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    Tales From Portlaw Volume 8: The Life and Times of Joe Walsh
    Tales From Portlaw Volume 8: The Life and Times of Joe Walsh
    Tales From Portlaw Volume 8: The Life and Times of Joe Walsh
    Ebook136 pages1 hour

    Tales From Portlaw Volume 8: The Life and Times of Joe Walsh

    By William Forde

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    I grew up on my mother’s stories. Although an Irish woman of small stature and imaginative mind, stories didn’t come any ‘taller’ than those tales told by my mother. They would stretch the bounds of one’s credulity beyond the realms of possibility, and yet, she always made me ‘want to believe them’.

    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 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.

    Although small in size and population, Portlaw is famous for 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.

    I'd had dozens of books published between 1990 and 2005, at which time I had initially decided to hang up my pen. My wife Sheila however, persuaded me to resume my writing of stories after we met in 2010. I had always wanted to write short stories for the adult reader, 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 tales and elaborated them with the aid of 70 years of wisdom and a splash of literary licence to arrive at the final result.

    'The Life and times of Joe Walsh' is Volume Eight in my 'Tales from Portlaw' series. It is a story of failed relationships, broken promises, unfaithful marriages, lesbianism, betrayal, murder and revenge.

    Joe Walsh is an only child whose father rejects her at birth. Her mother always dreamed of becoming a writer but her husband forbade such. Joe’s mother is abandoned by a cruel husband and decides to escape her unhappy marriage in Ireland and begins life anew in England as an unmarried mother in the 1950’s.
    Mother and young child come to Liverpool where they face discrimination as foreigners and being a single parent. Over the years, Joe’s mother re-establishes herself, goes through a bogus church blessing to be identified as a married woman and pursues her long held dreams of becoming a writer.

    Estranged from her parents, Joe’s mother finds true happiness once again in the arms of a friend’s husband, before setting up house and home in Haworth, West Yorkshire.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilliam Forde
    Release dateSep 6, 2014
    ISBN9781311675934
    Tales From Portlaw Volume 8: The Life and Times of Joe Walsh
    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 8 - William Forde

      'Tales from Portlaw'

      Volume 8

      'The Life and Times of Joe Walsh'

      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 Foreword

      Chapter One: ‘The marriage between Margaret Mawd and Thomas Walsh’

      Chapter Two: 'The birth of Joe Walsh'

      Chapter Three: 'Marriage breakup and betrayal'

      Chapter Four: 'The Walsh family breakdown'

      Chapter Five: 'Liverpool lodgings'

      Chapter Six: 'Settled times are unsettled once more'

      Chapter Seven: 'Haworth is heaven is a place on earth'

      Chapter Eight: 'Coming out'

      Chapter Nine: 'Portlaw Revenge'

      Chapter Ten: 'The murder trial of Paddy Groggy'

      Chapter Eleven: 'New beginnings'

      Author’s Background

      Other Books by this Author

      Connect with William Forde

      #####

      Author's Foreword

      I grew up on my mother’s stories and floated through my early years on the images of her dreams. Although an Irish woman of small stature and imaginative mind, stories didn’t come any ‘taller’ than those tales told by my mother. They would stretch the bounds of one’s credulity beyond the realms of possibility, and yet, she always made me ‘want to believe them’.

      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. One third will be placed on my parents' grave, Paddy and Maureen Forde who are buried in Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire and the remainder of my ashes placed at a spot on the Haworth Moor, which holds significance for me and my wife Sheila.

      Although small in size and population, Portlaw is famous for 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.

      I'd had dozens of books published between 1990 and 2005, at which time I had initially decided to hang up my pen. My wife Sheila however, persuaded me to resume my writing of stories after we met in 2010. I had always wanted to write short stories for the adult reader, 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 vivid imagination, I have taken the germ of her tales and elaborated them with the aid of seventy years of wisdom and experience and a splash of literary licence to arrive at the final result.

      'The Life and times of Joe Walsh' is Volume Eight in my 'Tales from Portlaw' series. It is a story of failed relationships, broken marriages, betrayal, murder, revenge and loss of one's dreams. Enjoy.

