My late great aunt Marie O’Connor died in 2001. Born in 1905, she had lived in two millennia. My memory of her is as a very old lady who attended Mass every Sunday and sometimes during the week, being a devout Catholic. Just once she showed me a very old album of photographs and in it I saw some sepia photographs of her as a young woman of about twenty, with a very pretty face, dressed in the height of nineteen twenties fashion with a knee length dress with a drop waist, bound chest for the ‘boy look’, stockings, shoes with pointed toes, and a ‘cloche’ hat. I remember her saying to me “I wasn’t a bad looker in those days.” And she was right. There were also pictures of her family growing up, and a handsome group they were too.

She lived her final years in a large old mansion in Belfast which once housed a large family, but when she died it was just her and Orla, an unmarried niece who had lived with her for some years as a companion, and to whom she bequeathed the house for as long as Orla wished to live there, or until she died. After that, it and its contents were to be sold and divided up equally amongst her descendants who were still living in Ireland, which consisted of Sean, me, my sisters and two brothers and our families.

As I live in Belfast, I attended her funeral mass but did not take communion since I am not a practicing Catholic. The priest who presided was new to the parish and did not know her well, so her eulogy was brief and lacking in detail, mainly saying that she was born in the Southern Irish countryside but moved to Dublin when she was about twenty, living with her cousin until she met Ross, the man she was to marry. They moved to Belfast where he became a successful lawyer and she kept house and brought up their six children. After he was knighted, she became Lady O’Connor. That was news to me, also that Ross became a judge. I wished there was some way I could learn more about her life.

I did not attend her burial. I went to one once and hated the sight of the coffin being lowered into the dark earth. Instead, I attended the refreshments in the church hall, hoping to meet some of my cousins but in that I was not very successful. It seems that most of her children ended up in England, America, South Africa and even Australia; truly, the Irish have colonized the world. Only Sean lived close enough to attend, and I met him after he returned from the burial. He knew as little about Aunt Marie’s early life as I did, as evidenced by the information he had provided for her eulogy.

Orla lived until 2022, dying in early June, and then it was our job to sort out the contents of the house prior to be it being sold. I did manage to secure for myself the old photograph album which Aunt Marie had shown me previously.

There was some valuable old furniture, but also a lot of rubbish as tends to happen when someone has lived a long time in the same location. One day I decided to tackle the attic, which was brave of me since it required climbing a wooden stepladder, scrambling through a manhole armed with a torch, and checking through what was to be found there. The thought of rats did cross my mind but fortunately none were to be seen although there were a few odd rustlings which startled me. Fortunately, I don’t believe in ghosts. By the beam of the torch and the little light that filtered through gaps in the roof tiles, I located several trunks and some wooden boxes, all covered in a thick layer of dust. Fortunately I had brought several rags with me which I used to clean the trunks as well as I could.

I opened the first trunk and was surprised to find it was full of vintage clothes, some of which must have been very elegant items in their day which appeared to be from the 1920s and later. The trunk was well sealed and the clothes looked in excellent condition. As I delved into the trunk to get an idea of what was there, thinking that a ‘retro’ clothes shop might be interested in purchasing these items, my hand touched something hard, and I extracted a small but thick notebook, tied up with string, and with a handwritten note on the cover saying. ‘Not to be opened until after I am dead and preferably by one of my female descendants. M.O.’ I wondered what it contained but decided to remove it without telling anyone and read it at my leisure, so I slipped it into the pocket of my trousers.

There were more clothes in another trunk, and some papers in boxes but nothing of real interest. My brother John came up to help remove the trunks by tying some rope around the handles and lowering them down through the manhole. My sister Maggie had a look through the clothes. She is not into ‘retro’ but agreed with me that we might sell them for something, which in due course we did, although I did keep one particularly elegant gown as a memento of Aunt Marie. I had it dry cleaned and if there is ever a suitable fancy dress party, I will wear it in her honour.
Back in my flat I put the notebook aside, stripped off and put all my dusty clothes in the wash before having a shower. As I examined myself naked in front of a full-length mirror, I couldn’t help thinking that I did bear a certain resemblance to Aunt Marie in her youth. I slipped into fresh underwear, a floral skirt and a green blouse. Maggie calls me a ‘girly girl’ and I always laugh and say ‘What’s wrong with that?’

