Becoming Myself: The True Story of Thomas Who Became Sara (7 page)

Of course, I hadn’t the slightest idea why exactly it was that I felt this need to be someone else. What I do remember is that this entire period of my life was dominated by the most awful verbal and physical abuse, and I was to leave this phase of my life carrying a sense of worthlessness and rejection: I left my childhood without being able properly to read and write, or to speak coherently. And yet, my mind was able to articulate things to me in the most amazing inner voice. I could see things and understand truths that I was never supposed to see for one so ‘retarded’.

As I entered puberty, I was also entering into an emotional wilderness, without any of the skills which would enable me to survive. I was entering into a phase of my life that was to see my female identity and nature become even more noticeable, but without ever being appreciated for what it really was. I didn’t have the slightest hint that my mother and brothers and sisters had, in fact, noticed that I had very
strong female traits during my earlier years. They would later comment on it when I received my diagnosis, but at this stage, they ignored them or used them as a justification for putting me down, calling me a ‘cry baby’ or a ‘cissy’.

I spent the last six months of primary school working at home, cooking, cleaning, minding my younger brothers and sisters, changing their nappies, taking them for walks and entertaining them in whatever ways I could. Such was my desperation for my mother’s acceptance that I was prepared to go to any lengths to win her affection. So much so that I would wait until everyone was asleep in their beds before getting up and going down stairs to clean up and get the kitchen and sitting room gleaming. I would wash all the ware, clean the cooker, do the dusting, wash and polish the floors and set the table for the whole family. I would then go to bed, hoping everything would be a pleasant surprise for my mother and that she would treat me better. It was a complete waste of time: but it took years to accept this. All my family commented about was my setting the table for left-handers! It drove them all crazy.

1972 was a momentous year. On Sunday 30 January, 13 people were shot dead by the British Army and the incident was to go down in history as
Bloody Sunday
. There was the burning of the British embassy and the throwing of thirteen coffins against the burning building. It was also the year in which eleven Israelis were massacred at the Munich Olympics and Michael Jackson made it to number one with his song ‘Ben’. It was also the year during which I started work, at twelve years of age. As soon as we were able or showed a willingness to give up school, our mother made sure we started work and earned a wage to support our large household. Education was not a priority for my parents, and not one of my brothers and sisters was to finish school.

I was well below the legal age and my first jobs were very hard and the wages very low. In fact, I have often described my first years of work as something out of a Charles Dickens novel. There were no rights for younger workers back then. No matter how sick I was, I was still expected to arrive at
work and put in a full day’s hard graft. But, more importantly, in order to survive in the workplace, it was necessary to become an adult of sorts; all the talk was adult talk, all the humour, adult humour; all of which I was expected to keep up with, but which went completely over my head. I was lost and out of my depth. To make matters worse, I was becoming more aware of the fact that I was not developing physically as I thought I should. In other words: I wasn’t developing into the girl I felt myself to be inside.

My first job was in a clothing factory on the Kylemore industrial estate. I started on a Monday and my wages were just £6.50 per week. My job was to press the hems of trench coats; an extremely repetitive and boring job. I had had a heavy infection by the Wednesday and spent a lot of time going to the toilet to blow my nose. It was very embarrassing and my boss noticed that I was leaving my post quite a bit. On enquiry into what was wrong I told him I’d had my appendix removed and that I was still in pain. Well, it was true and at least it sounded better than I just had a heavy cold. It worked, and I lost my job after just three days. He told me I should not be working until my scar had fully healed. Of course he was right, but my mother didn’t see it in quite the same way. All I got out of the £6.50 was about 50p.

My next job was at Ryan’s Petrol Station on the Rathmines Road. My wages there were £7.50 per week. I worked two shifts there, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 11 p.m.; and I was still only twelve years of age. I had lied about my age. Because I was tall for one so young, I was able to pass myself off as a teenager of 14 or 15. It meant, of course, getting up very early in the mornings to get the number 18 bus from Kylemore Road, then walking from Rathmines Garda station to the end
of the Rathmines Road, another mile or so away. I was given just 50–75p from my wages by my mother, and from that I had to pay my bus fares and for some of my lunches. Also, I would have to make my own lunches and do my own chores either before going into work for the three o’clock shift or when I came home from doing the early shift. It didn’t matter how exhausted I was, I still had to do them and often before getting anything to eat. I felt that this was terribly unjust given that my other brothers did not get the same treatment. And some of my brothers who could do the chores were allowed to get away without doing them. But things were changing.

The more time I spent out of the house, the more remote I felt from the family and experienced a sense of genuine elation at not being under my mother’s control. And there was no-one to squeal if I did something wrong or for making mistakes. For those few hours at least no-one could give me a hard time because I was using my left hand. I could have conversations with adults without worrying about what they would say to my mother. And I would jump at the chance of doing overtime as it meant another 50p or so for my pocket money and it meant being out of the house even longer.

I met Marie who worked across the road in Martin’s rental shop. She was about 17 and I really liked her. I would look for any opportunity to go over and have a chat. I always liked talking to other girls, though it always seemed strange to be doing this as a
boy
, or at least in a boy’s body. But I had no sisters at this time that I could talk to, as they were all younger than me, which deepened my ever-increasing sense of loneliness and isolation. As awful as the isolation felt, though, it was still better than being in such a stress-filled house.

I needed to earn more money because of having so little pocket money — the little I had was being spent on my younger brothers and sisters and on buying my mother gifts for this that and the other — so I came up with the idea of washing cars in the garage. It was not being used for anything else and so I decided to make use of it. I started by asking the man who owned the rental shop across the road if he would like to have his car washed. He said he would and I was delighted. I told him it would be 50p and he agreed.

‘Make sure you so a good job now.’

