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    Tales from Portlaw Volume 5: Sean and Sarah
    Tales from Portlaw Volume 5: Sean and Sarah
    Tales from Portlaw Volume 5: Sean and Sarah
    Ebook197 pages2 hours

    Tales from Portlaw Volume 5: Sean and Sarah

    By William Forde

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    About this ebook

    I was born in Portlaw and when my time comes to lie at the other side of the green sod, it is my wish that half my ashes shall be placed upon my grandparents' grave, William and Mary Fanning, along with my uncles, Willie Fanning and Johnnie Fanning who are also buried there. The remaining half of my ashes will be placed at a spot on the Haworth Moor.

    Apart from writing two musical plays between 2005 and 2009, I’d stopped writing for a number of years. It was only after I had met my wife Sheila that she encouraged me to write some more. So, I decided to write about the place of my birth and to release all future stories of mine in E-book format in a number of Omnibus publications entitled, ‘Tales from Portlaw.’

    Portlaw is famous for perhaps having been a ‘model village’ long before similar village concepts like Saltaire in West Yorkshire or Rowntrees in York were established. Although its fortune as a village of importance has waned over the years and, particularly since the closure of its last major business, the Tannery, it nevertheless remains a potent force in the minds of all of us who were born there.

    Although I was brought to England from Portlaw at the age of 5 years and have lived in England ever since, my heart has always remained in Portlaw; the village of my birth. As the eldest of seven children who was born to an Irish woman with the most imaginative of minds, I was brought up on my mother’s stories. Although a woman of small stature in her earlier days of marriage, stories didn’t come any taller or in more incredible form than those tales told by my mother. Often, they would stretch the bounds of one’s credulity beyond the realms of possibility, and yet, she always made me believe them, or perhaps it is more appropriate to say, ‘want to believe them’.

    So after having been persuaded to return to writing, I decided to recount some of the stories told to me by my mother long ago. Being a person with my own imagination, I have taken the germ of her tale and elaborated it with the aid of 70 years of wisdom and a splash of literary licence to come up with the final result.

    'Sean and Sarah' is my latest story. It is a story of romance that starts in Ireland, then moves to England and concludes back in Ireland. Sean and Sarah seemed destined to marry, but tragedy prevented this occurring.

    So often in life, love is found by two people and is then lost because of circumstances beyond their control. Each of us inwardly love to hear and read about stories between couples that appear to defy all the odds and happily experience reunion; yet so often, life's judgement is less favourable and reality is much harsher.

    I have researched all of the background that provides the setting for these ‘Tales from Portlaw’, thereby enabling me to blend fact with fiction in the most acceptable of ways. I include long-established Portlaw family names in my stories, but with the sole exception of the landlady, Maggie Rocket from the ‘Corn Mill Pub’ in Portlaw, any resemblance to anyone who ever lived or came from Portlaw in either name, likeness or character description is purely co-incidental. I hope that you enjoy.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilliam Forde
    Release dateMar 8, 2014
    ISBN9781310272462
    Tales from Portlaw Volume 5: Sean and Sarah
    Author

