last night’ That’s my earliest recollection of the, of the Trou, of the Trouble, of the Troubles.
Q. And was it the Troubles?

A. It was because I remember seeing them out afterwards about the hills. You know the… what do they call them the Black and Tans wasn’t it?

Q. What area …Which part of Fermanagh was this?

A. This was on the border of Leitrim and Donegal. Is it South Fermanagh or North Fermanagh where…?

Q. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s west… southwest Fermanagh.

A. Southwest

Borders Donegal and Leitrim is right.

A. Donegal. Yeah. Are you taping that?

Q. Yes.
A. And you’re butting in.
Q. Oh it’s okay.

Do you remember when Paddy was born ?

A. I remember when Paddy was born, born. I remember the old my father telling me to go up and play on the top of the hill above the house. And he said Grandma’s coming to stay. And Grandma come to stay and another old lady Ellen Gallagher and she, next morning told we had another little brother. And that’s when Paddy was born.
Q. How old were you then?

A. What, what’s the difference between me and Paddy?
Round about six or seven.

A. About seven years I think was between the third three and two of us.
And didn’t your father work in England?

A. My father worked in England. He worked in the Shap granite works for a period of time. We got this back to school after a year. The teachers used to come round the school, the house once maybe once a month or once in three weeks and give us out some leaflets and some books and try to get us taught. I remember the most important thing was for us to get our first communion and all this. And the school opened anyway after I don’t know how long it was and they had it in the… They never built, they never rebuilt the, the school that was burned down. But there…they built…there was an old house near the school. You were at it weren’t yous.
Unlatoon (?)

A. Unlatoon (?) yeah. And children went to school there was a class, two classes with a modern young girl teaching Miss Dougherty and then Master Keelin he was another man, he was from Monagahan. He, he taught senior school. There was only about forty of us or less than forty of us altogether.
Q. Do you remember much of, of, of what they taught? Of what lessons were like?
A. It was nearly all religion. It was nearly all, you know you were just praying all the time and catechism, bible history as you got older and different things like that. You did, you did, you got took home with your reading, reading book, reading book, writing book and a geography when you got older.
Q. Can you remember that geography? Do you remember what they taught in, in geography?
A. Oh it was all about Ireland. All about Ireland and I was pretty good at it. I could rhyme it off at the back of my hand.
Q. What sort of things?

A. Well the different towns and the different mountains and population of the different places and so on and so forth
Q. And did, did they also teach you about other places outside Ireland or….?
A. No. Didn’t. It was very primitive now like what children of 12 or 13 would be at wouldn’t it? I left school I know when I was fourteen. I went to the local mistress Mrs Hunt. Used to mind babies she had three or four very small children. I used to have to mind the babies and look after them and do the washing and make cups of tea and all this sort of thing when she was in the school teaching.

Q. When you, when you came to leave school did you have a, an idea about something that you wanted to do?

A. I always wanted to be a nurse. And I got a call to the nursing 19…19…must have been ’37 no ‘35

Q. You were twenty?

A. I was twenty. -‘35.

Q. So what did you do in between? What did you do from fourteen to twenty?

A. Oh I worked with nuns down in Donegal for about six months. And I,and I don’t like to talk about it at all because it was very, very hard and think it was a very hard time. It was St Eunice College, Letterkenny and they had all students, they had a hundred and eight students and nine or ten priests teaching these students. And us girls was all, all got through our doctor, a doctor said there was good job going in Donegal he’d get it and we got I think two and sixpence more than anybody else paid for working.
Q. What was the job?

A. Jack of all trades from piling coal onto a fire upstairs, cleaning out, sweeping out little rooms or cubicles where they slept in and all this. There was about sixteen girls of us in there. Sixteen or eighteen.
Q. And did you have to live there?

A. We had to live there and they starved us. Give us nothing to eat. It was awful. Awful.
Q. So where did you live? In the, in the same building?
A. No there was two buildings. There was a, domestic staff so there was and it was run by two nuns. One nun was a lovely she was an angel from heaven Sister Agatha and Sister, Sister Columbus, she was oh she was, she was the matron, she was terrible. In the end I walked out on her one…anybody they used to only stay about six months and once you was done your six months she’d no time for you because you knew the ropes. They got in somebody else green. It was a…it always reminded me you know that book Oliver? Story of Oliver it is, treated like that.
Q. Did you get to go…did you get home during that time? Did you get home to visit?

A. Oh yes we got home during the summer holidays because the students went home on holidays. But they kept us… took as I say the last pinch of salt, the, the…. What did they do?….They had a priests’ retreat, up to two hundred priests’ retreat and we had to do that for a fortnight. We never went to bed hardly only washing and scrubbing and cleaning for these priests. Oh it was terrible. Went home I think in the summer holidays I didn’t go back. Oh yes I did I went back for three months ‘till Christmas and this morning at Christmas I was late coming down. I left a hot water bottle somewhere on the top of a, at the top of a stairs that I was supposed to bring down to the kitchen I didn’t bring it and Sister Columba calling Mary Ellen Ferguson, Mary Ellen Ferguson come here. What did you do leave the hot water bottle? And she had a towel in her hand and she hit me straight across into the face with a towel. And I…. Are you taping this?
Q. Yes.

A. Oh gee god….

Q. It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful.

Come on you’re getting into the swing of it now.

