Authors: Meg Henderson
‘Your Granny Niamh called him her “wee sponge”, didn’t she?’ Daisy replied right on cue, knowing how her father liked to talk about his family.
Michael nodded, smiling at the memory. ‘Because he read everything he could get his hands on, he just soaked everything up. She was a wonderful woman, you know. She fought for everything
she had, every inch of progress her family made was down to her. And she only took in Irish lodgers, that was her way of fighting back.’
‘Well, they were the most needy, weren’t they?’ Daisy said, like a response to the priest at Mass. ‘If she didn’t take them in and provide decent lodgings, who
would?’
‘Exactly,’ Michael replied. ‘She was helping men coming over from the ould country like her husband had, and keeping her family fed while she was doing it.’
So that’s where the practical but helpful and straight-talking gene had come from, Daisy would think. Not from the Sheridans at all, but from Granny Niamh, who had named her Daisy.
The old woman hadn’t been dying of any disease. She was simply worn out, and the newborn child had been taken to her on her deathbed, where Niamh had insisted on sitting up and holding
her.
‘My, look at that wee face,’ the old woman had said as she looked at her new great-granddaughter, ‘as bright and fresh as a daisy.’
Those were the last words Niamh ever spoke. Shortly after holding the newest arrival she lapsed into unconsciousness and died two days later, and so the child had been named Daisy Niamh in her
honour.
If Daisy had chosen her own name it would’ve been something glamorous, like Kay, perhaps, who had been named for their mother, Kathleen; but as it had come from Great-Granny Niamh she had
decided long ago that she could put up with it. The fact was that Kay suited her sister. It sounded feminine, bright and sparkling somehow, just as she was on stage. Or perhaps because of her act
her name had been touched by an invisible magic wand that had left some sparkle dust behind. Kay was like Kathleen, so said Michael Sheridan – same dark red hair, bright blue eyes and
beautiful voice – and Daisy would smile, though she couldn’t imagine her mother ever looking like that.
Granda Paddy had had ambitions for his children, Michael always maintained. He’d wanted to keep them out of the pits just as much as his mother had her children.
‘He was crushed at having to betray his mother,’ Michael said, ‘and he never got over it.’ The fact was that the times were against great leaps forward by the Irish
Geordies. In the late 1800s the Irish were still confined to the most menial jobs or the ones no one else wanted, even if ‘native’ Geordies did complain that the incomers were depriving
them of work. And incomers they still were, though they had been born there. Old Niamh’s sons had few opportunities in life, it was true, but what they did have were contacts in certain parts
of the mining industry from previous generations, so that was where they found work. They became colliers in nearby Washington, in the solidly Irish-Catholic Usworth pit, where wet, dangerous
conditions were acknowledged as among the worst in the industry. Even so, no Irish Catholic would have accepted a job in the better working environment of the equally solid Newcastle Protestant C
Pit, even if one was ever offered, which it wasn’t.
Michael always became sad when he talked of his father, who was, he said, a clever man.
‘He had the heart and soul of a poet,’ he would say, ‘and always a thirst for learning; but he didn’t have a chance, he spent his entire life digging coal. If ever there
was an injustice,’ and he’d shake his head and look away. ‘I think it broke Granny Niamh’s heart that he had to go down the mines.’
Daisy had never thought that. She knew instinctively without knowing how that Granny Niamh had been a realist, that she had been fully aware that it would take more than one generation for her
family to get on, up and out. She looked after the exiled Irish who came to her door, and cared for them well, so there was no great fortune to be made out of her lodgers. What profit she made did
no more than supplement the meagre wages of her children when they were old enough to work, keeping a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, food in their bellies and – it was an
important ‘and’ – enough to buy books and the will to do so.