      #####

      Chapter One: ‘The marriage between Margaret Mawd and Thomas Walsh’

      It was in the spring of 1952 when Mr and Mrs Walsh first made their presence known to the rural population of Portlaw as the newly-arrived Head master and his wife at the village school. Margaret and Thomas Walsh were the only married couple in the village who each possessed a university degree; his in Irish History and hers in Classical Literature.

      The couple originated from Connemara where Mr Walsh had been a teacher for a few years. Armed with a good degree from Dublin University, accompanied by having a number of valuable family contacts in the field of academia, it wasn’t long before the young, ambitious school teacher had applied for the post of Headmaster in the village of Portlaw, County Waterford. Despite his brief period in the teaching profession and being eager to quickly advance his career, Thomas Walsh couldn't see any point in slowing the process down by applying for a post of Deputy Head. To him, such a move was wholly unnecessary and a waste of valuable time. He held the view that a position as Deputy Head was one level below his natural competence level. Consequently, he wasn't surprised in the least when his application for the Headmaster post was successful. Thomas had secured his new position; leapfrogging the in-house applicant who'd already been the Deputy Head in the school for the previous five years.

      The Deputy Head in the Portlaw school was a 47-year-old man who’d been born in County Sligo. He’d been the red-hot favourite to become Headmaster, but to everyone’s surprise, it was the Connemara outsider who got the coveted post.

      The Deputy Head was Paddy Groggy. To have looked at him, one would not instantly have seen head-master material in him. He was bitterly disappointed to have had ‘a Connemara upstart’ with very little experience of the real world of teaching preferred over himself for the position as Head of school. Had Paddy Groggy known that he wouldn’t succeed in his application, he would never have subjected himself to the humiliation of defeat to an outsider with far less teaching experience than himself. Other Deputy Heads in his position wouldn’t have given a second thought to their next move. Most would have ‘upped sticks’ and sought the security of a deputy headship elsewhere or even applied for a headship hundreds of miles away.

      But not Paddy Groggy! For Paddy Groggy, upping sticks and moving elsewhere wasn’t a viable option at this stage in his life. For one thing, his widowed mother was getting on in years and her health was far from good. Paddy was her only offspring and although she'd never been emotionally close to him (or any other person for that matter), she still wanted him around as her whipping boy; someone she could moan and groan to from time to time whenever she saw him.

      The second person in Paddy's life who greatly influenced his every thought and action was his wife, Rosie. Paddy had fallen in love with a woman fifteen years younger than him seven years earlier when he’d been forty and she, a mere twenty five. His wife was a beauty and while most Portlaw folk couldn’t fathom how he’d managed to catch such a stunner, Paddy had simply put his good fortune down to love and fate. Besides, getting married for Paddy was a way of legitimately leaving his mother's house, just as entering the teaching profession instead of running the family farm after the death of his father had provided an escape route for him.

      Little did Paddy know at the time of his marriage that his wife was nothing short of being a ‘gold digger’ who was out to milk him for all she could before she threw him overboard and went in search of her next conquest.

      However, after his wife discovered that Paddy was the only son of a widow who owned ‘Green Meadows Farm,’ she decided to hold her options open for a while longer before declaring her hand. Rosie estimated that ‘Green Meadows Farm’ and all its lands, was worth over £200,000. She was also aware that the Widow Groggy was not a woman in the best of health and could pop her clogs anytime in the near future. Therefore, she decided not to abandon her cuckold husband until a more advantageous time when circumstances would be more favourable to her.

      After discovering the extent of her husband’s future inheritance, Rosie decided to bide her time keeping the family nest warm instead of deserting the goose that sat upon the golden egg. She hadn’t the slightest intention of throwing in a winning hand, even though she no longer loved her husband. The way that she saw it was quite simple. Just because she no longer held any meaningful affection for her husband, such a minor detail wouldn’t be allowed to prevent her obtaining the affections of someone else’s!

      Rosie was an earthy woman who constantly craved male adoration and attention. Soon in her marriage, she learned how enjoyable 'unfaithfulness' could be for her.

      When Paddy Groggy told Rosie that the Headmaster’s job had gone to another applicant from Connemara, instead of the disappointment he’d expected being expressed by his wife, Rosie simply replied, "Never mind, my dear. That simply means more time for you and me to enjoy our walks around Portlaw. Do you know dear, I love this town. I could never think about moving elsewhere.

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