Bridie Hawe
I was born and went to school from our farm in Gurteenroe. After finishing my schooling I was anxious to go nursing. My neighbour Madge and Molly O’ Flynn contacted their brother Fr. David who was in Wales. I was invited to come over and got into nursing in a hospital there at the time. Fr. David had a motor bike at that time and I got many a spin on it. He was a very handsome young priest at that time and there were a lot of Baptists in the area at that time and they could not understand that a priest was celibate and they were very fond of him. I qualified as a T.B. specialist in Wales.
I went to London in 1939 the year the Second World War broke out. I did further training for three years. I qualified as a public health nurse. The war years were tough. That was the dock area of London and it was subject to attach. We had to come on duty at a mo-ment’s notice when there was a bomb scare. I remember there was a direct hit on a Scot-tish regiment near the hospital. I lost all my belongings. There were many deaths among the soldiers. It was trying to see the relatives coming down and seeing the carnage at first sight. Some of the injuries were extensive burns to the body.
We had happier times when the war was over. We went to Irish dances in clubs in Lon-don. The Blarney was one, The Pride of Erin was another, The Galteemore and there were many more. We would meet up with Irish people. Saturday and Sunday nights were usually the nights when the dances were run.
The postman used to come three days a week. He was John Murphy from Churchtown. This was the last house in the parish. He traveled through the fields. It was uphill all the way to here.
When he would come to Tim Flynn’s he would blow a whistle and we were youngsters and we would make our way across the fields to meet him half way. At Christmas time he would have a drink at every house and when he would get here – God help us he would hardly be able to stand!
