I Am Moving To Where ?

I am Moving to Where ?

My name is Fiona. This is my story.

I was a single parent with four children and one on the way, I was working for a publishing company and had worked my way up from knowing absolutely nothing about advertising sales to being the top sales rep in a short space of time, I loved my job except for one of my bosses Jim (I had two) who was always trying it on and as he was the sales manager he persistently tried to get me to give him some of my sales to make him look good with his boss. He was very idle in that department always on the phone chatting and trying to be the big man. Needless to say I told him where to go… When I had been there quite a while I found out some devastating news and needed to take some time off, my bosses Jim and Mike (nice guy) were very supportive and told me to take all the time I needed which I really appreciated and took leave. About two weeks later Jim phoned me and told me that he was really sorry but the managing director said I was fired! He continued to tell me that he fought really hard for me but it was final, I was out. I was so angry, how could he fire me for being unwell? So I got someone to mind the children and I got the bus into town and marched up to work and knocked on the m.d.’s door and went straight in. Martin Sweeney the m.d. was sitting at his desk, he looked up and before he could say anything I asked him why he fired me? He looked puzzled and told me that he hadn’t fired me, it was Jim! He continued to tell me that Jim had told him I had taken time off without permission and that my sales were poor and that he had to work overtime to make up sales... Well you can imagine my rage I could feel my blood bubbling over. Martin told me to go and discuss it with Jim. I stormed over to my sneaky, sleazy boss and when I entered the room he looked at me and he actually looked scared, I told him I knew it was him and asked him why? He didn’t know what to say. My other boss Mike was in the room and didn’t even know about this whole fiasco and was expecting me back to work very soon as I had a complete magazine to sell. Jim mumbled, went very red, coughed and spluttered and said he was sorry! Sorry? You must be joking, I told him I quit and left.

The next day my phone rang and it was Mike, he apologised for the way I had been treated, he asked me, well begged me really to come back and that I would not have to answer to Jim anymore that he (Mike) would be my boss, he knew I was a dedicated sales rep and would ensure the magazine would be a success, he also increased my salary which was a plus so I said yes and that I would be in the next day.

I went in to work and there was sheepish Jim at his desk, we all shared a room, the editor Mike, sales manager Jim, Mary the receptionist and me. We had been a good team but all that was gone now so I just got on with my work and the magazine was a huge success, everyone congratulated me even the m.d. and believe it or not so did Jim.

I got bored easily and needed challenges to keep my interest so after two years in the job I got restless and decided to look around. Some companies had tried to poach me in the past but the timing was wrong so when I found a company that really wanted me to work for them, offering all the right perks I jumped at the chance and jumped ship, unfortunately it was a sinking ship and I had made a huge mistake. I was up shit’s creak without a paddle. I couldn’t go back to my old job as they had taken on someone new. I didn’t know what to do; I had no work.

Circumstances had changed, one day I was working in a great job and next I was on the one parent family social welfare allowance and could not pay the rent that is when I discovered how tough life can really be

I didn’t have any backup system and no real support from anyone so I applied for a council house and as my baby was due in a few months and with four other mouths to feed I was given priority and was offered a house.

‘Oh my god, oh please no, not here’ were the thoughts going through my mind when I saw where I was moving to. I had grown up in a privileged home, private school etc and now it had come to this. How was I going to cope?

Our new home was out in the ‘sticks’ as some would say and I guess that would be true, it was about 10k from the city. There were thousands of houses, barren wasteland and one shop per thousand houses, one pub, one bus service, one school in my particular area and that was about it.

I will never forget the first day we arrived in our new neighbourhood, I thought we had landed in Beirut, there were burnt out cars littering the streets, horses tied down in fields or just roaming about and children, so many children in one place I had never seen before, many just in nappies and tee-shirts with no socks or shoes, running around and some were crawling, not having got to the stage where they were able to walk. MADNESS! They went up in ages like steps and stairs, so many and none that I could see were supervised, there was the odd mother or father sitting or standing outside their front doors but they were busy talking to a neighbour, having a smoke and the odd shout at the kids ‘Jimmy, give Tiffany the bike or I will give ye a fucking clatter’ That kind of thing, sure it was great craic,

I brought my son Ben with me on the first day as we were moving into a completely empty house; there was nothing in the house whatsoever. I borrowed a blow-up mattress and a camp bed so we had something to sleep on. When we went into the house I nearly cried I wanted to run out of that house and never look back. There were no light fittings never mind bulbs! No carpets just concrete floors throughout the ground floor. The kitchen was empty, no cupboards, the last occupants took them with them. All there was were wires hanging from the ceiling and one intact wall socket. Although the electricity was on it was not use so we had to buy candles to do us until I could get the council in to fix this hovel.

