Author: Mac Benoy May 2012
Bill’s Family
Parents PART 2
(continued from Parents 1) On a cold snowy morning on Friday 14 March
my mother was buried in the Roman Catholic Cemetery, Killingbeck in Leeds
(plot section No.42). In 1988 I had a simple marking stone placed there
which records that Marcella's father is also interned there when he died in
1949. Whilst my Aunt Agnes and Uncle Fred were willing for me to attend
and live in St.Joseph's School in Phibsborough, it seems Dad wanted to rear
us as a family in Leeds where he had now a stable job and up to 1938 we
lived as a foursome in reasonable comfort and making very many day and
holiday visits to No.14 in Dublin - our sentimental home.
Many is the time when unexpectedly on a Friday evening after work at
5.45pm Dad would say 'Let's go to Dublin' and by 7.30pm we were on the
night train to Holyhead. Bleary-eyed, we would ring the doorbell at No.14 at
6.30am Saturday and poor old May would be faced with full breakfasts and
dinner. We would be on our way back to Westland Row station at 8pm, arrive Manchester at 4am
Sunday, Mass at 6.30am at Salford Cathedral, 7.50am train to Leeds and home, half dead at 11am.
we loved it! (I diverted).
At this time brother Jack went to Dublin living at No.14 for a short spell and joined the Irish Army as a
private, eventually being a signals mechanic. Francis also left and went to Dublin a little later,
lodging at No.14, and worked as a carpenter on the Poulaphouca dam then under construction near
Dublin. I joined the RAF on February 14 1940 (number 950806). Dad was still in Garnet Place and
on his own now until in 1940 when Marcella, becoming more concerned with his welfare, regularly
visited him (she was on compulsory war work) keeping a watching brief especially as he gradually
became weaker in 1943. He returned to No.14 in 1944 and died there in 1946 aged 66. I should add
that as well as Marcella visiting Dad during the war he was, of course, a regular visitor to Marcella's
house at 29 Bellbrook Grove in Leeds where her parents ensured his visits were homely. My
daughter Cathryne was born during this time and a photo exists where Dad is holding her in his
arms.
I remember my father as a very duty-dedicated person but also domesticated, interested in sports,
deeply concerned with politics especially where they related to Ireland, a staunch Irish republican
and admirer of De Valera, an inveterate talker on general affairs, absorbed in his Catholic upbringing,
good sense of humour and delighted in expounding on the light side of family and neighbour life. He
could occasionally be almost passionate in his views on social justice and he was well liked and
respected by friends and neighbours. Rearing three boys aged 10, 14 and 17 at the time of Mother's
death was not easy on his own in England. His discipline was not overly firm and we all got on
together as a unit. We often played cards, dominoes, darts and usually at late suppertime we would
have long, humorous and lively discussions (yes, sometimes rows).
As the youngest, in summertime Dad and I would go for walks together in nearby open fields and
play cricket or break into a sudden 100-yard dash ensuring, of course, that I'd win. He was a
member of the local Trades Hall and on many Saturday afternoons after downtown shopping - I'd
now be 13 to 16, we would drop in and he would play billiards with a friend or two. Later I would be
permitted to play. Again I recall him buying me a beer, a half pint, when about 17 and how big I felt
in the billiard hall. February 1940 was a sad time leaving Dad alone to join the RAF but I kept in
touch by frequent letter-writing and, of course, Marcella was his weekly visitor, thus ensuring all was
well. In earlier years the four of us had made a simple rug using sacking and cutting up old clothes
into five inch strips and one inch wide which were pushed with wooden pegs into twin holes. (We'd
be sitting on chairs or stools in a small square chatting away). Maybe the whole thing 6ft by 3ft
would take us up through the months of winter to complete, but as such, it was a sacramental object
for use only on state occasions. Inevitably, Marcella would unfold it from it's place in the corner of
the living room and place it in front of the fire to greet Dad after work. His first movement, trilby hat
still on, was to fold it up and put it away: Marcella would then promptly replace it: she won!
I last saw Dad alive when he was bed-ridden in No.14 about four months before he died. I think he
wanted the parting to be eased by his getting vexed with me over something I've forgotten.
Strangely, we never said, at least I cannot recall, that we loved each other - Jack and Francis too -
because it wasn't required. Love was implicit - doing things, obedience, laughing and fun, work,
discussions, rows, sympathy, silence, togetherness.