Niamh was under no illusions. She knew the way out was through learning and she was giving them a respect for it, laying the foundations for those who would come after her and hoping they would
be able to afford to continue to learn. Even as a small child Daisy knew her father didn’t understand this. Indeed, there were times when she felt that she had been born older than him, and
in many ways she probably was. She was coming to the conclusion that most men never really grew up and the Irish variety grew up least. Their childlike natures were part of their charm, but as she
was exposed to it early she was immune to it, so having Michael as her father, exasperating as it often was, had been a bonus. Daisy had been cut from Niamh’s side of the cloth, and she
recognised in her father all the characteristics of the Irish: nostalgia, sentimentality and the childish fun that could turn to maudlin at the opening bars of a song from ‘home’,
especially when accompanied by a drink or two. She would inwardly shake her own head as she listened to him. Much as she loved her father, she knew he was a man who lived on his emotions, heart
over head every time, but it was a false heart, driven by that familiar and disabling melancholy. Ingrained in Michael, as in so many Irishmen, was the conviction that nothing would ever work out
for him or his, simply because they were Irish. It was as though they were born to be losers.
With the First World War looming the pits had worked flat out in 1913, producing huge stockpiles of coal, only to be rewarded in 1914 with working only two or three days a
fortnight; and the Irish, as usual, were first to be laid off. Unemployment was high when General Kitchener made his call in March 1914 for 100,000 men aged between nineteen and thirty years to
join the army.
The miners, believing it would all be over by Christmas, decided to have a paid holiday on the state rather than see their families starve. The local regiments were the Northumberland Fusiliers,
the Durham Light Infantry and the Green Howards, and, thinking the Howards was a Catholic regiment because of the ‘Green’ in the title, it became the target of the Irish. When they
discovered their mistake they founded their own regiment, the Tyneside Irish, though most of them had been English for at least two generations by that time.
Michael Sheridan, being just over the upper age limit, continued to toil in the mine while others marched off to years of conflict, if death didn’t get them first. For some reason he felt
aggrieved that he had been stopped from going to war, while maintaining that the whole thing had been fixed to ensure that there were more Irishmen fighting for the British Crown than
Englishmen.
Even though she was a child as she listened to these stories, Daisy knew they were all the proof she needed that the average Irish male was, well, at best illogical. Michael’s voice,
usually lubricated by a drink or three, would soar with anger and indignation as he embellished this strange, double-edged example of bias, and Daisy would turn away so that he didn’t notice
her laughter.
Poor Granny Niamh, strong woman that she was – it couldn’t have been easy to cope with all that, Daisy thought, sensing that her great-grandfather and her grandfather had been
exactly the same as Michael and his brothers. It was a family trait, a
male
family trait. Michael blamed his inability to move up in the world, as he did everything in life, on anti-Irish
prejudice, and his escape was in telling his stories, wonderful and entertaining as they were. His father, Paddy, had kept his nose in books as
his
escape, and Bernard had walked off into
the distance on his own whenever he could, as a means of dealing with life, even if it had ironically brought him an early death. The Irish had been pre-destined not to be allowed to succeed; it
wasn’t their fault, it was the fault of the English, or the world, or maybe even the God they said their rosaries to. And if they were bound to be defeated then what was the point in
trying?
Not that you could blame Granda Paddy too much. His adult life hadn’t been any easier than his mother’s had been, though she had dealt with her lot better then he did. His wife had
died giving birth to Michael, so there was no adult woman to push him or the five older sons she left behind. And it was always the women who pushed, they were the backbone of every family.
Their daughter, Clare, was the eldest, so in the way of things in their culture she took over the running of the house and family at the age of twelve. The only help she ever got was from older
women in the family, all of whom had more than enough work with their own families. Besides, she was a female and, in the eyes of others in the family, she was doing what she should and therefore
she would cope. She wasn’t the first child obliged to suddenly become an adult, after all.
Though she had never set eyes on her Aunt Clare, Daisy had a soft spot for her and longed to find her one day, when she was grown up. Clare had brought up her six brothers, cared for her father
and run the home for more than twenty years, missing out on any life of her own; but though no one suspected it, Clare was making plans.
Michael, the youngest, was the last to marry and leave home, and the day after the wedding Clare had declared that now she had done her duty, she was off. Without saying a word to anyone she had
already booked her passage on a boat to America, her packing was done, and when she left she said firmly that she would not be coming back.
