Patricia Burns, 88
I LOVED being part of a big family. There were ten of us: Maisie, Billy, Frank, Joan, Jim, Nan, Mona, Grace, Joe, and then me, the youngest, born in 1929. There were six girls and four boys so we had a good mixture, and we all got along well with one another.
In those days it was the fashion to have lots of children; plenty of people had big families so we weren’t unusual. As soon as you left school you got a job to contribute to the family income, so if people had a lot of children then they would pay their way once they were old enough. I gave my mother almost all of my wages and she returned a small portion back to me. She also gave me my bus fare, and then later on she bought me a bike so I could cycle to work.
There was 19 years between me and Maisie, the oldest, and she was always my favourite: if I had any trouble I always went to Maisie. In those days, you couldn’t talk to your mother or grandmother about anything personal, so you went to your brothers and sisters instead. The older ones definitely looked after me. I wouldn’t say I was spoilt, but I was well cared for and I was everyone’s favourite because I was the youngest.
We lived in a terraced house in Oxmantown Road, Dublin, near the Phoenix Park. It only had three bedrooms – and my mother and father had one for themselves – so my siblings and I shared the other rooms. My granny lived with us as well and slept in the sitting room, but I never felt squashed because that was all I knew. I didn’t feel I missed out on anything – my mother always made sure we were well dressed, well fed and happy. We were only all in the house together for a short time: Maisie got married when I was two, and then after that she was living with her husband.
My brother Billy died of peritonitis [stomach infection] when he was 26, and then my brother Jim died six weeks after Billy. He was only 21. He had gone out in the rain and got soaked and it turned into pneumonia – which could kill you quite easily back then. My sister Nan died in her sleep when she was 26 but there was no post mortem in those days, so we never knew what had killed her. I’m sure it was heart-breaking for my mother to lose three children so young.
My brother Joe was next to me in age and we were the best of friends. We used to play in the Phoenix Park together – it was five minutes from our house and it’s one of the biggest parks in Europe, so it was a perfect playground. Once I found an old shilling lying on the street (worth about 12 pennies) and Joe and I spent the day going in and out of town on the bus until the money was all spent. We were quite mischievous. He died of bowel cancer when he was 53 and I was devastated – he was a great uncle to my children and they all loved him.
When I was 26 I got married and moved to Glasgow to live with my husband, but I missed home a lot at the start. I had four children, but ideally I would have had six and had my own big family.
Now there’s only two of us left. It’s just me and my sister Grace, the third-youngest. She is 91 and she lives on her own in Dublin, but she struggles with mobility and her sight. I do worry about her, and I phone her every other day and try and make sure she is OK. I do miss the others, though. I wish they were still around.
ALEX BURNS
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