Scars that Run Deep (24 page)

I believe after all these years of trial and error that she was right in many ways and I was wrong. I was far too domesticated for Pauline: I always had to be doing something or other, like tidying, cleaning the windows, dusting everything,
while she was only concerned with watching her favourite programme on television. What surprised me was that she would never thank me for doing a good job in the house or in the garden. I'd march in feeling great and say, ‘Thank God that's done.' She'd simply say, ‘Good for you, Pat. What do you expect, some kind of payment?'

Ten months passed when our first child, Paula, was born in December 1973, one week before our first Christmas together.

On a cold crisp day in January 1974, our firstborn was christened by our parish priest. Pauline couldn't agree on a name after weeks thinking on it. At that time, we called my wife Paula. It was the priest, Father O'Mahony, who came up with the solution. ‘Why not call the baby Paula, and you can refer to your wife as Pauline.' So our firstborn was christened and baptised Paula Ann Touher.

The experience made a huge change to my marriage; it tied me down and made me a better person. Just one year later we had the best New Year's present we could have hoped for when John Patrick was born.

While Paula had her baby brother to keep her occupied, Pauline was constantly busy with the two children. Money was tight: every last penny I could earn was needed in the home and we never had enough. But we were happy together.
Being a dad and devoted husband to Pauline gave me a real sense of well being and satisfaction. At last I felt normal!

The summer of 1975 was one to remember. I was more or less putting up with my lot as a baker, working long hours, getting up before dawn and getting home after dark. I longed to write; but when I came home and sat down to discuss my dreams with Pauline, she would only encourage me to go up to bed and do my dreaming there!

I began to get some encouragement to write about my childhood. While I was in Boland's I had heard the men say whenever Artane School was mentioned that a book should be written on that place. The more I heard it said the more inspired I'd become, only to find myself too tired to think, let alone write.

In August I was out in the front garden. The sun was high, the sky was blue and cloudless, and I was leaning on the wooden fence when I heard a van pull up. A man got out and walked towards me. ‘I'm looking for Pat, he's a baker. I think it's Touher or something like that.'

I said, ‘You've found him. What can I do for you?' He reached out his hand and introduced himself.

‘I'm Jimmy Mack. How would you like to come back to work and manage the home bakery for us? We need a good man who knows his job and who's the best at the soda bread.
The hours are 10am to finish around four or so.' I gasped, wow!

I agreed to go down to the bakery in Windsor Avenue in Fairview and talk to the boss. I knew Jim Behan well, as I had worked with him and for him in Bradley's when he took it over. I liked him and his family. I had fond memories of the days I went out to his mother's in Bray to help with the harvest, which brought back memories of my own childhood in Barnacullia.

For the next six years I managed the bakery with the help of Ken Quinn. I was back at the bakery I had first worked in after I left Artane, when Mick Bradley was my boss.

I began to enjoy work, as I was at the heart of things in Behan's Home Bakery, back to my roots. I had moved from Grangemore to Woodville Estate in Coolock, and whether by luck or by error I discovered I was back in full view of Artane School and that I would be passing it every day of the week. I saw quite a lot of the Macker and his colleagues around the area.

AT THIS TIME,
the turn of the eighties, I was doing reasonably well in work and in my marriage. Pauline and I were a real item and I loved her so. I was leading a normal life with a beautiful wife and two children in school, and another on the way. However, when Pauline told me that the children would have to move on to more senior schools a change loomed. The road for John would lead straight back to my past. John would have to attend St David's National School, which would prepare him for St David's Seniors – what in my day had been Artane Industrial School. When we told John he cried and cried, and Pauline and I decided to move far away from the bleak, grey stone, haunting buildings that cast their long, dark shadow over our lives. The search for our new home and a new job was completed just as Suzanne, our third child, entered the world. It turned out to be a very inspiring move to the seaside town of Balbriggan.