I made myself a cup of coffee and taking the notebook, unfastened the knot holding the string in place. It seemed wrong to cut it. I couldn’t help but think that the last person to touch it had been Aunt Marie herself, and that made me shiver for some reason. Once the string was removed, I opened the cover and was surprised to read as a heading:

‘This is my Final Confession. Bless me Father for I have greatly sinned.’ This didn’t sound like Aunt Marie at all. I read on, and the more I read, the more intrigued I became. This is what Great Aunt Marie wrote:

I was born on 14th February 1905, St Valentine’s Day, the eldest child of Joseph Maguire and Marie, née O’Callaghan, at their tenant farm in Kilcarnie, County Fingal, north of Dublin, and was duly baptized in St Brigid’s Church.

There is little to tell about my childhood. I think we were on the poorest land in the county as Daddy barely made enough money to provide for his increasing family. As soon as I was old enough, I was expected to conclude my education at the local village school, which left me able to read, write and do simple arithmetic, in order to help around the house, especially with my two brothers and three sisters, and also around the farm.

There was little social life in the village and most of it was organized by the church. This included an annual dance where, when I was old enough I circled the hall with village youths, to the music of the village band, doing my best to avoid them stepping on my feet and also pressing their tumescent groins against me. There was absolutely nothing attractive about them.

I was brought up in ignorance of what it means to be a girl. My mother never told me about the ‘birds and bees’, something for which I still find it hard to forgive her. I knew there was a few differences between boys and girls, since I had some younger brothers that I had to help bathe and dress. I knew I didn’t have a ‘dangly bit’ like they did. When I was fourteen, my breasts started to develop, but what really upset me was my first menstrual flow when I was fifteen. I thought I was about to bleed to death and ran screaming to my mother, and now that she could no longer put it off, she explained to me what it meant, how to deal with it, and how I could ‘look forward’ to it happening every month until I was quite old, as I thought forty or so was then. She called it ‘the curse’ and I could see why.

Time passed and I was approaching my eighteenth birthday. I even had a boyfriend of sorts although I did not encourage him in any way. We had kissed once and he tried to force his tongue into my mouth which I didn’t like and I bit it, but not hard, and he forgave me but didn’t try kissing me again. I suppose I might have gone on to marry him for want of anything better if it hadn’t been for my cousin Agnes.

Agnes lived in Dublin and was a sophisticated city girl, the complete opposite of me. I had met her a couple of times and we got on very well despite our very different upbringings. We exchanged cards at Christmas and included a brief note on our year’s activities. She told me she was a shorthand-typist in a solicitors’ office and attended some concerts and plays in Dublin. Compared to her I had little enough to report, as each year seemed to meld into the next.

It was a complete surprise to me when in the June following my eighteenth birthday, I received an invitation from Agnes to visit and stay with her in her flat in Dublin. I showed it to my Mammy without much hope and she showed it to Daddy. As I expected he was not pleased, saying that they couldn’t do without me and anyway, what did I want to go to Dublin for; everything I needed was in Kilcarnie. Mammy spoke to me privately, saying that she thought I deserved a holiday, the first one I could ever remember, and that she would pick the right time and speak to Daddy, but I should say nothing to him.

Imagine my surprise when a few days later he spoke to me in his gruff voice and said he had decided that they could spare me for a week “But no longer mind?” I was so excited, and immediately wrote to Agnes before he changed his mind.

So it was that early one Monday morning in August, having received correspondence from Agnes telling me that she had arranged a week’s holiday, I took the weekly omnibus from Kilcarnie to Dublin. Before I left, to my great surprise, my father handed me a one pound note with the admonition not to ‘fritter it away of gee-gaws’. This I solemnly promised not to do. I only had the few shillings my mother could spare me, so this was an unexpected bonus, and I had little doubt that Mammy had been behind the gift.

As we travelled through the centre of town, Dublin seemed enormous to me, and fortunately Agnes met the bus, for which I was grateful as although I had her address, I had no idea where it was located, and would have had to ask directions and maybe walk miles. As it turned out, her flat was only about ten minutes walk away, and with our non-stop chatter, the time disappeared in a flash. I quickly realised that my dress of brown linen with flowing skirts over petticoats was very old-fashioned as most of the women including Agnes, were wearing straight skirts, pale-coloured silk stockings and shoes with low heels, a pointed toe, and sometimes an ankle strap. I was doing my best to take all this in while attending to Agnes’s conversation.

Agnes’s home was on the second floor of a four-storey block of flats and consisted of a sitting/dining room with a kitchenette at one end, a bathroom, and two bedrooms, each with a double bed. It seemed like a palace to me and I wondered how she could possibly afford it. I thought that typists in the city must earn good money. Agnes was pleased with my admiration of her home.
“I have visitors from time to time, so that is why I have two beds,” she said. There was no explanation of why she needed a double bed herself, and in my naivety, I presumed she just like room to spread out.

