Home by Carrie Sherbourne

Author:Carrie Sherbourne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2017-07-06T04:00:00+00:00

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My cousin Kelly had been down for a few days after Valentine’s weekend. She lived in Dublin but as it was half-term, she came down and stayed with us. I liked spending time with Kelly; we had so much in common and get on well. We went in to town to do some shopping. Mum had given me some money, as it would be my 16th birthday next month, and said I could choose something to wear as Kelly would enjoy helping me. It was hard to believe I was going to be 16. Kelly was 17 and looking forward to leaving school next year after her Leaving Cert. She wanted to be a chef and move to Australia when she qualified. She was lucky because she knew exactly what she wanted to do. I had just finished my mocks for the inter cert and had no idea what I wanted to do. The only thing I was sure of is that I did not want to spend a minute longer in that school than was necessary. I was going to leave after my junior cert and that was it. No way was I staying for any more abuse!

Prior to the mocks, in History, one of my least favourite subjects, especially since coming to Ireland, since it was all about hating the English, there had been another commotion. It seems I just couldn’t escape it. I couldn’t do right for doing wrong. I remembered always drifting off in History at my old school in England since I found it so boring. All about the royal family, the Edwardians, The Tudors, The Victorians, so many names so many titles. What did it really matter? I was living now, in this century. The Queen was Elizabeth II married to the Duke of Edinburgh, hence I was doing a Duke of Edinburgh award before I was whisked away to the good old Emerald Isle. I was not particularly a Royalist per se, but was not particularly against it either. I did rather enjoy the celebrations of her Silver Jubilee though. We had the pub at the time in England and I was 12 years old. She was coming to visit Coventry and I remember running like I was in the Olympics from the pub on East Street down to Fairfax Street to catch a glimpse of her. I had only ever seen her on the TV so I guess it was special, to say I had seen the Queen of England. And glimpse her I did. The crowds were immense. It was a lovely sunny day and her entourage was going down Fairfax street, and up by the new sports centre, which, incidentally was in the shape of an elephant. That was the symbol for Coventry, its coat of arms. It was to represent strength apparently, something to do with Coventry rebuilding itself after it was destroyed by the Germans during the blitz of World War 2. It was a mighty symbol and the sports centre was a mighty building, and our Queen came to visit.

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