We did have a kettle some cups, spoons and plates so we were able to make tea thanks to the one working socket. The graffiti on the walls which was all over the house kept my son busy for a while reading all the swear words that obviously came from the swear word dictionary because the spelling was word perfect! Upstairs wasn’t too bad, wooden floors in the bedrooms and landing and linoleum in the bathroom however the toilet was broken the taps loose and the dirt, well I nearly got sick and the thoughts of cleaning it made my stomach turn. I was seven months pregnant and this all seemed too much. I could not believe they would give anyone a house that was in such a state but what could I do; my only choice was to get on with it. I was told that the council would help with the painting which was a relief to hear but the rest I had to organise myself and I hadn’t a clue where to start.

We were only in the house about an hour when the neighbour next door (right side) rang the bell (they had left the bell!) ‘Hiya, I’m Kathy, I live next door, just wanted to welcome you’ she said. ‘Thanks, I’m Fiona and this is my son Ben’ I replied. ‘Well this is a quiet road never any trouble really, just the usual with the kids and that’ She says. ‘Ok, it will take a while for us to settle in I suppose’ I said. ‘Well if you need anything just ask, see you later then bye’ she said and she went back to her house.

Hmm I thought, that was really nice of her to call and it lifted my spirits a bit, I hoped everyone was like her but no, it was not to be.

That night when Ben and I were asleep in our beds, Ben comes running in crying telling me that there is a man and a woman outside on the green and he’s beating the daylights out of her and she’s stark naked! Holy Jesus I thought this can’t be real, but I went and took a look for myself and sure enough there before my eyes was exactly what my son had told me. She was getting kicked around the green. I didn’t know what to do I hadn’t got a phone so I continued to peek out the window to see what the neighbours were doing about it? Well it turned out they did nothing so I thought it best being the newcomer and all to go back to bed, so we did. So much for a quiet road!

Over the next few weeks with help from the social welfare we were able to get a few basics, cooker, fridge, table, chairs, a second hand suite of furniture and some beds. The health board gave us sheets; pillows, blankets etc and the council fixed the wiring and painted the house. Life was becoming bearable, just. The house was freezing it was winter, no heating except for two open fires in the kitchen and sitting room and as the floors were concrete and no hope of getting carpet in the near future and new baby coming I found this probably the hardest part to accept I was always cold. I felt very alone, no-one came to visit, too busy, too far away I had to cope with everything myself and I will tell you this I don’t know how I did it but I did.

My children, Sarah eighteen (she had her own apartment and going to college) Ben, 12, Jayne, 8, and Leah 4 years of age were great children, funny, polite, loving and full of energy and as a family we all got on great. Ben, Jayne and Leah went to the local school, the girls settled in fine however Ben had it tough and on the very first day he got a few thumps from a boy in his class. I had warned him this might happen and that he must stand up for himself. I never favoured fighting but that was in a different life in a different place and I bent the rules, no, in fact I had to ignore the rules and let Ben find his feet his own way which he did and before long he was accepted.

It’s amazing how quickly children settle in to a new environment, but not for me, I hated every waking minute and with my baby due in a couple of months I couldn’t think of a worse place I could be. Isolated and alone and if you think I was feeling sorry for myself, well damn right I was, wouldn’t you? I may have been down but I never let my children down and I never let them see my sadness. I was born the ‘eternal optimist’ and I guess that’s what kept me going. One day I would get out of here.

It wasn’t long before I made friends with a woman across the road or really she befriended me. Her name was Eilish and she was a formidable woman to say the least. No-one messed with her so I was grateful she chose me to befriend. I knew I would be safe if any trouble came my way, Eilish ruled the road and probably most of the area. She wasn’t a bully she just said it as it was and if nobody gave her or her family any trouble then all was fine but if you as much as looked crooked or made a smart comment about her children well that was a different kettle of fish, she would come down on you like a ton of bricks.

There was one time I saw her like a mad woman chasing two lads down the road wielding two samurai looking swords shouting ‘If you come near my son again I’ll cut your fucking heads off’ The lads ran so fast you would swear they were in training for the Olympics !