Q. What, what happened next?

A. I said I’m going home. No you can’t go home you’re not allowed to go home until the first of January. Your, your time isn’t up and all this kind of thing. And all I went did was I went upstairs I took no notice and I thought I’m not…I’ve put up with this now for… I’d been there from the April. I’m not staying one hour longer I won’t sleep under the roof, I’ll sleep out. And I just managed to get a lift with a, a bread van that was going into Ballyshannon. This Letterkenny was a good way from Ballyshannon. You know where it is…and it you know it was about twenty or twenty-five miles. And I managed to catch the evening bus. And this was in, in, in, in, January. I caught the evening bus up to Tullyrossmern(?) and I walked from Tullyrossmern (?) up home in the dead clouds of the night, out in the country, in the fields through the fields. I got home my mother and father nearly died when they saw me. And they thought I’d lost so much weight and got so thin and everything. But then that was, that was them days.
Q. They didn’t want you to go back?

A. Oh my father was going to sue them he said he’d sue them and all this that and the other and I think they went to the different ones round to the priests and all that about it. But there wasn’t nothing done about it.

Q. Were you the eldest?

A. I was the oldest. Yes.
Q. Did that mean that before you’d left or you’d a lot of responsibility had fallen to you? Things to do around the house and…
A. Oh yes, always. You’re always done that the same as my eldest daughter is now. She’s like that she’s I’m like you Mam she says. I take the responsibility. But she doesn’t always take it does she Jerry?
Don’t think she does. Anyway go on.

A. Let me see now. How are we?

Q. So you came back from the from Donegal. What did you do after that?

A. Donegal. I didn’t do anything much but my mother was, had been in very poor health so she had another very bad winter (…?…) said ‘You stay at home’. Things seemed to be a bit better. My brother Terry was, he was working in McGee’s, he was a sheep farmer and he went to he was working and then there was the other boy used to work of a Saturday used to work down getting the turf and all this kind of thing. And he used to get couple of bob and half a crown yet things didn’t seem quite so bad then you know. And my mother said ‘Oh stay at home stay at home’ I’d like it a bit better and it was worse she was getting. She wasn’t able to do hardly anything and then I used to enjoy running around with the all the youngsters and going here and going there. And three or four different girls went to the nursing in England and I said I’d apply for the nursing and I applied for the nursing. And the very day I applied, got the call for the nursing I was called to Maidstone in Kent.

Q. How did you go about applying for a nurse for the nursing?

A. I think I got the address, it was the Mcdonald girls from Gardenhill (?) they were already in it and gave me the address and you sent and you were supposed to go to Omagh for a medical. I remember going for the medical all right. And the next day

Where Homagh?

A. Omagh. I got the, got the call to go and on that day an uncle of mine died. He died quite young he was only forty-nine and he’d quite…the farmer the son he has.

Peter

A. Peter. He left and my mother said to me I remember I said I should go to England. I had to be there go by, by Saturday. And I remember my mother crying and she was so ill-looking. She says ‘Oh please don’t leave me. Don’t go to England don’t go to England’ and I didn’t. I didn’t go then so I didn’t for another year and a half. By this time I’d missed my call for the nursing. And I used to go and see this one nun Sister Leah, no Sister Agatha. She come up to Ballyshannon that is near my home and I used to go and visit somebody in the hospital there. And then I’d go and see Sister Leah and she was delighted to see me and she said ‘What are you doing?’ and I said I was at home. I explained my plight to her and all this. And she said ‘You want to get The Universe’ she said. I’d I’ve written this down on here I think. She said ‘If you get The Universe’ she said ‘There’s always jobs in the paper. You do no good’ she says ‘Working’. Annie was in the County Hospital and the County Hospital wasn’t much better either. It was very poorly paid and the food was bad and all that kind of thing in it.
Q. Who was that?

A. My sister. And she said, you know, she said ‘if you got into a good, a good Catholic family in, in, in England’ she said ‘You’d do well’. And I got The Universe a couple of times it was another job to get it in our part of the country. I don’t know how I managed to get it and I got this seen this job applied for a house parlour maid. And I applied to the housekeeper St James’s Spanish Place. I applied there. I had to get references and all this that and the other. Anyway told…to cut a long story short I got it at the end of a month. And that’s when I started there and I wrote that out there and you can read that now. Tell me if I have to read it.

Q. Well just, just, it’s all right. Just, just carry on….You just mentioned getting references. Who, who did you get to, to use…as a referee?

I was going to ask

A. Who’s referee? Well the local teacher had gone but there was a, a relation of my father’s Master Fergus of Belcoo. The old Master Fergus you know not the present Master. He give me a reference because he was sort of a friend of the family and the local priest give one and Miss Dougherty was still in the school. Master Keenlan had gone. They give me references and that.

Q. When you picked this job out of The Universe were there lots of different jobs to choose from?
A. There was a few, not a terrible lot. I was just sort of lucky. It was what…it was very, very long hours and there was plenty of work and all that but you were treated very decently and well fed and you know the (…?…)here and everywhere you know.
Q. So, So after a month you heard back from them…

A.Yes.

Q. …that you’d got the job. And then how long after that before you, you left to go there?

A. Oh I left in about a week so I did. I remember the fare, the fare was three pound, three pound three and sixpence.

Q. Can you remember what you did during that week, getting ready to leave?

A. Oh I don’t remember much. All excited crazy. Thinking there was a poor day when you get away.

Q. What time of year was that anyway?

A. September. Fourth of September. I remember it well it was lovely. Lovely day. My father drove me in the pony and, and trap to Belcoo station to the railway station. The old train went down to Omagh and from Omagh up to Belfast. Crossed in an old cattle boat. Oh Lord I was so sick I’ll never forget it.
Q. Had you ever been to Belfast or a place like it before?
A. Well I had, had I been. Yes.

