1980s REVISITED:EMIGRATION: Orna Mulcahyremembers her exile in London
IN THE EARLY 1980s you didn't fly to London. Not if you were emigrating, anyway. Air travel was a fantasy - Ryanair's £99 return fares were strictly for business; Aer Lingus's £200 tickets sheer extortion. So the ferry it was. Departing Dún Laoghaire at 9pm, my little sisters there to wave goodbye. Three, four or five times a year I made the journey in what always seemed to be stormy weather. Occasionally the Legion of Mary were there, handing leaflets to girls who looked like they might be heading to abortion clinics.
The fare was about £20, one way. It was more if you took your bike, but there was no charge for transporting a cage of chickens, say, or a cat, as people often did. Elderly men carried suitcases held together with a belt or twine, while women were hung about with children and bulging plastic bags. Guys with sideburns had their earthly goods jammed down into duffle bags. I felt distinctly smart in my Paul Costelloe tweed coat - Princess Di had one the same - and my Samsonite suitcase, won in a competition.
A delay meant being corralled in a windy shed by the water's edge, the air heavy with the smell of fags and damp donkey jackets. Then the press of bodies, through the barrier, the stampede for seats, the unrolling of sleeping bags, the surge towards the bar as the boat crossed into international waters and the shutters rattled up, then the fella lurching towards you, a pint in either hand, then whoops as the boat listed . . . sorry, sorry, as the cream slopped out onto your shoulder or into your hair. The toilet doors were always broken and the shiny paper sheets were no match for the vomit that puddled on the floor, or dribbled down the front of the man slumped beside you. An upgrade to the Pullman Lounge got you comfier seats and tea and biscuits, but there was always the danger of meeting a B Comm graduate who'd gone into merchant banking and was developing an accent.
At Holyhead, more queuing and corralling before they let you on the train, but at least they didn't spray for lice as they had done in previous times. With a sleeper you got spotless sheets and a quiet wake-up tap on the door at Euston.
At the magazine where I worked, some colleagues weren't quite sure where "Aahland" was, or even that it was a separate country. Others greeted me endlessly with "Top of the morning", while over the phone my name came back to me as Una, Ur what, or Orca. You tried not to be drawn on Northern Ireland. Several friends had brothers or boyfriends in the North, or in the Falklands. After a drink or two, it would come out, how only bloody cowards would blow up horses.
The Irish tended to stick together. Half of Dublin was living in London. The other half had gone to New York or Boston or Sydney. The arty ones were in Paris, and the rest were in Spain teaching English. You saw familiar faces everywhere, from Farm Street to Camden Town. Work came easily. The City was booming and there were jobs in banking and stockbroking and law firms. RTÉ sent Pat Cox over to interview the "New Irish" in London rather than the poor old brickies who lived in Kilburn and Cricklewood.
People earned big salaries, but not at Harpers & Queen where it was assumed that everyone had a private income. I was on £6,000 a year with lots of perks . . . endless books and theatre tickets, free make-up and leftover tights and belts from the fashion cupboard run by two colleagues. Early models for Absolutely Fabulous, they sat in a permanent mess of flimsy designer clothes, declaring everything to be a compleeeeeete nightmare!
You could go to the opening of something almost every evening, and live on canapes. Work was booking sessions with David Bailey or Mario Testino (considered a bit of a silly boy) or taking copy from far flung contributors such as Stirling Moss or astrologer Patric Walker, who lived on a Greek island without a phone. A parade of celebrities through the office had to be fussed over. I made tea for Wham! and went to lunch with Barbara Cartland.
I kept all sorts of things to bring home in the Samsonite, along with useless scraps of information, such as the correct way to pronounce Cholmondeley or the fact that outside London it was considered a teeny bit vulgar to have a post code, rather than something off-road, such as The Glebe, Little Diddlington or Hants, information I haven't had too much use for since.
After four-and-a-half years, air fares had come down sufficiently to allow me to emigrate all over again, this time to Australia. I haven't been on a car ferry since.