    William Forde

    William Forde was born in Ireland and currently lives in Haworth, West Yorkshire with his wife Sheila. He is the father of five children and the author of over 60 published books and two musical plays. Approximately 20 of his books are suitable for the 7-11 year old readers while the remainder are suitable for young persons and adults. Since 2010, all of his new stories have been written for adults under his 'Tales from Portlaw' series of short stories. His website is www.fordefables.co.uk on which all his miscellaneous writings may be freely read. There are also a number of children's audio stories which can be freely heard.He is unique in the field of contemporary children's authors through the challenging emotional issues and story themes he addresses, preferring to focus upon those emotions that children and adults find most difficult to appropriately express.One of West Yorkshire's most popular children's authors, Between 1990 and 2002 his books were publicly read in over 2,000 Yorkshire school assemblies by over 800 famous names and celebrities from the realms of Royalty, Film, Stage, Screen, Politics, Church, Sport, etc. The late Princess Diana used to read his earlier books to her then young children, William and Harry and Nelson Mandela once telephoned him to praise an African story book he had written. Others who have supported his works have included three Princesses, three Prime Ministers, two Presidents and numerous Bishops of the realm. A former Chief Inspector of Schools for OFSTED described his writing to the press as 'High quality literature.' He has also written books which are suitable for adults along with a number of crossover books that are suitable for teenagers and adults.Forever at the forefront of change, at the age of 18 years, William became the youngest Youth Leader and Trade Union Shop Steward in Great Britain. In 1971, He founded Anger Management in Great Britain and freely gave his courses to the world. Within the next two years, Anger Management courses had mushroomed across the English-speaking world. During the mid-70's, he introduced Relaxation Training into H.M. Prisons and between 1970 and 1995, he worked in West Yorkshire as a Probation Officer specialising in Relaxation Training, Anger Management, Stress Management and Assertive Training Group Work.He retired early on the grounds of ill health in 1995 to further his writing career, which witnessed him working with the Minister of Youth and Culture in Jamaica to establish a trans-Atlantic pen-pal project between 32 primary schools in Falmouth, Jamaica and 32 primary schools in Yorkshire.William was awarded the MBE in the New Year's Honours List of 1995 for his services to West Yorkshire. He has never sought to materially profit from the publication of his books and writings and has allowed all profit from their sales (approx £200,000) to be given to charity. Since 2013, he was diagnosed with CLL; a terminal condition for which he is currently receiving treatment.In 2014, William had his very first 'strictly for adult' reader's novel puiblished called‘Rebecca’s Revenge'. This book was first written over twenty years ago and spans the period between the 1950s and the New Millennium. He initially refrained from having it published because of his ‘children’s author credentials and charity work’. He felt that it would have conflicted too adversely with the image which had taken a decade or more to establish with his audience and young person readership. Now, however as he approaches the final years of his life and cares less about his public image, besides no longer writing for children (only short stories for adults since 2010), he feels the time to be appropriate to publish this ‘strictly for adults only’ novel alongside the remainder of his work.In December 2016 he was diagnosed with skin cancer on his face and two weeks later he was diagnosed with High-grade Lymphoma (Richter’s Transformation from CLL). He was successfully treated during the first half of 2017 and is presently enjoying good health albeit with no effective immune system.

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      Book preview

      Tales from Portlaw Volume 5 - William Forde

      'Tales from Portlaw'

      Volume Five

      ‘Sean and Sarah’

      by William Forde

      Copyright © 2014 William Forde

      Published by William Forde at Smashwords

      Revised July 2016

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Author’s Introduction

      Author’s Foreword

      Chapter One: 'Return of the Prodigal Son'

      Chapter Two: 'The early years of sweet innocence in Portlaw'

      Chapter Three: 'The Separation'

      Chapter Four: 'Separation and Betrayal'

      Chapter Five: 'Portlaw to Manchester'

      Chapter Six: 'Salford Choices'

      Chapter Seven: 'Life inside Prison'

      Chapter Eight: 'The Aylesbury Pilgrimage'

      Chapter Nine: 'Sean's interest in stone masonry'

      Chapter Ten: 'Sean's and Tony's Partnership'

      Chapter Eleven: 'Return of the Prodigal Son'

      Author’s Background

      Other Books by this Author

      Connect with William Forde

      Author's Introduction.

      I was born in Portlaw and when my time comes to lie at the other side of the green sod, it is my wish that one third of my ashes shall be placed upon my grandparents' grave, William and Mary Fanning, along with my uncles, Willie Fanning and Johnnie Fanning who are also buried there. A further third of my ashes will be placed on my parents’ grave at Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire with the remaining third at a spot on the Haworth Moor.

      After writing a musical play around 2005, I stopped writing for a number of years. It was only after I had met Sheila that the idea to resume my writing became a serious consideration. She liked my work and expressed a desire that I write some more. Sheila and I got married in Haworth on my 70th birthday of November 10th, 2012.

      I had always wanted to try my hand at writing short stories; particularly stories from the land of my birth, Ireland. This thought eventually became extended to the place of my birth, Portlaw.

      Portlaw is famous for perhaps having been a 'model village' long before similar village concepts like Saltaire in West Yorkshire or Rowntrees in York were established. Although its fortune as a village of importance has waned over the years and, particularly since the closure of its last major business, the Tannery, it nevertheless remains a potent force in the minds of all of us who were born there.

      Although I was brought to England from Portlaw before my 4th year, and have lived in England ever since, my heart has always remained in Portlaw; the village of my birth. As the eldest of seven children who was born to an Irish woman with the most imaginative of minds, I was brought up on my mother's stories. Although a woman of small stature in her earlier days of marriage, stories didn't come any taller or in more incredible form than those of my mother's. Often, they would stretch the bounds of possibility beyond the realms of credulity, and yet, she always made me believe them; or perhaps it is more appropriate to say, 'want to believe them'.