Q. And where did the Belfast ferry go to then?
A. It went to Heysham. Have you been, have you been back to Ireland?

Q. Yes.

A. You have?
Q. Yes.

A. Mhm.
Q. And what did you do from Heysham? Get the train?
A. Got the train. Otherwise I’d never see the end of the journey.
Q. How long had you been

A. And I was I’d been told. She’d sent me a list of instructions had Miss Mosson the housekeeper when I got to Euston to find a porter, a uniformed man and to get me a taxi. And the taxi would be paid for me when I arrived which it was. She, she paid for the taxi when I arrived. Send me my ticket as well.
Q. Did you talk to anyone during the journey? Did you meet anyone on the way to Euston or?
A. Oh I can’t remember that dear.

Well what was your first impressions of Euston and London?

A. I thought it was the dirtiest place I’ve ever came into and it’s still the same so it is. It doesn’t change much. I thought it was. But you were fascinated with the traffic going here and going there, I remember…told to go to…you think you’ll be clever and think you’ll be smart but you had an awful to learn. On our first day out the housekeeper said to me now ‘Can you go to down to Eaton Square?’ and she give me a card and a letter. ‘Go on the number two bus’. It was tuppence on the bus. ‘Go to, go to the…this convent The Lady of Sion Convent in Eaton Square and they’ll have Legion of Mary meetings there. And it was very nice. They gave us tea and all this and it was all young girls and people like myself. And I came home with another girl she didn’t live far from St James’s and she stayed. She told me to stay on the bus two stops farther on. But the next day next Wednesday when I going to… the housekeeper said to me ‘You’ll be able to manage yourself now down to Eaton Square?’ and I said ‘Yes’. And I crossed the road to look into a shop window and seen the number two bus coming around jumped on it. Took me took me away to Swiss Cottage.

Q. The wrong way.

A. See what I knew.

Q. So when you arrived at …Spanish Place did you say it was what was the place?

A. It was the church St James’s Spanish Place. Bishop Wood was the, the headman there. But he was, he was old, he was, well I suppose he was in his mid-seventies. There was him and nine priests. If you read that…Or do you want me to tell it to you do you?
tell me You was telling me just before Rory came in. Tell him what you were telling me about the Spanish civil war and all these priests backwards and forwards.
A. Well just there was nine priests not constant all coming and going they were. These poor young priests the young lads like you and Terry there running here and there and they’d be here the day and gone tomorrow and you’d making up beds for them and taking down beds and making a meal for them at the odd time or getting a meal for them at the odd time. There was a housekeeper she was a real old real witch-like looking person but she’d a heart of gold. She was very kind so she was and very understanding and looked after us very well and …each had our own bedroom. It was…there was only myself and this girl Molly Phillips. Molly was from, from Wexford. She was, she was there I think about two months before me. There was the housekeeper, the cook which she was an oldish lady as well she never left the kitchen at all, and there was myself was what they call the house parlour maid, trainee house parlour maid. You were half time in the mornings, in the morning you were called at six o’clock by the housekeeper and she’d give you, she’d give us, she give me my rota beforehand and you had to be downstairs not later than twenty past six and I had to do the bishop’s study, dust and polish it and do it as quick as ever you could. And you had to be upstairs again by twenty past seven. And get your coat on you over your uniform and down the back stairs and into the church for mass. Mass was half past seven. Out of mass eight or five past and straight into the, the kitchen or off the kitchen was a room called the maid’s quarters and your breakfast was there. The breakfast was on the table waiting for you all cooked. Miss, Miss Mosson had the breakfast ready for us.
Q. What would you have for breakfast? Was it the same every day?
A. No it was not. You got a very good breakfast. You got different things whatever was going. You got everything there was going. I will say they fed us ever so well there. Really good. You, you got up….

Q. After breakfast what was next on the rota?

A. After breakfast what was next on the rota? Upstairs myself and this little Molly Phillips and Molly never used to quit crying and whingeing and wishing she was at home. And going round making beds and empty rooms and that’s housekeeper coming round after us to see that we’d done this and done that and everything was done right. She didn’t used to complain much. She very rarely used to…she looked cross but she wasn’t. And then we’d set to about ten o’clock and start…there was no Hoovers or anything like that, just one of these busy things to use them Ewbank things…and a broom. And we did went round the different rooms. Molly had to do the baths. There was six baths in it she, that was her job doing the baths. Cleaning the baths. And at eleven o’clock you had to go downstairs at eleven o’clock to the kitchen and you got ten or fifteen minutes for a cup of tea or coffee or and a bun or something you got to eat. And I had to go upstairs again …no I think I laid, I think you laid the table at that time. No I didn’t. I went upstairs and I washed and dusted. I don’t know what I did in between eleven and twelve. Twelve we had to be downstairs in the, in the dining room and lay up, up the…for the lunch for the bishop’s. I had to wash and change the morning uniform big white apron and a pink dress and I wore…change into a black dress and a headband and looked very smart. Your shoes polished and everything and nice and clean and they’d lay up the tables down to the kitchen and bring up another…first priest’d be coming about half past twelve and the lunches would go on until about half past one. Then you’d to take over at that same time you had to take over the answering the front door. And they used to…begging in London what used to come to that place. So it was begging looking for this and looking for that and there was only one priest used to give me any consolation. He was a Father Fairall. He used to say ‘Mary go to the poor, poor box and give them a shilling out of it or two and tell them not to come back’ he used to say.

