Vigil at the Ferry 

It's around April 1958. Mum is still a student nurse at the Providence Hospital in St Helens. She is aged 21, and she is pregnant. An unmarried girl, pregnant in 1958 was a socially very bad thing, especially in Ireland.  Dad has asked her to marry him, and she has said yes.

She knows she has to go home and talk to mum, but she's very concerned that once back in Cork her mum is not going to be very happy with her at all, but she knows that she has to go and do it, so off she goes from Liverpool on the ferry from Liverpool.

Dad's extremely worried that once back in Cork, her mum won’t let her leave, so he has a good think about it. Mum planned to be in Cork for a week, and then she's supposed to come back on the Sunday night ferry into Liverpool. What he does is, on the week before,  he books a weeks holiday. Goes to the post office, and he draws out all his savings, packs a bag, and gets on the train to Liverpool and waits at the ferry terminal for Mum to get off the ship. 

I said, “What were you gonna do?
He said, “Well, I was gonna go and get on it, and bring her back.
I had an overnight bag, and a couple of weeks money and my cornet case, so I was going to go to Cork, and I was going to go and find her, and she was coming back with me”

So how did that pan out?

Well, the ferry docked and loads of people came off and cars and everything and the flood of people got slower and slower, and then eventually it was just the odd person, and i'm starting to get that feeling that she's not coming. I walked up the car ramp and said to the fella, “Is that everybody off?”

He said,“No, there's an Irish lass at the back who's still getting the things together. She yours?"

He said, “She is!”

So Mum is the last one off the ferry, walking down the ramp, looking very small and fragile and obviously very upset, so he gives her a big hug, and then they walk back up Lime Street to The train station and get the train back to St Helens.

“That was a very worrying time for both me and your mum”

We never really heard much from Mums side. 

Whenever she talked about her own mum she would get teary, and then would blink away the tears and get the look of defiant resilience and say something determined and optimistic like 

“it’s worked out well for us, because we’ve got you lot” 
Or
“We’ve had some difficult times, but we’ve stuck together and your Dad’s been a good husband”

PS Trust dad to take his cornet case!

PPS They got married in St Helens on June 2nd 1958

Peter Gillon 30/1/24