It was about 1979 that my friend Ken Quinn talked me into doing a soccer referees' course under Kevin Redmond and Tommy Hand. I was none too keen. Since I was a child I've had a phobia about written tests or exams. At first I dismissed the idea; then I began to see myself out on the pitch among twenty-two players, running with them, enjoying one of the greatest field games in the world. A feeling of warm excitement began to grip me.

The referees' course turned out to be a most enjoyable experience. I met people who were just as scared of written tests as I was, but the inspectors and committee members from the Irish Soccer Referees' Society went out of their way to make the course run as smoothly as possible for us all. The chief inspector at that time was Kevin Redmond, and he was my guiding light. His relaxed manner ensured that every one of the class had a comfortable passage through the short course.

The more forceful characters, like Sean Fitzpatrick, Albert Walsh and the driving force behind the Dublin branch of the Referees' Society, Tommy Hand, lectured us constantly on the rules of the game until we were ready to scream ‘foul'. It was men like them and, later, the calming influence of big Willy Attley that ensured the course was a success. With their help we became good referees. It was their untiring and devoted work that had brought the Irish Referees' Society to the top.

I was given no less than three match cards for my first weekend. Kevin Redmond signed the cards for me and said, ‘Follow the simple rules, Pat, and you won't go far wrong. Treat the players as you would wish to be treated if you were a player. Don't be rude to them, or to the team managers. Turn up well before kick-off. Dress neatly, and don't act like a dominant schoolmaster. Simply go out there and enjoy what you're doing.'

I followed Kevin's advice for twenty-five years.

I will always remember my first match as a soccer referee. It was out in Collinstown, near Dublin Airport, on a Saturday afternoon. Fenstanton were at home to Whitehall Rangers. Instead of measuring the balls in the dressing room, I decided to check them on the pitch, as the teams had changed outside because the weather was so hot. I had a piece of string with me that I had measured before I left home; I had a knot tied in each end of it, and from one knot to the other measured twenty-eight inches, just as Kevin Redmond had instructed us on the course.

I felt really important as the manager of Fenstanton came up to me while I was checking the nets. ‘How'yeh, ref? Here's the match balls. I suppose you want to check them as well.'

I glanced across to the touch-line and noticed that Pauline and her father, Tony, were in fits of laughter. As I began to measure one of the balls I could hear them laughing even louder and, like a fool, wondered why. Suddenly I heard a
shout from one of the Rangers' players: ‘Are you all right, ref?' I instantly looked up and responded briefly, ‘Sure. Why do you ask?' There was no response. I noticed that the players were having a good laugh, so I began to put my piece of string around the second ball, as I was not happy with the pressure in the first one. Just as I completed my check I was approached by the Fenstanton manager. He spoke hurriedly, though struggling to remain serious I thought. ‘What's up, ref? Yeh got a problem?' I answered sharply: ‘No, not at all. I'm just measuring the balls. I like this one.' As he took the ball some of the players shouted to him, ‘What's up, boss?' He shouted back, ‘Nothing. The ref was just measuring his balls.'

Football – soccer – was forbidden by the Christian Brothers as it was an English game. Any boys caught playing it would have their arses beaten off them. And yet, after I left Artane, I grew to love the game. I went to see Manchester United at Old Trafford and I supported my home team whenever I could. I love football, and I loved my time as a referee. Standing in a middle of a pitch, surrounded by twenty-two young players, all playing their hearts out, there were times when I wished that the Christian Brothers could see me now. They failed to beat the love of the sport out of me, just as they had failed to break my spirit.

IN 1985 I
found myself out of work, which was very unusual for me. However, around that time I began once again to have a burning desire to write my story of growing up in Artane Industrial School. But the big problem for me was I had no idea how to write a book even though I had great faith in myself that I would be able to do it.

