Transcription
The following is a short extract from the interview transcript, copyright of the Cork Folklore Project. If you wish to access further archival material please contact CFP, folklorearchive@gmail.com
F.Q: Coming back to Cork, em had you any kind of funny things em happen when you arrived first, you know misunderstandings or?
L.S.S: Em not, the only thing I remember was when I was in hospital having Charlotte my daughter in Finbarr’s, em the first time I was in hospital I was having a threatened miscarriage you know at twelve weeks, and I had to spend five, six days on a ward, and I do remember the whole religious thing hit me because nobody at that point you know when you go into a hospital the first thing they ask you after your name and address is your religion, and I kind of had a hard time getting my head around that, so I took a big deep breath and said I was Jewish, and the woman kind of looked at me strange. Then when I was on the ward I was in the middle bed of one side, so they were you know six bedded ward, and I was in the middle, and on Sunday morning they came and they curtained me off, and I thought what’s going on here, and you’d be scared back then because I was afraid that I was going to have a miscarriage, and em plus I was older than most people – I was thirty when I had my daughter so I was nervous, and they come in and they put all the curtains around me, and I say to the nurse what’s going on, and then they set up an altar at the end of the ward, and they obviously were going to serve Mass on a Sunday morning. And she said, and I said is there something wrong with me, is there a problem, is the doctor coming, is there something wrong; oh no she said, no, no, no, no, we’re just going to have Mass, and I said so why are you curtaining me off, oh we wouldn’t think it would be right for you to watch! And I remember thinking that was strange. And then the women on the ward, who were lovely, they were lovely women – we had such a good time together actually, except for the ones who were sad who might have had a miscarriage. But they were all passing around Holy Cards, and of course I thought this was hilarious, and they were passing me over, you know, would you like this one, or would you like this one, and sticking them into their bras and that kind of stuff you know; and I thought you know again that was very strange and funny. And then finally when I had Charlotte then, Thank God I didn’t have the miscarriage and I had her, but she was a very premature baby, and she was in the Special Care Unit in Finbarr’s em and a woman, so she wasn’t on the bed next to me, and a woman stopped me in the corridor one day, and I had her in August, and I was up on a farm before that so I was sitting out and I’m dark skinned anyway and I’d gone very tanned from the summer, so this woman stopped me on the ward, and she said oh you’re the one who had the miracle baby! And I said what do you mean the miracle baby? She was very premature, she was under four pounds, but she’s fine! And she said, no, no, no, you’re the black woman who had the white baby. (Laughs). Which amused me.