Q. Were many of the priests Irish as well?
A. There was three of them. Father Shaunassey, Father O’Neill and Father…what one? There was a lot of Spanish priests there. What happened then? I was there from, from, from, from…oh from September ‘36 and I went home on holidays. I got a month’s holidays because I said it was no use my going to the expense of going home and they give me a month and took they took in a temporary and I went home for a month…all the month of August 1937. And came back and was doing fine and then in the April or round Easter time the bishop had a stroke and he had to be moved away to a nursing home or somewhere. And a new, a new, it wasn’t a bishop he was a Canon. Canon Tynan came and we were informed that Canon Tynan was bringing his own staff with him and he didn’t want any of us. Not the housekeeper or the cook but they were planning…the cook was, wasn’t very well she was off ill a couple of times. So they were retiring and that. Got a cottage down in Sittingbourne in Kent. And myself and Molly was on the rocks and I had planned to go home again in the August because my sister was coming back to England with me. And God I didn’t know what to do. I told the housekeeper I’d booked up to go home for, in the August and she says ‘Don’t worry’ she says ‘I’ll sort something out for you’. And she did she went to some agency and she got this temporary job for me down at Caroline Mansions, Victoria down by Westminster Cathedral.
Q. And what was that job?

A.That job was a parlour maid and it was …oh it was the cushiest number

Q. That was a step up in …domestic service wasn’t it?

A.It was a step up in domestic service. Also you see the priests and the all these sort of people they’re all just working class communities, but these are all the gentry so they were, she belonged to. I never see any of the names in the paper. There used to be the Cobbles (?) and there used to be the, the Arbuthnets (?) and all these sorts of thing. Do you deal with any of these?

Q. Might have. Yeah. What was the name at Victoria?

A. She only had a flat there. She had a, she had a big, big house down in, down in Plough Hatch (?) Hall, down in, down in Guildford, down near Guildford…West Horsley.
What was her name?

A. Miss Elizabeth Arbuthnet (?)
Q. Was she a lady?

A. No. Her, her mother was a lady, but she wasn’t a lady. Her other sister Betty was a lady.
Q. How did that job compare to …

A.Well I only went there as a temporary her, her maid, her parlour maid she had, she’d a flat very big, very large flat. Two or three flats knocked into one I’d say. But it was all beautiful tapestry and furniture you never saw anything like it… the style it was. And they really lived it up so they did. Instead of getting up at six o’clock you hadn’t to get up till a quarter past seven. Orange juice bring her her orange juice to bed and her mail on a silver tray….platter. Seven, seven yes, quarter past seven. Half past eight then go and, go and find out what clothes she was going to wear for the day and you’d take them out and sort them out and see that they didn’t need pressing or cleaning or anything like that. And she’d get up and she’d tell you what she was going to do for the day. But she’d only be there odd times. She used to have some awful busy sessions then. She used to have, she used to have what a Ascot week and what is the…what do they have in October?

Henley or Ascot or anything like that.

A. Yes, any big dos there was there was people…Well they used to descend upon us like I don’t know what. And they then used to bring their valets and these army officers used to bring their footmen. And oh, devil has anything like it as ever you seen. You’d work hard maybe for three or four weeks. You’d work, you’d be up late and early. But then you get…in between you’d get great times. Could get up eleven or twelve o’clock in the day she’d be away.

Q. So you did you like it more than the, the previous job?

A.Oh course I did. But I…here I was…I was there you see and here Marjorie was coming back Marjorie was coming back on such a date and the cook was at a ding dust (?) she wanted Marjorie back. She didn’t like the Irish. And she was going to leave anyway. She was she, she was, she was Jewish …and… Jewish refugee. And she said…the old lady said to me about the third…The two weeks I was telling different ones I had this nice job and I had to leave it… the other girl was coming back and all this that and the other. So this Sunday night I just come in I’d been out, it was my half day and when I come in she come into the kitchen after me and she says ‘Oh I want to ask you something my dear’ she says ‘Would you consider’ she said ‘Working on for me’ she said. ‘I’ve had a letter from Marjorie, she’s not coming back any more’ she said ‘She’s got to look after her mother’. Oh well I said ‘I’ve got still got to go on my holiday’ and she says ‘I know’ she says ‘I’m going on my holiday I’m going to the Gold Coast’. And I went to Ireland and I had a great time. And so I had six weeks wages, board wages. I never was so well off in my life.

How did the salary compare to the St James’s?
A. St James’s we started off at one pound two and sixpence I think it was. They use to kill themselves, twenty seven and sixpence. But if you got these people coming to stay they used to, they all give you tips so they did. They gave you a tip. The women was the worst. They’d give you nothing so they would, they’d give you a shilling but the men were great so they were they’d give you five bob. There was one old boy used to come Brigadier Latham he was God he…. They’d give you tips so they would. They were great. And I must tell you this one in between on my day off…when you go from Victoria to Marble Arch and the thirty-six bus still runs there. The thirty-six bus used to come to Marble Arch……

R2/

A. ….. a cup of tea or something like that.
Yeah. Do you want a tea or?

Q. Mary Maquire reel two. You were, you were saying about Woolworth’s.
A. Go to Woolworth’s, thruppence for a packet of sweets. Shilling, shilling into the pictures and then when we got farther afield when I got, got used to Victoria, come back after holidays there. And I was there in 1946 when the old lady died.
Q. Was she quite friendly as a boss then as well?