I remember unloading the car and saying to myself, ‘I'll have the script written by Christmas if I get stuck into it, and write at least ten pages per day, five days a week,' as on Saturdays and Sundays I was involved in soccer as a referee. Things were going along so well at last I could see the wood for the trees. The story was really taking shape and it was ringing true. The characters were really touchable and human, unlike in all my previous scripts. I began to enjoy the whole experience of writing for myself; to tell a story that I believed had to be told.

One day, when I was busy working on my story, my daughter Paula came in with a letter addressed to me that had
just arrived in the post. I opened it immediately, Pauline reading it over my shoulder. It was an invitation to attend an interview at the Beaumont Hospital, which had just opened. It was a temporary position as a ward attendant; it wasn't something that I had any experience in, but still, it was a job.

Paula asked me if I would take it if it were offered to me. Pauline drew closer to me to encourage me. ‘Go for it, Pat. It could be a great help to you, you know.'

I looked up at her: she was smiling. The late August sun was strong that afternoon and Paula's long red hair glowed. She was only fourteen, but wiser than her years and very studious. ‘You're not going for another temporary job again are you? You will never finish that story if you keep taking on Mickey Mouse jobs. Someone out there might beat you to it, then your story will be useless.'

My heart sank, but Paula was right. Thoughts of someone else getting a book published on Artane before my own was finished drove me to get on with it.

However, Pauline was keen I went for the position, and I decided that August day to go for the interview. The fact was, I needed to work, as much for my own sense of self-worth as for the money, but I knew I could and would write my story even if I had to remain up until the early hours every morning.

That Friday I went to the Beaumont Hospital for an interview. I was shown to a small, drab office where I was asked to
fill in a form while I waited for my interview. Name, address, phone number – that was easy. I paused when it asked my date of birth and where I was born. Was it the city centre, Dominick Street or perhaps in Westland Row? I smiled as I put down ‘City Centre'. I had to pause again as I came to the next question. Father's name? Mother's maiden name? Even though it had been almost forty years since I went to Artane, still the facts of my birth came back to haunt me. I was sure that it was all a cod, and I would not be employed, not even temporarily.

I was interviewed by a well-rounded Matron who wore a nice smile. She spoke awfully grand, ‘How do you do, I'm the sister in charge of Adams O'Connell,' and after that I became lost in a world which was far removed from that from which I had just come.

I was not at all sure where I stood. Suddenly she got down to brass tacks, and I was relieved, but mostly surprised. ‘Are you available to start work on Monday, Patrick? I hope you are not the squeamish type, as you will be required to help the nurses on the wards with bathing, dressing and lifting the patients.'

She reminded me of Bridget Doyle in Barnacullia.

As I drove home I was in two minds. My daughter's words came hammering at me: ‘You'll never ever complete the script, Dad, if you take a Mickey Mouse job.' I felt like turning the car around and telling them to find someone else. But the other side of me would not let me do that. The work ethic that
the Christian Brothers beat into me became my strength that made me determined to work hard and to aim for success.

I believe that the time that I worked in the neurosurgical ward of the new Beaumont Hospital certainly helped me a great deal. Each evening as I sat down to write, often writing until two in the morning, the flow began to come and I began to write not fully knowing where to stop. I began to believe in myself at last. I felt inspired by working with the sick; I was glad to be able to help them.

Many patients I worked with had undergone brain surgery, and it was part of my duties to help the nurses feed these patients, to wash, shave and shower them. There was many an occasion when I very much had to take a deep breath and grin and bear it. It was often very difficult to see these pour souls suffering, but I tried my hardest to help the nurses make them comfortable. It was a whole new experience for me.

Nevertheless it was a huge relief to get home from the hospital and sit down to write. The will to succeed was extremely strong within me, and in fact the hospital work was very therapeutic. Soon I was beginning to see my story taking shape.

As I was writing by hand it was slow progress and after many drafts decided it was time to look for a typist and make a start in getting the first few chapters typed up. Yet I couldn't come up with the right name. ‘Artane – the True Story' didn't quite get
across what my story was about. My search for a more powerful and imaginative title began as there is so much in a name.