A long time ago, Mam said that she
wanted me to speak at her funeral, when the time came. ‘I want you to talk,’
she said, ‘and to make everyone laugh.’ I don’t think I can promise that, and
with most people joining us today doing so remotely I’ll probably never know,
but here goes.
Veronica – or Vera – Hynes was born
in Liverpool in April 1939, just a few months before war broke out, the third
daughter, after Doreen and Brenda, of William and Sally. She grew up in and
around Scotland Road – Scottie as it’s fondly remembered by locals – and with
William serving in the RAF during the war, it fell to Sally to keep the girls
safe when the docks were being bombed, whether by hurrying them to a local bomb
shelter or even taking them away to stay with Auntie Mary in the then-peaceful
suburb of Fazakerly.
Mam was only three or four when her
eldest sister Doreen died, aged seven, from diphtheria, but Brenda and herself
weren’t to be only Hynes girls, joined as they were by Eileen and a few years
later by Joyce.
Dad came to Liverpool in the 1950s,
working as a fitter in the docks, and gradually getting involved in the social
life of the city, including the ceilidhs organised at St Alphonsus’ Parish,
where his friend Martin McNamara introduced him to Brenda, later telling him
about her younger sister. ‘She’s like Brenda, but she’s mad,’ he said.
Dad was immediately taken with
Brenda’s clever, laughing younger sister, but thought no more of it, though as
the years passed and Dad got to know the Hynes girls better, with him always
getting a warm welcome in the family home, whether in Liverpool proper or
eventually in Kirkby’s Lognor Walk, he began to realise that maybe, just maybe,
there might be something there.
Over these years, aside from being
fun at ceilidhs and dances, Vera displayed the quick wits and organisational
gifts she’d later be well known for, especially loving her time working at PSN –
the Pacific Steam Navigation Company in the iconic red-and-white Albion House
just off Liverpool’s Pier Head. Mam was always proud of her time there, and
last time she passed it she told her taxi driver of how she had worked there
when she was young.
During this period Vera was heavily
involved with the Young Christian Worker movement, organising the younger
groups and being the teenage co-ordinator for Liverpool. It was in connection
with this that she travelled in Rome in 1957 as part of a large English and
Welsh delegation to an international pilgrimage. One of those who filled St
Peter’s Square to hear the Pope of the day, she didn’t cope as well as she’d
have liked with the Roman heat, while worse was to come on the way home, with
her train across France being derailed in an accident that saw her knocked
unconscious and briefly hospitalised.
Mam and Dad married in 1960, moving
to Ireland where Dad worked on Boora Bog, and where they had a little house in
the Bord na Mona cottages in Kilcormac. It beggars belief, really, to think of
this young Liverpool woman moving to a tiny town in the very centre of Ireland,
where she was probably the only Englishwoman in all of Offaly, but somehow she
made it work, learning to ride a bike, getting involved in the Irish
Countrywomen’s Association, and throwing her herself into local social life.
Decorating her new home was a delight for her, and when Dad apologised for not
having got a slightly bigger house, she was incredulous: people like us, she
said, live in one-room apartments!
A couple of years later Vera and
Eamonn moved to Dublin, settling in Palmerstown where they began to raise a
young family in Anita and Colette – neither of whom, sadly, can be here today
because of Covid restrictions – and then Liam. Mam got involved in the local
youth club over those years, which seemingly meant that family A, as the older
three would become known, would occasionally get soft drinks other than at
Christmas, Mam now and again having bottles of Fanta or Coke stored in the
house. She tried learning Irish too, with help from the girls, but she never made
it much beyond a simple ‘How are you?’ or ‘Shut the door,’ the latter being
pronounced ‘done on dohras’ rather than the more conventional ‘dún an doras’, perhaps because of
the girls having a slightly Liverpudlian tilt to their own accents at the time.
The real driver of the family back
then, Mam had energy, brains to burn, and a determination that things should be
as good as possible. She may not have been a football fan, despite coming from
a blue background in Liverpool, but she’d clearly imbibed the Everton motto
‘Nothing but the best’.
