Life began for me on the twelfth October 1941. Given to a thirty nine year old, Catholic, single, Irish woman, by my father, under Bournemouth pier, with grit between the toes. I was not welcomed into the world with church bells and music, rather a sense of great injustice and annoyance that her life had been totally destroyed by of all things a baby girl, where had the boy disappeared to?.
Catherine Farrell had been told, when in her twenties, that children could not be part of her life. At the time she was twenty eight and married to nineteen year old, Peter Farrell, when after four years this marriage collapsed, she decided to stay single and not be beholden to anyone. So by the time she met my father, who by the way already had a wife and child, she thought she could do her own thing and not suffer the consequences, but, I had decided she was the mum for me and while she was busy panting and making noises, I popped into her womb and without her permission, which she never forgave me for, my first transgression, one of many.
My father, Samuel Henry, paid for her to go into a private nursing home. He and his wife had not long lost their five month old son. Goodness knows why he did the deed with Catherine, she was not good looking and like his wife, wore black, horn rimmed glasses, still, who am I to judge, one mans meat is another mans poison, talking about poison, mother tried to feed me, but the more she tried to feed, the sicker I became, throwing out her milk, as fast as it went in, yes her milk was poisoning me, so it was Cow and Gate milk for me after their first two months of life, I thrived on it. That situation lasted for the rest of my somewhat miserable life.
