| Description | An interview with Mary SHEERAN, a Separated woman with one son, three daughters, who is a Caretaker, born in Ireland and now living in BIRMINGHAM. Mary SHEERAN’s father was a Farmer, born in Ireland and her mother a Housewife/Farmer born in Ireland. In the interview, she talks about …
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Born in County Donegal, Ireland on 7 April 1947.
One Brother, one sister and relatively happy childhood.
1.00” Education
2.18” Story of helping father on farm.
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1957, got electricity in house describes how the Sacred Heart lamp was always on.
1.40” explains about school days from 5 years old and the food they ate…mentions always having homework and having to help her father.
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21”Before leaving school she got a job babysitting at a teacher’s house
2.10” When she left school she got work as a house keeper looking after a couple’s three children and a baby. The woman was a teacher and the husband wove tweed. Story about what her job entailed, explains how she was just a hired hand…
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She was asked to live in but only did that for a short time.
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Story of how she got her third job as a cleaner in a guesthouse… Working for a husband and wife.
2.54” Started to work for the husband, packing rugs which he made out of lamb skin.
3.49” Story about crocheting hats.
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Recalls the first item that she brought with her wage, it was an electric iron. She goes on to explain about the rock and roll outfits and nights out.
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Relationships…" We stuck with our own from school, cousins and friends from school mainly”.
1.12” Work…Story about one of her cousins talking about the work in England.
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Talks of how she met her husband, he asked her to go and work in Lancashire.
307” Explains how women had no expectation they went to school, possibly went out to work and got married to a farmer. But Mary chose to go to England with her husband-to-be.
4.10” Got engaged in 1966 when she was 19.
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Concludes about marriage and finding a room to live in.
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Late 1966, moved to Southport in Lancashire, she worked full time in a firework factory.
1.13” 1967, she got married in the Holy Family Church in Sea Bank road in Southport, her father never left the farm to travel to the wedding. Her reception was at the Royal Hotel at the promenade in Southport.
2.34” It was seven years before she saw her family again, because she couldn’t afford to travel. Explains seeing her brother and sister after all those years.
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Discusses husband’s employment.
56” She gave up work at Christmas in 1967, and her son was born in February 1968…she didn’t return to work and they had to move because children were not allowed to live in flats. So they moved to a mobile home which she goes on to describe.
2.30” Got a flat in Park Road and describes having to carry children up stairs…and says how lonely she felt being there on her own whilst her husband was at work.
3.50” Fire factory closed and her husband heard of work in the Midlands.
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November 1968, they moved to Aston in Birmingham. Story of their arrival and trying to find accommodation.
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Gave a description of the room they lived in.
3.00” Husband worked for contractors so there was no steady income, Mary then got a job in the laundrette.
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Re-start.
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1970 moved back to Ireland for better work opportunities.
1.57” 1972, Gave birth to her daughter in Donegal Hospital in Ireland and then moved to Leeds in England.
3.12” Anecdote of moving back to Birmingham…and the racism, there were signs that said no Irish!
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2.00” describes the house they moved into in Sparkbrook.
3.50” Story about the problems they faced when the Birmingham bombings took place.
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A lot of the Irish people were kicked out of their accommodation and bullied by the locals…Explains how Mary and her husband never faced those problems.
2.00” Story of her cleaning job in Hawkins Café in Birmingham City Centre.
3.00” Tells of the house they lived in being sold to the Council which they went on to demolish.
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Re-start.
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1973, her second daughter was born, in Durham Road Sparkhill and in 1976 they had their third daughter in Hospital. Mary describes the racist comments that were going round about the Irish.
1.30” Describes the Council’s Urban Renewal development.
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Re-start.
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1978 moved to a brand new three-bed room house in Theresa Road, where her children went to Saint Anne’s school.
1.22” Story of working and raising her children.
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Concludes story of work.