‘No problem…’

‘And make sure you wax it when you’ve finished washing it.’

‘Okay.’

‘Put plenty of elbow grease into it.’

‘Okay, but where will I get the elbow grease?’

‘The lads in the auto shop two doors down will get it for you.’

So I confidently strolled into the auto shop. ‘Heya Paddy, Martin from across the road wants me to use elbow grease for waxing his car. Do you have any?’

Paddy looked at me in disbelief, but never let on. ‘I don’t have any here at the moment. If you come back later, I’ll make some up for you.’

‘Okay, see you later. Oh, by the way, how much is it?’

‘Don’t worry about that.’

‘Okay, thanks, see you later.’

And I did call back later, looking for the elbow grease. And when I found out that he had no elbow grease I was left puzzled at what to do next, so I went to tell Martin. He just smiled and said not to worry. It never occurred to me that they were having a bit of fun at my expense.

As the oil crisis of 1972 deepened and filling stations ran out of petrol, causing some to close down, I was let go from my job, but I got another one just as quickly, in Robinson’s Butchers on Dunville Avenue in Ranelagh. I worked on the delivery van and travelled to various locations, one of which was an orphanage in Co Wicklow.

I enjoyed working in the butchers, but I could have done without having to get the heads of the cows out of the freezer first thing on a Monday morning. Another of my jobs was pickling the corned beef and bacon, while another was making the sausages.

Mary came in and did the canteen work and made sandwiches for our breaks. She would fry the freshest bacon and sausages and put them between slices of white bread and butter. They were fantastic. We could smell the lovely sausages and bacon and hear the sizzling as they fried. I looked forward to going to work, knowing what awaited me at my ten-o’-clock tea break, especially as I rarely had a decent breakfast at home.

Working in Robinson’s nearly cost me my life. I had just started work on a Monday morning and was told to go into the freezer to take down a carcass and bring it into the shop. When I went to lift the carcass off the hook, I received the most awful electric shock. The lads knew the bars holding the meat were live and thought it would be a great laugh to see me get such a shock. Needless to say, I wasn’t very impressed.

Later that same day I was cleaning the yard and decided to wash it down with water from the tap against the yard wall. I had forgotten about the earlier incident and never made any connection between the live bars in the freezer and the water coming from the tap. In fact, the first time I turned the tap, there was no problem. However the second time I put my
hand on the tap, the electric current went right through me. I could not get my hand off the tap and felt my life draining away as I was being electrocuted. I was only saved because one of the workers, Richard, who came out of the shop just in time, saw what was happening and grabbed a wooden bench, using it to wedge me away from the tap. I was in the most indescribable pain, yet no-one made sure I was taken to the hospital; not even my mother when I told her what had happened. I have suffered with palpitations and a twitch ever since. I was made to go to work the next day despite still being in a lot of pain.

The palpitations got worse by the day and came to a head on Christmas Eve, 1973. I was helping my mother clean the house and prepare for Christmas morning. It was about 9.30 in the evening, when it felt for all the world like my heart had finally stopped and I was dying. I completely freaked out and kept screaming, ‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.’ It was truly awful. My parents decided to leave me until the next morning and, if the problem persisted, to take me to Our Lady’s Hospital in Crumlin. Christmas morning came and I was no better, as I had spent the night afraid to go to sleep for fear I would never wake up again. My father saw that I was in a very bad way and so took me to the hospital early that morning. They diagnosed me as having palpitations and advised my parents to keep stress to a minimum: fat chance of that happening.

I lived in a constant state of fear from that time on. It was to be many years before I could stop checking to see if I still had a pulse. Added to this I was suffering from waking nightmares, which were worsening and becoming more frequent, keeping me in a morbid state of fear. I am not sure if my palpitations were simply as a result of that electric shock, or
the growing tension I felt between my ‘real’, female, self and the young man I was supposed to be to everyone around me. I was beginning to feel more like a freak because my body wasn’t doing what I was expecting it to do, and these feelings grew by the day.

After some months working at various jobs, having been laid off by Robinson’s, I found myself unemployed, so I called into Weavex on the Kylemore Road and asked if I could speak to the manager. I was led up to Bernard Nolan’s office. He was sitting with his back to me and didn’t turn around when I spoke: ‘Excuse me, mister, do you have any jobs?’

‘What age are you?’

‘I’m fifteen,’ I lied. In fact I was still only fourteen.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Thomas Dunne.’

‘And where do you live?’ I told him my address and he just said, ‘Start on Monday at eight o’clock.’

‘Thank you,’ I said and left the office, before he had a chance to change his mind. I never let on that my father had worked there previously, because, even at fourteen, I wanted to get on in life on my own merit and not have to use other people’s names.

On my first day in Weavex, I was a cause of curiosity as some of the other staff recognised me as one of the Dunnes and remembered that my father had worked there some time earlier, so I was bombarded with questions. I was told to lift some large boxes and my word were they heavy; so heavy I don’t know where I got the strength to do it, but I had to, it was as simple as that.

One of my jobs was to be the ‘nipper’, which meant doing the shopping for the staff. I had to make a shopping list and
take it to the shops on Decies Road. I would leave a large order into Borza’s, the chipper, then to the Londis supermarket. I would make my shopping list out on pieces of cardboard, starting in the packaging and despatch department where I worked, then out to the department where they made the warps and quills and where the looms were for making labels; then into the weaving department, or ‘shed’, as it was then called. It was an amazing experience to walk amongst all those looms with their loud repetitive clacking noise, so loud that you could hardly hear yourself speak and so you would have to shout at the top of your voice. It was strange being in the very place in which I used to bring my father his lunch and to meet the same workmates who worked with him and to be asked if I was his son. I was to spend the next five years of my life here: almost my entire adolescent life and entry into adulthood.