A. She was. She was very good. She, she’d never leave you out of anything you know. We even went to, to see the, the Royal Family if they went to any pictures or anything like that. She got any tickets or anything like that spare tickets she’d always treat us you know. She was very good.

Q. During these afternoons off that you’d have what would you do? Were you getting out and about and seeing London or….?

A. Going out and be seeing London. I used to meet other girls from this convent. We stopped going to the convent then we got a…you see when I left St James’s Spanish Place there was no restriction you could go your own way and anyway you knew your way better about. And we used to go up to the Pride of Erin in Tottenham Court Road. You never heard of that place?

Q. What was that?

A. It was an Irish dance hall. And we used to go there to dances. One and three in there. In the Lyon’s Corner House for tea on a Sunday. One and three in there. Cream buns and tea laid out. You’d think it was the Ritz. Oh I don’t know.
Q. And what was this dance like? What was this dance hall like? The Pride of Erin?
A. It was nice.

Q. What sort of people went?
A. They were all Irish. Just come over like myself but some of them were, had better than others you know. Some of them knew their ropes better than others. The same as just now you meet all kinds. You know we go up to the Irish Centre here sometimes. And we used to go when my husband was alive for years and years. And you meet every Tom Dick and Harry.
Q. Was it the same as Irish dances in, at home?

A.It wasn’t because there was no Irish dance halls at home when I was at home. There was just, what they call the hooley in, in the country house at home…. There’s ham out in the fridge if you’d like to make a sandwich Terry.

Want a ham sandwich?

Q. No. I’m okay.

Sure? Which would you prefer? Tea or coffee?

Q. Coffee.

Q. Just milk with one sugar.

Help yourself.
A. No thanks.

Sure?

A. I won’t for if I’ll start drinking tea and coffee I won’t, tea or coffee I won’t

Do you want to eat your Chinese takeaway Mum?

A. I won’t eat a Chinese takeaway. I don’t want any of that this time of night.

Q So this….most of the time you were in this other job at Victoria was during the War?

A. It was during the War. I forgot to tell you, I got called up in 1944. They’d been chasing me up for a long time and she…we got bombed out, were bombed out down there, down at Victoria. Was one night it was very bad I don’t know what date in May it was. I was coming home from the park. There was two other girls and myself and we were going to go to the dance and then….it was a Wednesday night, Thursday night and we couldn’t, we couldn’t go the bombing was that bad. In the end we went, we got down between in between the spasms of the… We went to…. got to Victoria and got to my place and I asked the lady to let these two in. They’d come from Surrey. And she said ‘Oh sure, sure let them come in’. And I remember we were making the tea and cor there was incendiary bomb came down…anything like it and you could hear the screams I’ll hear it till my dying day. And there was twenty-eight soldiers killed just out the back. They were in the, in a coach so they were that was coming from one of the airports. And these soldiers were all killed twenty-eight of them.
Q. She, this lady must have been used to a fairly luxurious lifestyle. Was that affected by the War?

A. Oh it was. They, they all did war work so they did. They used to knit and sew and mend and go and read to the blind and go and help the wounded. Herself and nieces and nephews used to….they done everything so they did. Then went down the country picking blackberries and doing this and making jam and doing everything so they were. And the big house that she had in down the country was all let out to the to the refugees and to forces and all this sort of thing. It was some experience that.

What about the night she gave you your her tickets for the theatre?
A. Aye. I’ve just told that story. Used to give us her…it was three seats behind Princess Margaret and, and, and, and the Queen and the Queen Mother. And they’re the smallest people. Have you never seen them? You’ve never been beside them have you? They’re not your own height.
Q. Do you remember what it was you went to see? What was this what was the….?

A. What was they call that fellow?
It was The Mikado.

A. The Mikado. That’s right.
Q. And who did you go with?

A.I think there was couple of porters’ wives in the, in the, in the block when we lived at Victoria. Mrs Emmett and Mrs Hassard. Oh I went with them.
Q. When you went to this…when you used to go to the Pride of Erin in Tottenham Court Road how far would all the Irish people come from?

A. They wouldn’t come from very far because they had to walk it. There was no, there was no…the buses used to…the trains and buses used to stop at half past ten at night. And you know I’ve often walked from Tottenham Court Road to Victoria and you’d never be insulted or nobody’d ever interfere with you. It’s not like now. I was mugged coming down the mews here just my very own door here way back there in July and in broad daylight a young fellow come down and just snatched my bag. I’d come back from the Irish Centre and bingo. And that time it was blackout and nobody’d used to say hello if they bumped into you or excuse me or sorry or anything like that. And they’d tell you about the soldiers being about and everything. There was nothing ever really happened very rarely.

Q. Were there lots of other sort of Irish events apart from the dance hall? Were there other things going on?

A. Oh there was the odd concerts you know here and there. We used to go to them

Q. Do you remember… how, how would you hear about them? Where would you read about them because there wasn’t an Irish paper then was there?
A. No. There was no Irish papers then. Oh different girls or different ones would tell you about them. Then we used to…. I told you then I got called up in nineteen- I went of the that. I’m getting mixed up with it now.
Q. Right. In nineteen-forty-four.