Trips home to Liverpool were a
regular feature of those years, with Mam typically taking the ferry to Holyhead
and the train across North Wales, which she loved; the girls, meanwhile, loved the
playground behind their grandmother’s house in Kirkby. There were even a few
family holidays back then too, first in Ardamine in Wexford, then in Ardmore in
Waterford, and in 1974 in Castlegregory in Kerry, where several days of
incessant rain saw the family decamp from their soaked canvas tents to a
caravan!
1974 was also the year where Mam
first got involved in a movement that in many ways would define much of her
life, and would shape many of ours, as Dad opened an account at Palmerstown
Credit Union, and then suggested that Mam do so too, and even that she might
enjoy helping out there too. To say she took to it like a duck to water would
be an understatement: over the next 33 years she would be a volunteer teller, a
session supervisor, and a clerical worker there, as well as being on a host of
committees and spending almost 30 of her years on the local board of directors,
where she served as vice-chairperson and secretary, with Palmerstown nominating
her to serve on the national League Board in 2000. Over the years she held every
single position at the regional chapter level too, taking in all the credit
unions of West Dublin, even stretching into Kildare and Meath.
Mam was hugely devoted to the whole
credit union ethos, promoting it through art competitions and quizzes –
especially schools quizzes, which she really loved – and even around the dining
room table, memorably hosting people in the house for dinner who’d come over
from Birmingham to learn how to set up their own credit unions. Just hours
after her death the other day, a friend of Elaine texted her to say that the
odds were that Mam was probably busy with Frank Beggan and Molly O’Callaghan,
who died just weeks ago, setting up a credit union in Heaven. They might have a
trick working out the common bond, Liam pointed out, but I don’t think that
would stump them too long; as Dad says, if he’s someone who tends to see
problems, Mam was always someone who could find solutions.
The social side of the credit union
movement shouldn’t be played down of course, and I don’t just mean the dinner
dances that felt like a constant of my childhood! She made so many wonderful
friendships in her decades involved in Palmerstown Credit Union and Chapter 25,
and would have been a well-known figure at national conventions too. Conventions
seem to have been a marvellous blend of work and play, and it was fun to hear
Mam talk of how John Hume, who famously saw his role in introducing the credit
union movement to Ireland as his greatest achievement because of how it helped
so many people pull themselves out of poverty, would bash out ‘The Sash My
Father Wore’ as a party piece there.
Myself, Elaine, and Adam would be
family B, of course, coming along a decade or so after the first batch, so we
were very much credit union children in this way – Adam perhaps most
especially, with his playpen set up in the office – and ours in many ways were
different childhoods: if trips to the beach for older siblings meant piling
into a train to Galway, for us it meant sitting in the back of a roasting car and
driving to Malahide or Loughshinny or somewhere. I’m told it was on one of
those Galway adventures, complete with an obscenely early start and a mountain
of Tupperware-packed salad sandwiches, that Dad tried to teach Mam how to swim.
He held her chin while she tried to doggy paddle in the Atlantic at Salthill,
and after she had proudly covered a few feet she nearly choked when Dad said,
‘Watch out, the Statue of Liberty is just over there.’
Having a car also meant Mam could
boost one of her greatest talents, as Dad could now ferry infinite numbers of
cakes all across Palmerstown and much further beyond. Mam catered for events,
as it happens, even doing so right up to 2010 or so, but it was baking she was
best known for. Indeed, when they heard of her death, it didn’t take long for neighbours
from over the road to start reminiscing and salivating over them: ‘She was a
fun person and a great cook… such a great person and neighbour, I have fond
memories of her famous coffee cake, Black Forest Gateau, and mince pies… she was
a great baker, fond memories of her coffee and the occasional mint cake,
remember her coming over for a chat and a smoke with Ma… Jesus, the coffee
cake!’