3.11” Got an interview at Handsworth Technical College on Handsworth Road and got the job caretaking. Started at 6 o’clock and her son helped get her children ready for school.
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Continues to give story of the caretaking job.
1.12” Gives a brief description about her current job as a caretaker at the ‘Friends Institute’ on Moseley Road, Highgate.
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1984 moved to Friends Institute and worked shifts between the centre and a specialist school across the road. Her son was now doing work experience and the daughters were both still in school.
1.00” Story of what her job as the caretaker entailed
1.50” Discusses the Quaker Sunday school that was ran at the centre for a number of years. The Olympic team of Great Britain used to train in the gym that was at the Centre…Clarion Singers which is a choir have been celebrating sixty years of being together and they have been using the centre for the last fifteen years. Institute Orchestra the youngest member is sixty. They have a gay and lesbian choir, and they have a Betty Fox stage school, there are theatre companies, which have been there fifteen years.
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The Loudmouth theatre is about sex education in schools, One Woman Theatre about young women and teenagers, Birmingham Theatre School which for Diploma students, and Banner Theatre and Shakespeare and Education touring company.
1.00” The centre caters for people with disabilities, such as the Birmingham Arts Therapy which deals with people who have brain damage and it is music based. The Moseley Centre has availability for slow learning adults, which the Council runs.
1.50” There are several art classes for people over retirement age who can come and do Art, there are Martial Arts classes as well.
2.20” The problems faced with raising the children at the centre…there were problems with the building next door which has become a Bail Hostel. They have had windows broken and most of the youths have mental and drug related problems.
4.11” Discusses the difference in the way these children were dealt with in comparison with the law of today. Mary describes that “In the past a supervisor would come in and land the kids out” nowadays you have to ask them to leave and the language is bad.
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Discusses the change in her attitude in comparison to her strict Catholic background and the multiracial and difference in gender within the community of today.
2.00” Religion: Mary does not practice her religion any more, she relates that to the trouble that started over in Northern Ireland and how the community changed between one another and the barriers were raised in relation to Protestant and Catholic families.
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Talks of religion not being at the forefront when she lived in Theresa Road because it was a multiracial community so there were Bengalis, English, and Indians.
1.10” Talks about her husband being prejudiced against black people, and explains how there were racist people over in Ireland between those who came from Donegal and those who came from Dublin. In Birmingham it is similar because people from Birmingham don’t like Southerners etc. Mary says that her husband and most people blame not one person but brand everyone the same, just like they did when the Bombings took place in Birmingham. “There’s discrimination both sides”.
4.30”Story about her married life.
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Discusses how she managed her money and what she did with it, she says that basically she kept the family.
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Explains how she took orders from her husband and that’s the way it was then, if you didn’t do what he wanted he would beat her up. There was nowhere to go and she had no money, but this began to change when she moved to Theresa Road. There were very few female caretakers at the time she got the job and she wanted to try, because to her it was a way out.
2.40” Her marriage broke up November last year, and her husband went his own way. 4.15”She describes how she found out he was seeing someone else.
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He had told the other woman that his wife had been dead for eight years and that he had to look after her. The daughter discovered that he was having an affair, and when he was confronted he called them all the names under the sun. Mary demanded the keys to the house and hasn’t seen him since. What hurt Mary was the way he denied the fact that he had grandchildren.
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Anecdote about a West Indian woman who she became friends with. She explains how the relationship was similar to the Irish because in the 50s and 60s women had no say. The women ran everything on very little and the men just gave them money to look after the family.
1.26” Describes how the films on the television portrayed the western communities and how it was nothing like that in real life.
2.03” Discusses how both the West Indians and the Irish had both come over to find work, the Irish on building and the West Indians on the rail roads. “They were so much alike, it was just the colour that was different”.
3.11” West Indians and Irish people got rooms and then sent for their families and had a strong religion.
4.30” Story about religion
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Concludes story.
Logged by Sonia Southern |