The British Journal of Developmental Disabilities

Vol. 47, Part 2, JULY 2001, No. 93, pp. 119-121

POINTS OF VIEW

The Connollys intrigued me. Brian, his brother John, and their sister, Eileen, are now in their mid to late fifties, and all have a mild learning disability. Brian is of stocky build and ponderous movements. Bright blue eyes dart around in a weather-beaten face. He lives in a flat by himself. John is a year younger. Round-shouldered, he walks head thrust forward, eyes on the ground. He lives in a nursing home. Neither Brian nor John will start or hold a conversation. They answer questions as briefly as possible, “Don’t know” being one of their longer replies. Then there’s Eileen, the youngest, a nervous hand-flapping, thread-plucking lady who lives in a hostel. It’s their childhood that fascinates. Their clinical notes of the period were few, yet interesting enough to suggest that a dig might be worthwhile. The family lived in Penny Lane, one of five interconnecting and narrow streets in the slum area of a coastal town. These streets have long since disappeared. My dig was in three stages. First, I visited the local library to read up on newspaper accounts of life in the town during the 1950s. Second, I visited small museums or archives to see what material they held. I was lucky. Photographs of the lanes showed small two-storey houses in various stages of decay, many shrouded in smoke. There was no electricity. Water was obtained from a pump in the rutted street. Oddly enough (odd because many people say it’s just a myth), two photos showed pigs snuffling at doorways. Another is of a spit-and-sawdust pub with grimy windows. And, yes, there it was: a shot of the Connollys’ house at the time they were living there. The chimney was lying at a crazy and dangerous angle, many of the roof slates had gone, and one window on the first floor was boarded up. The first social worker to visit the house, in 1958, noted: “Very poor. Dark and dirty - possibly verminous. Two chairs and sofa in very poor condition and tree trunk and part of a washing mangle constituted the sum total of furniture in the room. Ceiling falling in. Rent, five shillings a week . . . Mother did not know birthdays of children - could give no answers at all”. In one archive, I came across a local historian’s account of the area, in his own handwriting: “I saw indolence, dilapidation and decay slowly but menacingly creeping into Stile Street from every angle . . . I don’t think Stile Street could have died a natural death had it not been for the labyrinth of slums and lanes which appear to have sucked the life (out) . . . During the awful war years 1914- 18 these little lanes were little more than dens of misery, squalor and vice. Of the hundreds of trawler men who put in at the neighbouring port, most of them headed for the lanes . . .” This historian lived in a big house at the other end of town. I decided to search for alternative accounts. And that was stage three of the dig. I wrote to the local paper saying I’d like to meet and talk to anyone who had been brought up in Penny Lane or in any of the adjacent streets. Two gentlemen replied. One had many years ago written down the names of all the occupants of two of the lanes. The other gentlemen, in his sixties, has a photographic memory. At no time during my visits to their homes did I mention my interest in the Connollys. But both volunteered information about them. These two raconteurs did not share the local historian’s account of lane life. Yes, there was poverty. Yes, life was hard. But there was vibrancy, camaraderie, kindness and even entrepreneurship in the little streets. Naturally, the raconteurs talked a lot about unusual characters who lived in or were regular visitors to the lanes: the boxer with the wooden leg; the publican who, on Sundays when his place was closed, strolled the streets, his greatcoat pockets clanking with bottles; the double amputee who got around on a tiny carriage pulled by a goat. Only one of the gentlemen spoke at length of the Connollys and his tone was entirely sympathetic. The following account is therefore based on written records and recollections of people who knew the family. Mr. Connolly, Senior, had a short and rather undistinguished career in the Merchant Navy. At the time his teenage children were referred to our service, he was living at home, unemployed. He was a ‘blowhard’ - a local term for meths drinker. He also gambled and held tenaciously to the view that if you are courageous enough to place bets you are entitled to handsome returns. Money spent, he sat in the house: “. . . a hopeless character sitting with his long black toenails in the ashes”. His wife had, I strongly suspect, a moderate learning disability but was never ascertained. She