Rory & Ita (24 page)

‘We both had our own Post Office accounts. I can’t remember how much a week I put by. I was being paid £4.10s a week, and I handed up ten shillings at home; Daddy said that was enough. I’d started work on twenty-five shillings, which wasn’t a bad salary then. And then I was put up to thirty shillings; I was on that for a few years. While the professors were paying out the money, I think, strictly, they weren’t really aware of how much each person got. My boss, Miss O’Toole, decided that we should all look for a rise, and her way of looking for a rise was to get me, the junior, to go into the professor, and ask him. So I went into Professor O’Kelly, not feeling too happy about it, because in those days you were very much in awe of your boss, no matter how well you got on with him. Nevertheless, I asked him for a rise. He was a smart man; he knew I’d been sent in. He said he’d consider it. So, out I came and I told the others that he’d consider it. We were paid every Friday, cash in a little envelope. The following Friday, my pay had been doubled, to £3. Now, the others didn’t get a rise at all, and there was a little bit of a to-do about it. Professor O’Kelly said, “Nobody else asked for a rise,” and raised his little red eyebrows and walked out. I was absolutely thrilled, and I guessed it was because he knew I’d been sent in. The next week, everybody got a rise. And then, later, it rose to £4.10s. I managed to save £100, towards a deposit on a house. And Rory saved £100. From the time we got engaged. I had put a little bit by, and so had he.’

*   *   *

‘I remember Rory called for me, and he was dressed as Sir Walter Ralegh. We were going to the Arts Ball. He had silk stockings and a velvet thing to his knees, and a velvet coat. He’d actually cycled in from Tallaght in his Walter Ralegh outfit.
^*
I can’t quite remember, we may have got a taxi the rest of the way but, certainly, he cycled in from Tallaght. I made my own outfit. I made a long dress in black taffeta. I made an old-style bonnet to match, and went as an old-fashioned lady. I was able to wear the dress afterwards, so it served a dual purpose. The College of Art dances were great. There were so few things like that in those days. The affair began with a formal dinner, and then dancing to the music of a big band. I always wanted to dance every dance. You could talk if you wanted to; the band didn’t drown out conversation. It was great fun. I remember once, going to a dress-dance with a fellow – this would have been before I met Rory – a small fellow, not much taller than myself. Normally, I wouldn’t have looked crooked at him, but his friend had asked a girl I knew then to go with him – I can’t recall her name – and then this fellow asked me, and I can’t remember his
name either. It goes to show how impressed I was, but the chance of going to a dress-dance didn’t come so often that you could turn your nose up at it.’ So, she went. ‘Mrs Fry made my dress, blue taffeta with blue net over it. And I thought I was the belle of the ball. I had a very good night. He was quite pleasant and mannerly; we had a great night, but that was it, as far as I was concerned.’
^*

‘I had done work for Cyril Fry.
^†
He worked as an engineer at Jacob’s biscuit factory, but he was also an agent for Meccano and I used to work for him at night. I just typed a few letters for him but, again, I nearly became one of the family. They were very nice to me, and there’d always be a dish of sweets beside the typewriter. Cyril and his wife, Nancy, brought me for a lovely picnic on my
twenty-first birthday; they picked me up after work. And I used to go to them every Christmas. I’d eat at home and then I’d cycle over to them; they lived in Church-town. Mrs Fry was a great cook, and had great taste about everything. They lived in a bungalow, which I loved. I thought that, whenever I got married, I’d buy a bungalow. An odd night, if we went out anywhere, I’d stay overnight. They had a young daughter, Patricia, and I used to stay in Patricia’s room with her.’

‘It was Christmas Eve,
^*
and Rory gave me the ring in the sitting-room, our sitting-room at home. It was just the two of us and it was freezing cold but that didn’t dampen our enthusiasm. Then we told everyone. My father knew already; he was well-pleased – he was very fond of Rory.