Another time when all the kids were playing on the road, Eilish’s son Alan was having an row with another kid and the kid hit him, Well out of the garden roars Eilish, ‘Alannnnn, pick up that stick and hit that little bastard, if you don’t I’ll fucking hit you’ The poor kid was more afraid of his mother than the kid in front of him so he did as he was told, He picked up the stick and walloped the boy over the head, it wasn’t until the blood started dripping down his face that Alan realised what he had done. Alan ran crying to his mother who matter of factly ‘That’ll teach the little fucker to start on you’ and that was that. The kid’s mother knew better than to confront Eilish for fear she would get the same of worse. Ah yes life certainly wasn’t boring out in the sticks

There was a couple down the road, mad Mary and mad Brendan (they were the couple fighting on the green) they were the oddest pair you ever saw. One day mad Brendan knocked on my door to see if I wanted the grass cut and as I hadn’t got a lawnmower I said yes, so in he goes to the back garden and what I saw before my eyes made them nearly jump out of their sockets. Off came the shirt (an ugly sight) and down on his knees with his arse half showing (a really ugly sight) he proceeded to cut the grass. With his bare hands he pulled the grass up, how mad is this man I thought but he continued to pull and pull until he had totally destroyed the place and then had the cheek to ask for payment ! I gave him a fiver and was glad to be rid of him but lo and behold he was back the next week and I didn’t know what to say to him so I let him at it again and then each week without fail mad Brendan and his very ugly body arrived to ‘pull’ the grass. Of course everyone found out and slagged me no end, laughing and Eilish saying ‘your in there Fiona, sure he probably fancies you, imagine his lovely body pressed against yours’ Oh what a terrible thought but I could see the funny side of it. What had I got myself into?

There was a woman up the road, Anne was her name, she was built like a lumberjack and with her short tight hair, jeans with a thick black belt, doc martins and a blue and white check shirt she was a match for any tough man that may come her way but like most bully’s she took her anger out on her children. Anne had two beautiful well behaved children, a boy aged eight and a girl aged six. This woman was a tyrant she had beaten these children into submission. One day I saw her in action, I don’t know what the children had done to warrant a punishment or even if they had done anything at all but that black belt came off her jeans so fast you didn’t see it coming until it reined down on those two children, again and again and the little ones trying to block the blows, it was no good she was too fast. It was a sickening sight. I wanted to go up and stop her even though I was afraid of her but Eilish stopped me ‘don’t interfere, she will kill you stone dead’ she said. She was another one you didn’t mess with.

When I was there about a year I got a job in the city centre and Eilish’s daughter Aishling became my childminder. My baby Holly was nine months old and was a real cutie everyone doted on her especially Eilish.

Aishling had a boyfriend Tom and well let’s say he knew the Guards very well, this I didn’t know at the time. I had a phone in a few weeks when Tom asked me could he phone his uncle Michael as he wasn’t very well and said he would pay me for the call so I said ok and that was grand. The next week Michael phones my house and asks for Tom so I sent one of the children over to get him (he lives with Aishling in Eilish’s house) These phone calls from ‘uncle Michael’ became a habit and now he was calling about three times a week, it wasn’t until months later I was to find out that this uncle Michael was in fact Tom’s drug contact and deals were being made over the phone in my house!

One day when I got home from work Eilish was in the house instead of Aishling ‘sit down’ she says ‘I’ll make you a cuppa tea’ she continued looking worried ‘What’s wrong’ I said . She went on to tell me that the drug squad had raided my house, the drug squad? I thought I would nearly pass out. She said they had been watching Tom for some time and as he was always in and out of my house they thought he was hiding drugs there.

Well I’m sure you can imagine how bloody furious I was, how dare he use my house for his drug business. I called the Guards and asked them to come to my house I wanted to explain that I had nothing to do with drugs and knew nothing of what Tom was up to. They said they knew I had nothing to do with any of it and had found nothing in my house. They did suggest to choose my friends better and keep Tom out of my house.

Aishling swore she didn’t know anything, she said she was shocked herself and me the eejit believed her so she continued to mind the children. Not long after Tom was in trouble, this time for mugging a man coming out of a bank with a briefcase, it had five thousand pounds in it. Tom hid the money in the sofa in Eilish’s house and threw away the briefcase. The next morning as Tom and Aishling were getting ready to catch the bus to Butlins for the day the Guards were banging on Eilish’s front door, Tom and Aishling realising it was the Guards, tried to make a dash for the back door but it was too late, they were caught and into the sitting room they were marched. ‘what’s the hurry Tom’ said a guard ‘why the rush out the back door, have you something to tell us eh?’ he continues ‘we’re late for the bus to Butlins’ answers the fool, himself, Aishling and Eilish looking nervous and flustered. Tom and Aishling sat down on the sofa while the guards asked Tom about a robbery at a bank the day before. Tom professed to not knowing anything about it and Aishling swears he was with her the whole day. As they were fidgeting and stuttering the two eejits didn’t realise that the sofa had a hole in it and slowly the money started to slip down onto the floor. Well there was no point in denying it now, they were caught hook, line and sinker and with that the two eejits were marched down to the station and it wasn’t the bus station either. I needed to find a new childminder.