      So when Sheila persuaded me to return to writing, I decided to recount some of the stories my mother told me long ago. Being a person with my own imagination, I have taken the germ of her tale and elaborated it with the aid of 70 years of wisdom and a splash of literary licence to produce the final result.

      I have researched all the background that provides the setting for these 'Tales from Portlaw', thereby enabling me to blend fact with fiction in the most acceptable of ways. I include long-established Portlaw family names in my stories, but with the sole exception of the landlady, Molly Rocket from the Cotton Mill Pub in Portlaw, any resemblance to anyone who ever lived or came from Portlaw in either name, likeness or character description is purely co-incidental. I hope that you enjoy.

      William Forde: May 16th, 2013.

      #####

      Tales from Portlaw

      Volume Five

      'Sean and Sarah'

      Author’s Foreword

      So often in life, love is found by two people and is then lost because of circumstances beyond their control. Each of us inwardly loves to hear and read about stories between couples that appear to defy all the odds and happily experience reunion; yet so often, life's judgement is less favourable and reality is much harsher.

      'Sean and Sarah' opens with teenage love and closes with............................... ?

      #####

      Chapter One: 'Return of the Prodigal Son'

      Sean Fanning drank slowly from his pint of Guinness as he looked around the crowded pub and listened to the comedian that the proprietor Maggie Rockett of the 'Cotton Mill' had hired for the night. This was the first pint of Guinness he'd drunk in Portlaw for over twenty-four years. Sean stood on familiar soil and yet he felt a stranger here. Indeed, he'd been born less than two hundred yards from the location of this pub in William Street, and although the house still stood occupied, nobody by the name of Fanning or closely related to a Fanning had lived there during the past nineteen years. His mum and dad had been the last occupants, but had died during Sean's absence from Portlaw. His mother now rested with generations of other Fannings in the graveyard of 'St. Michael's Catholic Church' on the brow of the hill, whereas the grave of Sean's father was somewhere out in Australia.

      Indeed, the 'Cotton Mill' had only opened in the New Millennium and had stood derelict for many years before its rebirth. Sean could remember the old pub that had once stood here, but for the life of him, he couldn't recall its name. It was a 'spit and sawdust' establishment that was always filled with the smell of whiskey; a place where rebel songs were sung in safety to the melodic sound of an old squeeze box and with enough clouds from pipe smoke and Woodbines to make a pit man cough.

      It had been the favourite haunt of his grandparents, Willie and Mary Fanning after a hard day's slog. When the closing hour of 11.00 pm arrived, the landlord would turn off the lights, light a few candles and bar the door to any travelling Garda who'd cycled the twelve miles across from Waterford in the hope of catching any poachers in the grounds of Curraghmore House.

      Although fewer than two hours had passed since Sean had returned to the town in County Waterford where he'd been born, he could hardly recognise it as the place of his misspent youth in which the formative years of development held fond memories for him. Since Sean had last set foot in Portlaw, this old mill and tannery town had altered so much.

      Indeed, during the 19th century, it is said that Titus Salt from West Yorkshire in England had modelled his works and the Saltaire community in Bradford on Portlaw and its cotton-mill complex. The mill, which had employed the workforce between 1840 and 1932, had been converted into a tannery before Sean was born. After a tannery had been built on its site in 1932, most able-bodied men from Portlaw worked there. Since Sean had left the town twenty-four years earlier, the tannery had closed down. There was constant talk about getting it up and running again, but nothing ever came of it. The gates were locked and the old tannery remained closed, a relic of the past century and of the old millennium.

      Portlaw seemed less inviting than Sean had imagined it to be before he'd decided to return to his roots. Sean was obliged to conclude that Portlaw was different and so was its folk who now lived there; none of whom he appeared to know by facial recognition and most of whom seemed much younger in years than him. The pub he was now drinking in had changed since he'd left Portlaw and the only sign of progress that he welcomed here was its attractive proprietor, Maggie Rockett.

      The crowd of customers jostled around him as they laughed raucously with the comedian who was doing his stand-up routine of mother-in-law and ghastly wife jokes. All continued to drink merrily. From the front door to the back door, it was virtually impossible to move or even lift one's glass of Guinness off the bar; assuming that it could still be found there! Nobody spoke to Sean, apart from a gesture to squeeze past him on their way to the toilets.