A. That’s why I was hoping you’d read that so… to get an idea and tell me what…
Where’s this. Where you up to?

Q. We’re up to nineteen-forty-four and you were going to tell me about being called up.
You went to the munitions factory didn’t you.
A. I went to the munitions factory so I did. And God something funny come into my mind now. I got called up in nineteen-forty-four. She was putting it off and because she was ill and she had to have help. The cook had left by this time and the, the parlour maid, there was only myself. And I used to go around with her here and there and bring her here and there and go down to Plough Hatch Hall. And then we were bombed out oh seven months, eight months we were down in…well from the October until the May down in, down in Plough Hatch Hall we had to stay down there and then she got fed up. She wanted to get back to London and she wasn’t well and she wanted to get to see the shops and get to the shops. So I went back with her and oh we had a very poor time of it for about…her sister-in-law came down from Scotland and helped me with the, the…. She got a permanent nurse then and the next thing was I got called up. So things went from bad to worse. She had to go into a nursing home then for a few months. And I used to come and see her the same as you’d come and see me at the odd times. And this was where got the H M V factory in Hayes. And you worked on a conveyor belt making soldering little joints wheels into things for the planes. Radio for the planes.
Q. And did you continue to live at ….

A. No I didn’t. I was…that’s what I was coming round to. We were billeted, what they call billeted.
Q. Yeah.

A. You were taken round in the, in a, in a bus and dropped here and dropped there. There was, had to report to Victoria Station or some place I had to report anyway. And a crowd of us went. There was about, I think about twenty or thirty of us went between boys and girls. And we were billeted then. And I was billeted with this nice family a man and his wife and one daughter. And they were Quakers. Well they never used to quit reading the Bible and praying. It was shocking so it was. And they wouldn’t eat this and they wouldn’t drink that and Oh God. But they were nice. They were very nice people.
Q. So what, what did you, what was it like for you working at H M V after what you’d been doing?
A. I didn’t like it at all so I didn’t. It was, it was very nice and clean so it was and the girls were very all nice. Most of them were nice. But I didn’t like it I didn’t. I wasn’t used to that sort of thing. You had to stand all day. Yous worked off on a conveyor belt. Your work was timed out on you’re so, so much each time you know. You’d do solder a wire maybe take four, four minutes or four fourteen seconds or twenty seconds I don’t know how long. Send it on to somebody else. And if you got stuck or anything happened to you, you got piled up your, your thing had to come off the belt. And you’d got two foremen going around. Men they never stopped all day. And if you were nice to them they’d, they’d be nice to you they’d let you away with it. But if you weren’t nice to them they weren’t very nice I’ll tell you. I was there for… the War finished in nineteen-forty-five didn’t it.
Yes.

A. That’s right. I was only there about eighteen …it’d be the year and nine months I was in it. And I came back to Miss Arbutneth. By this time I was doing a line with my husband. He’d come back up from, from Bristol. And he came.

Q. Do you remember what you did on actual V E day? The day the War ended. Do you remember that?
A. V E Day. Did not…I was out with my husband the night before and he didn’t know whether to go to work in the morning. He hadn’t much of a job. He was coming from Bristol after seven years and…they got laid off so they did the same as now.
Q. What did he do? What sort of job?

A. He, he, used to work on the….What did your Dad work on in Bristol, Terry?

Sorry?

A. What did Dad work at in Bristol?

Cosham (?) tunnel.

A. Cosham (?) tunnels. Yeah. That’s right.

On the dockyards. .
A. I made some buns out there. Did you get them in? Look in the oven….. And I met up with him. So we were planning to get married and he had…the old lady died in January. God I couldn’t leave then for three months. The flat had to go up for sale and the furniture had to go up for sale and I was tied up with that so I was till the, till the August and I was married in the October. Yeah. I made them specially for you and Terry. Take a couple….So I got married in the October nineteen-forty-six.

I missed all this. Where did you meet?

A. Where did I meet him? I know him from home. My aunt Cassie was his godmother.
Cassie Burns

A No. Cassie McGuinness. You never knew her.

No. Where did you meet?

A. I met him down at Tottenham Court Road again at the dance so I did. And…
Q. Did people tend to associate with people from their own part of Ireland?
A. They did tend…that’s right they did.
And did you plan to meet him or were you just in the dance?
A. I was just in the dance and I met him and then I met him again. And the next thing then he was (…?…) from Camden Town in about a month afterwards and I seen this fellow coming over to ask me to dance and it was him.
And did you know him when you met him in Tottenham Court Road?

A. No I didn’t. He’d got older-looking so he did. I hadn’t seen him for years and years.

He was only twelve or thirteen when you’d seen him last?
A. I suppose… it was himself and another Patrick Fergus knocked two of them off from Mannerly…the only lads ever I knew

Q. Did you get, did you get married in London?
A. Yes. We were married in St Dominic’s Priory. You know this area around here?
Q. Not that well.

A. Do you not. No.
Priory at the back here . It’s basically at the Gospel Oak area it would be really but Swiss Cottage

Q. I know where you mean now. …And who came to the wedding?

A.There was thirty-six at the wedding and we had it in the Red Lion pub above on Kilburn. It was just after the War. Everything was very utility you know you had to go right back to… That’s one of things I had to go I had to go back to Ireland and buy my ring. You couldn’t only buy a ring here for twenty-nine shillings the old money. Utility ring.
Q. And did family come from Ireland to the wedding?
A. No they did not. They couldn’t afford it. Nobody came of my lot…..

Who paid for the wedding?

A. There was no turn for…Joe and I paid for it between us. Got some presents I think

When you say he was unmannerly what made you marry him then?
A. Ah that was when there was a young lassie getting up. ‘Cause we’d be going around dancing they’d be going around dancing. They’d go and they’d maybe put a cigarette to you to your skirt or something like that. They were very un-God always God was all bad. He used to like me to tell him that.
Q. So after you were married where did you go to live?