‘We’d bought the ring in McDowell’s,
^†
about a week before Christmas.
^‡
We bought it together, but he was paying. It had three diamonds, at kind of an angle, and two arms with little diamond specks in them. I was keen to have one with five stones across, but I have very small hands and they looked ridiculous. But this one suited me better. It didn’t take very long to choose. There were a fair number of rings but the prices were on them, and I knew what we could afford. It cost £17.10s.
^§
’We could have had a cheaper one, but it was
what we could afford.
^*
The most important thing was to save the money for the house. The engagement ring was to be worn, but it wasn’t going to rob us in the process.

‘So, on Christmas Eve, we’d been out, just walking around, buying things, up and down Henry Street; you could hardly fit, it was so crowded. And then we went back to the house, and the ring was put on my finger, and I went flashing it all around.’

‘W
e were dancing and Ita asked me would I mind her keys for her. So I put them in my pocket and, the next thing – we’d said goodnight and I’ll see you again – I found the keys in my pocket. So, the next morning, I had to turn around and bring them down to Terenure. I knocked at the door, rang the bell, and this very unprepossessing woman came out. I said to myself, “Oh-oh.” I’d always heard the good advice that before you get involved with any woman you should always look at her mother, and, working on that principle, I was a little bit shook – until I’d made a date with Ita, and she told me that she was actually a stepmother. Well, that kind of solved that matter; she couldn’t be held responsible for her stepmother – otherwise, I was on my way for the hills and over.

‘Then I was persuaded to go to tea, and I went. I liked her father; he was kind of quiet, and had a country accent. The first thing he did when I walked in was, he pushed the
Sunday Times
crossword in front of me. I suggested a few answers, and he said I was right. The main thing was, I’d solved two clues for him and, such was the make of the man that, after that, if I’d molested his daughter, he’d have said it was her fault, not mine. And I must have been regarded as respectable because
they insisted that I come to tea more often.
^*

‘I fell into the art of poker when I was on night work in the
Irish Independent
. Instead of going home at three in the morning, in bad weather, I’d wait for the first bus and, invariably, there was a poker school going on in the canteen. And, eventually, I joined in. I joined in far too much, as it happened. But it’s like asking, why do you drink or smoke too much. Poker is an invasive kind of demand and, once you get it, you start to believe it – it’s like betting on horses. I’d be losing steadily, and then I’d get a good hand. Everybody else would throw their hands in and I’d pick up the winnings, but they’d be small because nobody was betting against me. It’s one of those things you go through. The trouble is, I lost a fair amount of money,
^†
over £4 or £4 a week. Not enough to be broke, but a lot of money; I was paid about £
13
a week. I should have been taking it home and saving it. But I lost it. Then I started day work, and that broke the spell.

‘Independent Newspapers published, and still does, morning and evening papers. There was a requirement for two staffs. Each paper had a corps of permanent overseers and key men, and the rest of each staff was drawn from a large pool of compositors and linotype operators who alternated on day shift and night shift. But it wasn’t week-about, as in general industry. There
were two lists posted up in the composing department, the day and night lists. Each month, the two people at the top of each list transferred to either night or day shift. The lists were closely scrutinised in order to assess one’s chances of being on day work, because there were two circumstances that affected the scheme. One was the factor that no movement occurred during the months of May, June and July, the holiday period. The second very important factor was that a person could elect to stay on the night shift. There was no such choice on the day shift, and so, it was like an annual lottery. There was always intense speculation as to whether somebody or other would pass up their turn for day work. Every once in a while somebody broke the habit of a lifetime, opted for day work, and that set the cat among the pigeons. Expectations of remaining on the day shift for a longer period were shattered because the new names went to the bottom of the day list and the hopeful ones were moved higher up the list, into the danger zone. Now, when I was made permanent my name was put on the top of the list for night work and my turn came in September of that year, 1949. That night shift lasted into early 1950. The result was, my turn to go back on day work came along in time for my marriage the following year. It worked out perfectly for me, and I never had another bout of night work.