Life

Highlights On the Way Up To My Summit

My early years in Ireland

I am not going to write a book on this, so relax! But here are some highlights from my life as I climbed and still climb, even at my age. I have added a few photos so that when you lose interest or snooze, you can scroll up or down.

My first big challenge which lasted 18 years was that I had a congenital speech defect so that the idea of becoming a teacher was certainly ambitious!

The man who operated on me was a very famous surgeon in London who had restored pilots’ severely burned and disfigured faces and limbs after the carnage of World War II. His name was Sir Archibald McIndoe .

My mother worked in a hospital in Ireland and she had a few useful connections. So, off we went to London. I was about two years old at the time. The ferryboat to Wales passed down Cork Harbour and as our house was on the seafront, my father and siblings could hear me wailing and crying on the boat. My poor mother!

You can see the house in the photo (second on the right, mauve-colored, and the first-floor balcony where my siblings were waving to my mother and me!)

Long story short. The operation was only partially successful and I would have to wait about 15 years before it would be possible to have more surgery. This time, in Dublin, it went well. I then had speech therapy and my big achievement, after years of poor speech, was when my dentist declared:-

“Well, you could certainly read the news on the TV now!”

The climb to the summit was looking less challenging.

Before I went to University College Cork, I had to pass my final secondary school exams. I was studying far too much and I was doing a crazy number of subjects:- Latin, Irish, English, French, Chemistry, Geography, History, English Lit. and Maths.

My mother insisted that I had a break and off we went to Barley Cove for a short break. As you can see from the photo here, it is a wonderful setting. My exam results were not great and I still think that I should never have interrupted my study flow. My mother won that round and I lost.

On to University and you can see another wonderful setting here. A long 4 year study period included a diploma in Pedagogy which led to my first teaching job. Here you can see the quadrangle.

After two years in a job that I disliked, I decided that it was time to dash off to London.

London was calling again. This time twenty years later. A whole new chapter was about to begin which I will tell you about sometime soon.

End of Part 1.