      In spite of being an individual who would normally go out of his way these days to shun any status of recognition, for a few minutes, had it been physically possible for him to do so, he would have been prepared to stand up on the bar and yell out at the top of his voice, 'I'm Sean Fanning, formerly of 14, William Street, Portlaw and I've come back home; and if any man here objects to my presence in town, I'll meet him outside and give him instant satisfaction.'

      Part of Sean inwardly resented the fact that he'd returned to the town where he'd been born and was drinking in its most popular pub and not one person had recognised him as a Fanning or had spoken to him in the hour that he'd been there propping up the bar. No one patted him warmly on the back any longer as they had once done, or wished him the time of day as soon as they saw him.

      The current pub patrons seemed to be made up of sons and daughters of his peers he'd grown up with. They were in blissful ignorance that one of their own stood close by; a man whose family ancestors and their rebellious actions against the English had touched the minds and souls of all Irish nationalists since the days of the Cromwellian massacre at Drogheda in 1649. Even his Aunt Mary had to be force-fed by the British during the early 1900's, when as a prisoner she refused to eat their English bread.

      Sean's family tree spread its roots of influence way back to Cromwell's time. The name of Fanning was scratched in the cold slab-stone of many an English prison. In Portlaw itself, the name of Fanning was etched in the cemetery gravestones of the parish church for centuries past. Since parish records had been established, the baptisms of Fanning offspring, confirmations, marriages and deaths could be regularly found in the entries of 'St Michael's Catholic Church' or some other nearby church. Indeed, Sean was a man who'd originated from a family that was seeped in national pride and whose roots spread back centuries and crossed numerous Irish counties.

      His ancestor, Paddy Fanning, had helped to fashion the Republic of Ireland as we know it today and had suffered death by English execution for his rebellious acts. Indeed, Paddy's father, Michael Fanning, was said to have campaigned vigorously to help the starving during the potato famine that blighted the country between 1845 and 1852. Many a poor Irish person considered Michael Fanning to be no less than a saint-in-waiting; a man whose heavenly rewards would come when he occupied the other side of the green sod. It was said that the first crop of potatoes that grew in any Portlaw field and allotment after the famine was strangely shaped and resembled the facial features of Michael Fanning, who for the remainder of his life answered to the name of Spud Fanning.

      In 1858, Paddy Fanning helped to found a secret rebel organisation called, 'The Irish Republican Brotherhood'. The organisation was officially under the leadership of James Stephens and John O'Mahony, but the Fannings of Portlaw knew otherwise. While Stephens and O'Mahony were reportedly the young leaders of the 'Brotherhood', the story that had been passed down by Sean's forefathers was that Stephens and O'Mahony were educated figureheads of the movement, which was essentially controlled by Paddy Fanning, who played a background role.

      Being in the background, reportedly allowed Paddy Fanning to travel to the United States of America where he was instrumental in helping to establish a sister organisation to the 'Irish Republican Brotherhood' that later became known as the 'Fenians'; a name that was derived from the warrior heroes of Irish mythology. This name was soon to be used for both organisations. The 'Fenians' in Ireland spread throughout the south and south east of the country. They had been given promises of money for arms to arrive from America, but little did. Constitutional nationalists and the Roman Catholic Church expressed bitter opposition to the 'Fenian' movement, and one bishop even denounced the organisation from the pulpit with the words: 'Hell is not hot enough to roast the Fenians.'

      As a young child, Sean Fanning had been brought up by the nuns at school, learning the 'Three R's'; reading, writing and arithmetic. Sean would become a teenager before he would be able to remember the names of three English politicians, but having been reared in a staunchly Fenian household as the eldest of seven children, by the age of eight years he could cite you chapter and verse of Irish History between 1600 and 1922, along with naming every Irish hero who'd lived within this period. All of these Irish National heroes held a status of martyrdom in the Fanning household and were arrayed in chronological importance of their time in framed photographs that hung along the lengthy, narrow wall of the family home. These were names stretching back to Paddy Fanning, James Stephens, John O'Mahony, John Boyle O'Reily, John Devoy, John O'Connor Power, Thomas Brennan, Michael Davitt, Bulmer Hobson, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, Tom Clarke and numerous others down to the 1930s. All had built their fame and reputations upon the backs of the men who'd fought the fight before them. Indeed, Sean's father, Sean Fanning Senior, had frequently said that the leather hides of the Tannery were wrapped so tightly around the waists of Portlaw men that if one burst them open, out would pop a Fenian and upon his back would be supported, another Fenian!

      Despite it being 2001 and 'The Good Friday Agreement' having being signed in Belfast on the 10th, April, 1998, Sean had never accepted this peace paper

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