The kitchen at home could be an
industrial operation, with hundreds upon hundreds of mince pies or hot cross
buns or Vienna whirls or – before my time – apple fritters, donuts, and Eccles cakes,
not to mention the grand Black Forests or coffee cakes or lemon meringue pies
or extravagant birthday cakes shaped like castles or palaces or log cabins adorned
with battling cowboys and Indians long before such things were cool. I’d say ‘when
doing so was neither popular nor profitable’, but I know Mam’s cakes were
hugely popular, and I’m pretty sure they were at least a bit profitable. I hope
so, anyway, given the work she put into them.
Mam had a real gift for making
pennies go a long way, and aside from her cakes, the house could sometimes seem
to be a knitting factory – especially once she got a knitting machine, though
her Aran jumpers preceded that by a while. And of course we’d all do our bit:
no pocket money for us, but at least in the summers we could sell rhubarb from
the garden, so a fair few of us over the years would tramp round Palmerstown to
friends of Mam to sell them a dozen or so juicy sticks of rhubarb for the
princely sum of 50p. It was cheaper than the shops, in fairness, and better
too.
Mam was pretty proud of her garden
too, and especially her flowers, whether in the ground or in hanging baskets.
She tended them lovingly all her life, able to keep doing so even as her
dementia started to take a toll. Liam’s dog Sally was great company for her in
those final years, and in truth Sally stood in a long line of dogs Mam had
loved about her: Laddie in Liverpool, Tony, Captain, and in my lifetime Sandy
especially. Dad’s habit of taking excellent photographs really pays dividends
here, when I think of photos of Mam sledding down a snowy slope in Glenauline
field and Sandy running and yapping about her. If there’d ever been a shadow of
a doubt of how much fun she could be, just one of those shots should dispel it.
If she loved flowers and she loved dogs,
well, she loved people more. Yes, there could be a bit of confusion between the
two, and I’ll always remember Dad’s incredulity at Sandy being promoted to a
person when Mam said that ‘Nobody was allowed to disturb Liam in the front room
except for Adam and Sandy.’ Many of our older neighbours have passed on
themselves in recent years, including such beloved ones as Mary and Paddy Hoare
next door or Matt and Clare O’Reilly from over the road, but reading the
tributes from their children online over the last few days has been deeply
moving, as have those from her credit union friends and so many others whose
lives she touched. A lovely lady, they say, a great neighbour, a truly
wonderful human being of a sort who comes along very rarely.
She loved us all: Dad and Dad’s
family – where she made some real friends, with Rita’s immediate reaction on hearing
of her death was to cry ‘Ah, me pal!’ – her children and in-laws, her sisters
and brothers-in-law and nephews and nieces and cousins and friends, whether in
Ireland or at home in England, and over recent decades and years her
grandchildren in whom she absolutely delighted: first Aaron, Ciaran, Devon, and
Quinn, and then Ciara, Eleanor, Nathan, and most recently Dexter, who Adam was
able to bring in to Mam the last time he saw her.
Again, there are images that stay
with you, and one I love especially is of Mam in her stairlift, grinning
broadly as an ecstatic little Eleanor sat in her lap, thrilled to be going
upstairs in what she called ‘Nanny’s train’. She loved every single one of us,
and did her best to encourage us along the way in whatever we were doing – Liam’s
art and love of birds, say, or Colette going into nursing with Mam missing the Big
Snow of 1982 here because she had accompanied Colette over to England when she
was starting her studies. She did this even when we thought we didn’t have a
chance, and she consoled us and cared for us when we fell along the way. For
years I had thought that her sitting up whenever I came home from work in the
Silver Granite in the early hours of the morning was just down to her not
sleeping well; I had no idea that she was just waiting for me, making sure I
came home okay, and would chat with me awhile before heading up to bed.