A. Lived in a basement flat...overrun with, with mice down in, in Albany Street. And we used to pay…God we used to pay something outrageous. It was what about four pound a week so it was.
Q. What was it like trying to find somewhere to live after the War?
A. It was very bad because you see every place was bombed out and had bomb damage. It’s worse than now.
So it was just up from ….

A. You know where Albany Street is.
No Mum. A tube station just below you.

A. Great Portland Street.
Great Portland Street. Just north of Great Portland Street. Yeah.
Q. And had he managed to find work again?
A. Oh he did. He always could find work. Joe would come in the night and he would have no work. He’d have no work but he’d go out in the morning he’d come back the next day and he’d have work. He never was out of work was your father was he.
No.

A. Never. And indeed he was a great man. He even went out on a Boxing, on a Boxing Day he had to work so he did. And what did he do on the Boxing Day. He went out to the (..?…) to the job he was on to feed the guard dogs. He used to get thirty-three shillings for that so he used. That was his beer money for Boxing Day.
So what was he doing when you were married? Where was he working then?
A. He’d just come from Bristol so he had. Himself and John Maguire the other John Maguire they came from Bristol and…Is it James Maguire that gets prayed for every morn, Sunday morning up in the Irish Centre? I don’t know who it is.
So what did he do? Did he always labour?

A. He was labouring driving a dumper and all this kind of carry on.
Q. And what about for big firms or?

A. Oh yes. He worked for McAlpine and Mowlam and he worked for small contractors as well.
Worked for Murphy’s?

A. I don’t know Terry. I really don’t know that he worked for Murphy’s. But he worked for so many people and he seemed to know so many people.
Q. And did your …

A.I never worked for eighteen years. I had six children. They was from twelve years to, to what?
There was twelve years’ difference.

A. Twelve years of difference between the oldest and the youngest.
Yeah.

A. I was two years yeah almost two years married when I had Maureen. And then… she was oldest. And then down to Vincent that was twelve years. And when Vincent went to school then things were bad they were. Everything was very tight so it was. And we lived in a big old rambling house over on Castle Road. And I got a little evening job down at St Pancras Hospital and I, I worked there for, for….that was in sixty-three to -sixty-five and I met Mrs Roland one day and she was telling me about being on the home help and I well I went away and applied for the home help. It took me a month to get on the home help and I was on that for fifteen and a half years.
What about in between? Between -forty-eight and -sixty when the children were all born.
A. Wasn’t I at home looking after the children.

I know you were. But didn’t…was there any consideration about what it was like for accommodation or did you have any thoughts to move out or worry about….
A. God I had enough to do seeing to the likes of you, putting you to school and getting pennies and tuppence for yous for your fares and all the rest of them. There was one time it was as bad as could be. Vincent was in the high chair so he was and there was four of yous going out to…I remember one morning I said ‘I’ll have to get a job I’ll have to get a job to myself’. I had four of yous going to school and I think it was nearly five pounds I had to give out to you to for, for dinner monies and fares. And I had no money left nothing to last me from that Thursday till your father came home with the money again.
How did… what made you move to Castle Road?
A Because it was bigger accommodation. I was living in two little poky rooms down in Albany Street with two children. It was horrible. I was sorry leaving living beside Regent’s Park but it was very nice there but the pl…accommodation was too small. And then we moved into the old house, which was an awful big barracks of a place, but at least we had room in it.
And how did you find that?

A. How did I find that?
Was it just an ad?

A. No it was not. Do you remember a Derry man. What was his name?

Dave?

A. Dave something or other. He was a friend of Dad’s and his brother-in-law had his, his wife’s brother was married to some Maltese man and he had this house in Castle Road. And he was wanting to go back to, to Malta. And he said he’d let us have the house if we paid him two hundred pounds. I think that was key money. It was, yes it was key money.
Right.

A. And the house belonged to Gibbons and Moor didn’t it?
They were the landlords.

A. They were the landlords.

So how did you get two hundred pounds?

A God bless us didn’t I get plenty of money. Didn’t, didn’t Miss Arbuthnet leave me money.
Oh right.

A. That old lady that I was with. She left me three hundred pounds. That was an awful lot of money at that time.

Q. Gosh.

A. It was a lot of money at that time.

In Castle Road you took in lodgers after that.

A. I took in lodgers so I did for ….oh seven or eight years didn’t I.?

And the rest.

A. And the rest?
You had lodgers the whole of the time until the day we left you had lodgers. Mr Murphy was still there wasn’t he.
A. Oh well he’d, he’d been there for about eleven years. He was a quiet old man so he was.
Were you the first Irish family to move into Castle Road?

A. I don’t know. Oh no. Mrs Keller and the O’Reilly’s and all them.
Yeah. But they were long after you.

A. Yes. I suppose so. Is this being taped all this?
Q. Yeah. It’s interesting.

So your first ….How did you get on? Because I always remember Castle Road as a child as being…. we knew everybody in the street and everybody knew us which is not the norm in London today.
A. Aye well that’s the way things have changed Terry
But I yeah I know but what was the coronation party like? As an Irish family being at the coronation party. Being at….

A. Nobody took any notice of it. It was lovely being at it.
Was there any other people non-English at the coronation party?
A. I’m sure there was. I don’t remember.

