Childhood in Cork, Ireland

John Humphreys continues: "They grew up in a large house called Cliff Mahon, Blackrock, which at the time was probably surrounded by many fewer houses than it is today. It is in a suburb to the east of southern Cork city where half the modem roads have 'Mahon' in their names. The house seems to have been owned by Uncle Robbie (

) and run by aunt Anne (Humphreys). Paddy told me that there were 'never less than ten sat down to a meal'. Brian and Frank were sent to boarding schools in England, but the girls stayed in Ireland until about 1922, when their mother must have decided that their future was uncertain in the newly independent state with its continuing troubles; they moved to Guildford (Merrymead, Ganghill, Guildford, Surrey). Joan said in grim tones 'that was a black day' - she was suddenly uprooted from all she knew and thrust into Guildford. where she knew only her family and people found her accent funny. She is prepared to support any foreign team, at any game, against England for this reason."