There was general shock within the family. It was all very well to say Michael was off her hands, but she was the official mother figure and never likely now to have any children of her own, so
she should take her part in looking after her brothers’ offspring. Besides, there was her father – she couldn’t leave him to fend for himself.
‘Bugger my brothers’ children,’ Clare had replied with feeling, ‘bugger my father and bugger the rest of you if you don’t like it. I’ve done enough. I’m
the wrong side of thirty and I’ve never had a life, it’s my turn now.’ And with that she left Newcastle forever.
Typically, rather than look after himself, Granda Paddy took his books and moved back in with his elderly mother.
Michael would tell this story in a shocked voice, hurt that any woman related to him could desert her duty. It brought disgrace on the entire family, especially as everyone in the community knew
about it. The only person who did not criticise Clare in these old tales was, Daisy noted with pride, Old Niamh – and Daisy herself, of course. Every time her father recounted this terrible
abandonment, Daisy cheered inside. As a small child she had been rifling through family pictures and papers in Granny Niamh’s house, where Granda Paddy still lived, and she had found an
envelope with an American address on the back. Inside was a picture of Aunt Clare taken in New York, dressed in the clothes of the time, long skirt, high-necked blouse and buttoned boots. On her
head was a flat hat like a pancake with the merest hint of veil that had been firmly pushed out of the way, and she had a robust bag over one arm, and clutched in both hands an umbrella. The sepia
snap was too dark to be able to see Clare’s colouring, and her expression was so so severe that it made Daisy laugh out loud. It was as though she was saying, ‘Well, I’m here now,
take it or leave it. If you choose to ignore this attempt to keep in touch, well, bugger you all again.’ Though the truth was that taking a picture in those days took so long that even the
most determined smile would die before being captured.
It was the only tangible link to Aunt Clare’s existence and Daisy never discovered if anyone in the family had ever replied, but she always felt that it was significant that it had been
sent to Granny Niamh and Granny Niamh had kept it. So Daisy took it and kept it too, never mentioning it to anyone. If there was one thing Daisy learned from her childhood it was that women were
always the practical ones, the strong ones who were relied on so that the males could wallow in their feelings. Granda Paddy, Michael and all the rest avoided, in their own ways, trying to help
themselves and so never achieved anything for their families, and so it was that in due course Michael and his brothers followed Paddy down the mines. If she and Kay had been boys, Daisy was sure
that they, too, would have been expected to do the same, and, as it was, going into service was regarded as the highest they could achieve if it hadn’t been for their mother, though that was
accident rather than design.
When she was young, Kathleen Clancy had been a highly-regarded singer in their community, and though Michael had worshipped her from afar as a boy, he finally met her when her brother came to
work beside him. The Clancys were a musical family, every one of them played an instrument or sang, but Kathleen was the youngest of seven and therefore benefited from the fact that there were many
wages coming into the house as she was growing up, giving her the opportunity to develop her talent.
For Michael the Clancys were a revelation. ‘Everywhere you turned in their house there was music,’ he’d say. ‘They were all gifted, touched by God.’
Daisy always let the last bit pass. Michael was her father, after all.
‘And there was Kathleen, so beautiful and with that glorious voice,’ he’d remember aloud, his eyes shining. ‘How could any man not love her?’
Michael had pursued her for years, just as many other young men had, ‘until she caught me,’ he’d say with a grin, glancing at his wife. And watching the affectionate look that
passed between her parents, Daisy understood that her father still saw her mother as she had been, to him she hadn’t changed at all.
After they married Kathleen had continued with her singing, but something had happened with their first child’s arrival, or slightly before, though no one had been aware of it till
afterwards. She had bloomed for the first six or seven months of her first pregnancy, then she seemed to weaken, but those last months were tiring for all women so no one worried. After the birth
she never really returned to normal, though once again there were reasons: the birth had been long and punishing, besides, a new baby could exhaust anyone.