Don’t you.
A. I don’t know. I always got on well with the people in Castle Road. I always kept my distance never went into their houses or they never came into my house or if anybody came to the house starts complaining about you kids fighting I said I’ve other things to do. I haven’t time to discuss children’s problems. I’d ignore that. Tell you what it’s cold in here tonight.
Think I’ve turned that down earlier on Mum. It was like an oven when I come in.
A. Did you turn off the heat?

Yeah I didn’t…

A. Well put it on.

…turn it off. I turned it down.

A. Do you live local or not?

Q. No.

A. Oh.

Q. Just one thing. When, when you said there was always religion you know in your childhood in school and then going to Donegal I mean did that wear off when you came to London? Did you ….

A. No. It didn’t. My religion never wore off in any way ‘cause I always believed in praying.

Q. And where ….

A. I made a, I made a Novena to Our Lady before I left Ireland in 1936 in, in the month of August. And I have a great veneration for the month of August. And I, I never…I went through thick and thin and I went everywhere but I never I’d never altered my religion at all.
Q. And which, which churches did you, did you go to mass at in the…?
A. Oh there here there and everywhere I went. We used to go around St James’s when I first came over Spanish Place every morning then we used to go to Benediction in Farm Street in the evening sometimes with other girls…or up to the Edgeware Road. There’s a church up there called…what?…No it’s in, in Marylebone Road there. There’s a church there Our Lady of the Rosary or something…. Then we moved up here and then took a flat over in Chalk Farm in Mary Reilly in 1936…. Eat one of them buns because they’re only going to last….and he…where did we go then?

Camden Town? Our Lady of Hall ?

A. Our Lady of Hall. And we were living in the Priory parish when I got married. Because I’d no place to live you see. The old lady at Victoria had died and so our flat was got sold up and I was gone out of there. So I moved in at my sister and Mary Reilly for about three months. Then we got married in the October and we were in about in two and a half years in the flat on, in Albany Street and then we moved out in Castle Road. We were there for, in Castle Road for a long….
We left in 1978 so we were there -fifty whatever. -fifty sorry 25 years.
A. Twenty-five years.

Twenty-five twenty-six years.
A. And we’re, we’re, we’ll soon be 14 years here. Soon be fifteen years here. And that’s the life story of Mary Maguire

Tell me were you conscious of your Irishness when you first came to London? Obviously you were. Were you very conscious of your Irishness?

A. When I first came to London your very, very conscious. You can’t explain yourself or anything like that. But you…as you get…well you don’t take any more much notice of it now.
You say that but nowadays there’s, there’s lots of immigrants to London. I presume in 1936 there weren’t so many immigrants to London.
A. No. I suppose not. Ah there was always was and there was always the good and the bad and the very same as just now. Though it was much safer to go about London and you could trust people more than you could then…you do in nowadays. I mean you wouldn’t go out and get mugged. You could walk about in the blackout I was telling Rory here.
Q. Do you remember any of the, you know the Irish organizations that are all around now I mean…do you remember the Gaelic League and things like that?

A. Oh there used to be in Hyde Park. No I never went to any of them because I’d been warned by father when I left Ireland ‘Never have anything to do with politics or anything like that’. Because I used to be telling him about them. There used to be a fellow Tommy Ash he used to be up on Hyde Park bellowing and shouting his head off. There used to be crowds of them like that. We never would. We were always steered clear of any of the… we never had anything to do with …

Why not? just that thought they were

A. Well because

…too radical?

A. That’s it yes. There was always troubled times in Ireland and you didn’t want to get involved in that sort of thing.

Was there troubled times in the -thirties?

A. No. There wasn’t any troubled times I don’t think.

There were one or two during the War.

A. 1922. What was there during the War?

There was one or two terrorist actions over in this country during the War.
A. Was there?

I think so.
Q. Had you been able to…were you able to continue to go home?
A. Oh yes. I always went home. Went home every second year. Went home every year when I was single and every second year when I had…. My sister used to go with her three children one year and I used to go with mine and stay with my parents up on the farm. And we used to go the kids used to go wild so they used. Used to go home for the whole of the school holidays didn’t we.
Mm. Brilliant.
A. Dad used to go home with us and only stay a week or maybe ten days and come back again to work. And I used to stay with the children for the whole of the school holidays one year and the next year I usen’t to go at all. But we used to have three days out we used to go to Brighton for a day and we used to go Southend for a day. Take the whole five or six of them away.

And go by car or go by

A. By car

train?

A. We’d No. Nobody had a car at that time.

Go by bus or train or something

A. Well the train from North London down here Joe and myself and the, and the and the, and the two, and the six children. You’d take one of each on your arms and you had a ….

Q. That must have been quite struggle to go to back to Ireland by train with all the kids.

A. Yes. And I was pregnant three times when I went. Gosh.

I never realized England had won the World Cup until the following day. There was no electricity no radio no nothing. Couldn’t believe …

A. Are you one of a big family?

Q. Quite big.

A. Quite big?

Q. Well three of us. Three sisters.

A. Oh so you got three sisters. Are you the only boy? Oh that’s nice. They spoil you rotten I suppose.

Q. Yeah.

A. That’s nice.
Anyway you lived through the -fifties and -sixties with your family in Castle Road

A. Ah yes.

Worked as a home help for London Borough of Camden.

A. Don’t start on me to tell about the home help. Oh God they’d drive me mad all together.

Q. There must be some stories there.

A. Oh What ‘Have you a shilling for the gas? Who is it?’ Home help. ‘Home help. Clear off. Help yourself. That’s what you’ve come for’. Oh dear oh dear. Oh yeah. You going to play this for me now?

Q.I can do.