FUNNY how, when you’re miles away from home and you meet someone from Northern Ireland, you immediately fall into conversation.
I was introduced to a lady at a recent wedding in Scotland: turned out she was originally from Newry but has lived with her husband near Glasgow for the last 32 years. Of course, we began swopping notes and sharing memories.
She had some story to tell.
When she was eight-years-old, Caroline McGrath lived opposite Daisy Hill Hospital - and it was her playground.
“In the early 70s we weren’t allowed into town, so we had to make our fun at home,” she told me.
Read more:
“I was lucky that I was so close to the hospital, and in those days people came and went without all the restrictions of today. I was welcomed and I helped where I could - in fact, I thought I was in charge.”
Working in marketing today, Caroline has always been a woman with an imagination and an entrepreneurial spirit. She saw the Guinness being delivered for older patients in the belief it would build up their health and strength: my own mother-in-law, a Dubliner, never allowed a day to pass without her glass of stout, and she lived to 99 years of age.
Business Is Business
However, in her young wisdom, Caroline reckoned these patients needed other nourished so she saved her pocket money and bought a supply of Love Hearts.
These sweets, in the shape of a heart, were important to shy boys and girls who wanted to get a message across - and back then, they were very straightforward: ‘I Love You’, ‘Be Mine’, ‘Kiss Me’, ‘My Hero’, ‘Hug Me’ etc.
No one in Daisy Hill knew what they’d get until they parted with brown money, because Caroline had the wisdom to offer them face-down. You can imagine the fun between staff and patients as the sweets were offered around.
As time went on, the messages changed to things like ‘Fax Me’ and ‘Text Me’, and today they specialise in emojis - but when Caroline was eight, they were just Love Hearts.
“I got a shoebox and tied a string to the lid, and that was my tray as I went round the wards selling the sweets,” she recalls.
“I had very good sales figures!”
But the proceeds were not for Caroline, rather to replenish the tray and keep her business going - and her customers happy.
When she went to Queen’s University in Belfast, she studied computer programming: “97 males and two females, but I never made it to the Ferrero Rocher level.”
Although she laughs now, the fact was finding a job wasn’t easy and tensions in Northern Ireland were high.
Up Up And Away
“For me it was a sad place, I couldn’t wait to get away, so I went to Australia.”
And that was an adventure: “I was there for a couple of years, and one of my jobs was on the Fair Star - although we called it ‘the Holy Mary’ - a famous entertainment ship for 18 to 30-year-olds.
“That’s where I got my education, not in a Catholic secondary school in Co Armagh! As a waitress in the cocktail lounge, you can imagine the fun as we sailed round the South Pacific Islands - it was great.”
Built in Govern, Glasgow, and sailing out of Sydney, this ship became a famous vessel for passengers and crew. But still, home was home, and Caroline decided to return to Northern Ireland after two years in Australia.
However, before long, she got itchy feet again and decided to head back to her life of sunshine and freedom.
“Although I had a tremendous time when I was there, I didn’t really think ahead too much or plan for the future, so when I came home I was all love and peace - but my friends had moved on, married with families or set up in business.
“All I had were my memories and my camera. When it came to work and socialising, I didn’t fit in.”
The plan was to head back to Australia. So, this adventurer set off from Larne to Stranraer determined to hitch-hike to London and then travel on to Australia in the cheapest possible way.
“But I met Terry, and I’ve stayed in Scotland ever since.”
Unexpectedly she found love with a Scottish man whose mother had come from Ireland and settled in Scotland. Terry’s mother was a remarkable woman who loved reading, sat her O-levels at 70, and whose favourite film was The Commitments. She later went home to Donegal to die in the cottage where she was born.
This cottage is Caroline and Terry’s go-to place to relax away from her marketing agency in Glasgow, and maybe to enjoy a few Guinness - but not a Love Heart in sight!
