red mum

If I was to tell you everything that has been happening to me lately you wouldn’t believe it. Most of it I probably won’t share here, but I figured, after some debate with myself and a chat with the Young Wan, to share one monumental thing that has taken place. After all this blog has been described by me as ‘the times and perils of a single parent’, a statement I wrote on the very first night and this post, however it comes out, is so ingrained in that.

In the depths of the blog I have written about bringing up herself on my own, her father has not been in the picture for many years, 13 to be exact. While I could blog at length about it I won’t and will just say the scenario where her father would not be in her life was not something I ever wanted, to the point where I bent over backwards to help him in his fatherhood. So bringing up my daughter on my own was how it was. I kept up her relationship with his family and while it was hard to explain to her for the first number of years, actually saying it was hard is like saying giving birth is relatively easy, as time went by, she stopped asking about him. We would still talk about him occasionally and I never badmouthed him. During that time we learned he had a son, something the Young Wan found incredibly hard to deal with, there was nothing she would have loved more than to have a sibling. (This is an amazingly breezed over version of that time but you understand.)

Anyway that brings us up to recently. Over the last while she has talked sometimes about contacting him. And I will admit to not over enthusiastic about it, how could I. It seemed to me that he needed to take the lead in that, he needed to pull himself up to the father table and it never happened. What if it was a letdown, if she was let down, hurt again. And, let me be perfectly clear about it before I go on, while I always thought you just cannot come back into a child’s life after not being there for so many years; I was always very clear with her that it was not up to me, it is her father, not mine, and whatever she wants is up to her.

So this was hanging about for a while and before the summer, we were on Facebook (where bloody else) and through the Young Wan’s aunt, we saw him. And she added him which started off a chain of events that has led to herself meeting her father in recent weeks. It was a very tense, nervous event and it went well. So he went home and told his son about her, he’s nine years old and had no idea he had an older sister and he was very thrilled.

The next weekend they all met at granny’s and awkwardness aside things went brilliantly. Both the Young Wan and her brother are delighted to have met each other, to have each other; I actually got choked up reading one of her texts from over the weekend about him. I suppose that angered me a little too, with all the things that have gone on and people hurt – there was also a sister and brother who were denied each other. One thing I am completely sure about is that the two of them will be fine, it seems they are in awe and I am thankful and delighted for that.

One thing that bothers me is that while I realise there’s a certain amount of cotton-woolling when it comes to him, as (and I am stressing this) it should be, but I can’t help but wonder about the fact this was never offered to herself, at all. How and ever, I intend to have my say about this with him. I have allowed things to be organised with me in the background. But at the end of the day, she’s 17, she’s my baby and while a young woman, she is still very young and not equipped to deal with this on her own. So I need to step in now. When we do talk there won’t be a row, but I do need to offload some of what I have had to deal with over these years, how I had to break her heart because of things beyond my control (how angry at him that made me), how we’ve struggled, – I suppose I need some justice in this.

On one level I got to watch my/our (God it sounds mad to say something like that again after all this time) daughter grow up into a young woman. I saw her personality grow and grow with her, I saw all her landmarks, I can read her like a book, I know all her tricks, her foibles, her likes, dislikes, I know what she’ll get a kick out of and even if she doesn’t give me the credit I know what clothes she likes; and much, much more. And she me.

There isn’t a justice in knowing that; there is a poignancy in that he missed so much but I am her mother and I would kill people to get to her. (If that is ever used in a court of law against me, I am figuratively speaking ) I am also incredibly sad that she didn’t grow up with her father or indeed grow with her brother.

But as I said I will have my say and we will move onwards to some new stage, God knows how it will go, though I am more than optimistic this is a step forward and it is good.

Like many others I have engrossed in the National Archives and the 1911 census which is now online and searchable and is absolutely amazing. The all-Ireland data was recently released and I cannot imagine what work must have gone into digitising it all, but I can say that it was a fantastic job and I learned so much as did everyone I knew who did it.

The most fascinating and indeed poignant information I found involved my grandfather’s family entries.

Thats my grandad at the bottom of the form and under this is my grandad with me and my uncle (who incidentally was named after my Granda).

The information about my family contained in the census is fascinating, they spoke Irish and English, my great-grandfather was a French polisher, I never knew that, actually I knew little about them really. This has told me so much, who would have thought there would be so much information in such a small place. I’ve had friends find out their family didn’t actually come from where people thought. So if you are looking yourself you should bear that in mind, and you should also bear in mind that few of those in the census appear to have gone by their birth name. Some of them are easy to guess in that they are derivatives of their birth names, in other instances such as with some of my family members their names had nothing to do with their given names.

The picture below shows the family minus my Granda and this is where it raises questions for me as it has been presumed the children are as you see in the form, except for my Granda. However the more I thought about it the ages don’t marry. According to the information in the census, my great-grandparents had 10 children and maybe the little girl isn’t Anne (3) at all, but another child who died. There is a big-ish age gap between her and her older brothers which there doesn’t seem to be here. At first I thought this was taken just before my great-grandmother was about to get pregnant or indeed just pregnant with my Granda, judging by the age of who I thought was Anne, but given the ages of the other boys, its not possible. The little girl in the pic must have been one of their children who died. And thats not the only sad thing in these details.

At the far left of the picture is Robert Morgan. Robert signed up with the Royal Irish Fusiliers and died in the First World War. Like many others Robert must have lied about his age to sign up as on his gravestone his age is 26, but according to the census he would have only been 21 when he died in 1918. What is even more uncanny is that he is the double of my cousin who was named after him, a cousin who sadly passed away too young a couple of years back.

(My great-grandfather and great-grandmother – she looks a little scary, doesn’t she?)

The other family I definitely found was my maternal grandmother’s family and what is mad about this, is that the census was taken three days before she was born.

Elizabeth, known as Lily, was blind. My Nanny would tell me all sorts of stories about her and how she would check their faces to see if they were wearing make-up, and therefore going out, and make my Nanny bring her to Central Library to bring back her braille books. Or how she would check their wardrobes to feel if they had any new frocks. I loved hearing those stories. And I loved even more seeing her on the census.

I also checked my father’s side but was stumped with names, so I’m going to talk to family and find out more. But a mad coincidental thing did happen, I started to look via their street name, and ended up with three pages of the one street. My other Nanny was called Susan, but known as Vera, so I clicked on someone called Susan who lived on the street, even thought I don’t think she would have been born then (but I could be wrong) and I somehow in the first click, actually got their house. So even if it isn’t my family they lived in the house I spent so much time in as a child and they were all mill workers. What is mind-boggling is that there was a husband and wife, their child, an aunt and a lodger living in the two-up two-down terraced house.

We learn so much about our families from the census, and I am delighted the National Archives put so much work into releasing all this invaluable information. Thank you.

SOMETHING cool happened last week and I wanted to hold off until I was sure before posting about it. I’ll be writing a column for the quarterly Easy Health magazine starting with the next edition due out shortly and available nationwide It’ll be a light look at family life so aside from wanting at times to throttle my teenager I should be okay

The first column is already written and submitted and I’m delighted. So many many thanks to Sarah who pointed them in my direction, thanks a million:)