Now you might think I am making all this up but sure you couldn’t if you tried and there’s more.

One night when we were all asleep in bed loud banging woke us up, it sounded like a car back-firing or maybe it was gunshots which we had never heard before so we put it down to a car and went back to sleep.

The next morning my front door is being banged so much I thought the door would fall in. When I answered there was Eilish, red as a beetroot panting like a horse and looking over here shoulder like the devil himself was after her. ‘Come in’ I told her ‘what’s wrong’ I said and into the kitchen she came. ‘I need your help’ she tells me ‘of course’ I say ‘what can I do’ and with that out of her pocket she takes a gun! Holy Mary Mother of God I knew then that it wasn’t a car back firing the night before. A bloody gun no less, I had never seen one in my life before and here was one right in front of me and it was in the hand of my friend, I was gob smacked. I asked here what the hell was going on, what was she doing with a gun, did she shoot someone? ‘No not me’ she said ‘a fella I know, he’s in the INLA, he’s been hiding around here for some time’ she continued. ‘What’s it got to do with you’ I asked her. She tells me she knows him, he did a favour for her some time ago. I didn’t ask what, I didn’t want to know. She went on to tell me that the banging we heard was this guy kneecapping another fella across at the shop and he had asked her to hide the gun but as she was now familiar to the guards thanks to Tom she was afraid to hide it in her house so who else to ask only her squeaky clean friend Kelly. Not a chance, not a hope in hell, this was just too much and she knew by my face there would be no way that gun was hiding in my house. Eilish left and I don’t know what she did with the gun, I didn’t ask and she never mentioned it again.

My neighbour to the left Naomi was a nice girl, twenty three years old married with two children. Her husband Bill was about ten years older and I suppose he wouldn’t be the life and soul of a party, he worked hard and rarely brought his young wife out he also came across as strict and well grumpy would be best to describe how I saw him. Naomi needed an outlet something to ease her boredom in her young life and what other way that to entertain the young men from the road and they were young, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen years of age! The boys were very fond of Naomi, she was very pretty, dark hair and eyes, tanned skin and a great figure, and she always looked lovely. The boys would often visit her house when the kids were at school and the lads would be bunking off from theirs. After some time Naomi set her sights on one boy ‘Mark’ he was fifteen, tall and well built for his age, he was a lovely boy and my son’s best friend. I always thought he would do well in life; he went to school most of the time that is until he met Naomi. They started an illicit affair and before too long before Naomi’s husband Bill found out, he packed his and the children’s bags and went to stay with his mother down the country. Naomi continued her affair with Mark that is until his mother found out and put a stop to it. Alas all good things must come to an end and Mark was back in school uniform, schoolbag slung over the shoulder and back to school he went. Naomi moved away to where we never knew.

Nearly three years later I got my break. I was left money in a will, not enough to buy a house or anything but enough to get out of the sticks and we were gone like hares on speed. We moved back to an area I grew up in and I was able to put the past behind me. I got a new job, a managerial sales position and life was looking up for the children and myself.

We went back only the once to the sticks and that was for Mark’s funeral he died from a heroin overdose at the age of eighteen years of age. His younger brother David found him dead in his bed. It was unbelievably the saddest funeral I have ever been to. Everyone was heartbroken, his mother Rose hugged us all especially my son Ben who was grief stricken by his friends death. My heart broke for Rose; she too was a single parent. How would she cope? She too left the area and went back home to her family. I kept in touch for a while and visited her in hospital when she had a complete breakdown, sadly we didn’t stay in touch and to be honest that is one thing I can’t remember, why? Why did we lose touch, its only now writing that I wish we had? I often think of Mark and how lovely and funny he was and I wonder how the family have coped over the years.

Looking back the drug scene was only beginning when we left and my old friend Eilish told me at the funeral how lucky I was to get out when I did.

Anyone’s child could become caught up in drugs as it was made so appealing to the young girls and boys. I was so thankful that my lifeline to get out came when it did. We were lucky.

The people that I met and the friends that I made in the sticks were mostly genuine, good, hardworking people but lack of resources and facilities for young children made life very hard for them. Many were very young parents and hadn’t any support to help them become responsible parents.

These people had been sent to the sticks and forgotten, as simple as that.