Of course, we all have our own
memories and our own stories to tell: I think of endless cups of coffee and a
very particular spoon, of a wooden spoon that terrified me as much as it must
have delighted me through the meals it helped prepare, of the sound of Mam’s
finger tips on the rim of a her ashtray or clacking lightning-fast on the keys
of an office calculator, of Coronation Street and Frank Sinatra, of
going to the cinema together to watch Gone With the Wind, of having the
story of Lourdes explained to me when we watched The Song of Bernadette,
or having eggs for breakfast after morning Mass in Lent, or having my whim that
I might be an altar server rightly dismissed: ‘You? You don’t even pay
attention at Mass!’ And she was so much fun too, and funny with it, sometimes
intentionally, when – say – she’d refer to Anthony Hopkins at one point as ‘the
man who owns our telly’ and sometimes not, when she’d mix up her words and call
my friend Heinrich ‘Heineken’, or Groucho Marx ‘that Moncho fella’, or send me
to the video library to rent out ‘Not The Glen of the Downs’. It’s probably not
a great sign that it took me no time at all to realise she meant Dancing at
Lughnasa.
It’s a source of deep pain to all
of us that so few of us can be here today. She deserves a vast funeral, just
like her beloved Brenda had last year or Dad’s sister Mauren had earlier this
year, with the church packed down the aisles and out the door with family and
friends and even people who just loved her cakes, a host of us to pray for her
soul, to console each other, and to celebrate her life. But these are strange
times, and it’s not to be. She’d have understood that. In truth, I’m sure she
understands it now.
Her last few years were quieter
ones, of course, as her dementia crept up on her. As the years passed she
played Scrabble less, so her made-up words didn’t brighten evenings as they
once had, though she stayed at her jigsaw puzzles a good while longer, and as
I’ve said, kept tending to her flowers – I couldn’t help but think how much fun
she’d have had with my own mother-in-law if they’d been able to meet, with such
shared passions! But then, I’ve wished so often she could have got to know my
own wife Julie, as I think they’d have truly loved each other.
Five years ago things got to a
point where she couldn’t be cared from properly at home any more, and she moved
briefly to St James’s hospital, before moving to Highfield in early 2016, where
she’s received the most wonderful care over the last few years. It’s been a
real community, and Mam really was loved there. Indeed, it was marvellous to visit
and spend time there with her, and for a long time seeing her help care for
other women who were further along than she was, sometimes just by holding
their hands, or talking gently with them, or stroking their hair.
Mam’s last years were harsh on her,
and so much she’d have valued about herself was stripped away: her ability to
think properly, her memories, her speech. But we are more than these things,
and while we’ve all missed her advice and guidance and wit and comfort, those
of us who’ve had the privilege of visiting her often and spending lots of time
with her will also have had lots of fun with her. Her hands, so rough and
painful for so much of her life, became soft and smooth and a pleasure to sit
and hold; she would laugh so often even in her final weeks; and her smile – her
beaming, warm, radiant smile, with those twinkling eyes – never went away.
And perhaps most precious of all,
every so often – and so rarely – there’d be a sudden, magical glimpse of her as
she had been, with the fog clearing and her responding as she used to. I told
her one day, not expecting any response, of how at Mass that morning the priest
had told the only joke I’d ever told her that she’d gone on to tell herself –
she’d normally respond to my jokes my tossing her head and snorting ‘comedian’ –
and then, to fill the space, I told it simply myself; there was a quiet pause,
and then Mam smiled, said ‘I remember that,’ and started to laugh.
Sometimes these windows were just
fleeting things, a sceptical look, a raised eyebrow, a laughing nod towards the
television when fretting staff were trying to figure out which of the residents
in Mam’s unit was in trouble and Mam realised the alarm sound was coming from
the telly. Sometimes it was absolutely joyful, as when she was at a concert in
Highfield just before last Christmas, and sometimes rather sarkier, as when
Julie and I came back from our honeymoon, and I asked her did she like my new
shirt. Cue a level look and a dismissive ‘Not particularly.’
Last time I saw Mam was at the end
of February – I was on the bus in to see her again in early March when I got
word that the nursing home had had to close – but when I did, I got the first
sentence from her in a few weeks, maybe since when she’d described that
Christmas concert to me as beautiful. I was holding her hand, and chatting
away, telling her what little news I had and generally just filling the air. I
think I may have gone on a bit too long.
‘Oh,’ she said, rolling her eyes, ‘would
you ever stop talking!?’
I will now. Goodbye, Mam. We’ll
miss you.
– A tribute read after Mass in St Matthew's Church, Ballyfermot, 30 December 2020.
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