was a “chronic giggler” who couldn’t read, didn’t know the value of money. When her husband was admitted to hospital suffering from malnutrition, a charity gave her one pound which she promptly spent on sweets and lemonade. She was urine incontinent but never bothered with pads or nappies until she was admitted to a home late in life. Whereas Mr. Connolly was querulous and ineffectively dictatorial, she was kind and always optimistic. There was no stove or cooker in the house so the Connollys did without cooked meals for the most part. At Easter and Christmas kind neighbours and a couple of agencies left food and clothes parcels. When I visited Eileen in her hostel some time age she said that as a child she was occasionally sent to buy a pennyworth of broken biscuits or chips. She also confirmed what a social worker told me: Mrs. Connolly couldn’t afford a wedding ring, so wore a curtain ring. Now and again Mr. Connolly got a burst of energy. He cut and sold firewood round the lanes but the burst faded when he had enough to buy meths. And concerned neighbours were on hand to help the family when he had to be taken away with the DTs. However, it was the behaviour of Brian and John that puzzled me the most. Social workers were convinced that, now in their late teens, the two lads could be strongly motivated to attend a Day Centre, especially in the winter months. Each weekday they would leave the cold, damp, foodless home and come to a warm, spacious building where they could shower, put on clean clothes, have a good feed and possibly earn a little money. But Brian and John thought otherwise. Every morning, whatever the weather, they went their own ways to tramp the streets till late afternoon. “I saw Brian on Meadow Road. It was raining heavily and it was cold. He was soaked to the skin . . . soles of his boots (come) away from the uppers . . .” (social worker report). The lads never talked to anyone, never entered a shop or public building, never stopped anywhere for long. In 1963 or 1964 the Connollys moved out of Penny Lane into a post-war house about a mile away. Here they had an inside toilet with heavy metal cistern high on the wall, and chain with wooden knob. There was also a bath, water for which was heated by the living room fire. And, for the first time, they had a cooker. A social worker assistant spent a few sessions showing the family how to use all this equipment. But Mr. Connolly walked out after the first hour, aggrieved that anyone should think he didn’t know about these things. After all, he kept saying, he hadn’t been in the Merchant Navy for nothing. It was all too much. The water took so long to heat, especially when the fire was only intermittently fed, it wasn’t worth having a bath. In spells of sobriety. Mr. Connolly could cook simple meals - mince and potatoes, Irish Stew, for example. But he resented the fact that no-one helped him. Mrs.Connolly didn’t get the hang of the cooker at all. Brian and John were too busy walking the roads. And Eileen wasn’t allowed near the stove. But it was the cistern that most alarmed the family. The crash of the water, its swirling higher and higher in the bowl, frightened Mrs. Connolly and the children. Their reaction was straightforward enough: never pull the chain. So, when father was away from home for a few days (his admissions to hospital were growing rapidly), the Welfare people were called in to unchoke pipes. After the third call-out, they refused to co-operate any more. A few years passed. All attempts to get Brian and John regularly to attend a Centre failed. Brian did turn up a couple of times, took seconds for lunch, then went back on the roads. Both John and Eileen were admitted to residential care. Mr. Connolly died in 1975, cantankerous to the last. Mrs, Connolly went into a home, gradually lost her memory, and died in 1990. Staff remember her with great affection. Brian remains in the town. A lot of people know him, but by sight only. On a damp, misty afternoon last November, I found Mrs. Connolly’s grave in the cemetery above the town. The light was fading. A cheap plastic urn with laconic inscription marks the spot. The only sound was of water dripping from the trees. I stood still for a few minutes and was about to turn away when I heard slow steps on the gravel path. It was Brian. He didn’t see me until he was quite close. He nodded - a tired, dismissive movement - and went on his way. There was no point in trying to engage him. He was, and always will be, on the fringe of fringes. In this piece I have used fictitious names, altered the family structure, and tinkered with the time frame. As always, Mary Drain and Edna Clarke have been of great help -my thanks to them.

D. N. MacKay

Department of Psychology, Muckamore Abbey Hospital, Co Antrim.