I was shown to my room and left to unpack my case with its paltry selection of two dresses (one for best), two skirts, some blouses and cotton underwear, plus a pair of ‘best’ shoes with a one inch heel. I never wore makeup – what would be the point on a farm? If Agnes thought my wardrobe very poor, she said nothing. I could see that she was well set up, since she was wearing a very nice dress with stockings and shoes with two-inch heels when she met me. Her hair was arranged in the latest short style known as a ‘bob’. I tried not to feel envious, being determined to enjoy our week together, but I now understood why some women had looked strangely at me as I passed them by. I must have looked like a creature from another country, and in a way I was.

I felt obliged to offer Agnes my pound to defray expenses for the week, but was very relieved when she refused to accept it. I’m sure she guessed that it was almost all I had. After insisting as long as was proper, I grateful accepted her refusal. It was now mid-afternoon, so we went for a short walk around the district and I felt quite out of place in my plain unfashionable attire when all the women seemed to be elegantly dressed. When I mentioned this to Agnes, she smiled and began to sing

“In Dublin's fair city,
Where the girls are so pretty,
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,
As she wheeled her wheel-barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"

I could not help laughing. This was going to be a wonderful week.
On Tuesday, Agnes took me further afield and I was quite amazed by the wonderful buildings and the River Liffey, which I was aware from my limited schooling, rose in the Wicklow Mountains, not far from where I was born. The sight of all the people quite overwhelmed a country girl from a small village.

At about noon we called into a café and I insisted on paying for our lunch which consisted of colcannon and beef, which incidentally was the cheapest item on the menu. It was my first experience of ‘eating out’.

That evening when we sat talking, Agnes said to me that she supposed I might wonder how she managed to afford such a large flat. I blushed and didn’t know what to say, and she laughed.
“Well, it’s not because of the wage I get paid at the solicitors’ I can assure you, reasonable though it is. No, I have a part-time job which pays much better. I am a film actress.”

I was quite startled. “You mean like Hollywood?” I asked and she smiled.

“Not exactly. They are made in a small studio specializing in films made for showing in gentlemen’s clubs.”

She laughed at the puzzled look on my face. “Gentlemen like to watch films of girls undressing to their pretty underwear or wearing muslin gowns which are almost but not quite see-through. It’s quite respectable – we don’t do anything that we shouldn’t.”

I was blushing just at the thought of it.

“I’m due to make one tomorrow night. You can stay here if you like, or would you like to come along and watch what happens?”

I took a deep breath. After all, I was on holiday and Mammy and Daddy would never get to hear about it, so I said, “I’d like to come along’.

“Good girl,” she said.

The following evening we left the flat about six o’clock, me in my ‘best’ frock and shoes, but without stockings as the only ones I had were woolen and would not be suitable. The studio which was called ‘Ace Films’, was only fifteen minutes' walk away. Agnes stopped at a door in an anonymous plain brick wall and knocked three times. A shutter opened and a face peered out. He craned his head to look at me.

“Hello Agnes, who’s your friend?” he said in a gruff voice.

“Evening Fred. She’s Marie, my cousin from the country, come to see how we make films. Can she come in?” said Agnes.

The shutter closed for a minute and then the door opened and we were let in. We walked down a corridor which led into a large room with big lights on stands and two film cameras. A tall man stood there, and Agnes walked up to him, with me trailing behind.

“Evening Mr Mathews. I’ve brought along my cousin Marie to see how we make films. I hope that’s alright?”

Mr Matthews’ eyes swept me from top to toe. I was a bit of a looker in those days, and he looked past my old-fashioned clothing and seemed to like what he saw because he said “Sure, Agnes. She can sit behind the cameras and see what goes on.”

Agnes led me to a dressing room where there were four other girls, all very pretty and in various states of undress. My presence was explained, and they all greeted me pleasantly. Just then there was a knock on the door.

“Are you decent, girls?’ came Mr Mathews voice, and there were some squeals as the girls took up various items of clothing to cover themselves before he came in. In the light of what was to happen, this seemed a little strange in retrospect.

“I just heard from Gloria. Her monthlies came early so she can’t be here tonight,” he said. Then looking at me, he seemed to have an idea because he said, “Can I have a word outside, miss?”

I followed him out of the door and to my surprise he said. “You heard what I said. We’re one short tonight. Would you be interested in taking her place? There’s five pounds in it for you.”

Five pounds! I’d never had so much money in my life, so of course I agreed.

“The other girls will tell you what to do and the film director will call out instructions as we film.” This was still in the days of silent films, so there was quite a lot of talking going on while filming took place.

I went back into the dressing room and told Agnes and she said she would take me to ‘wardrobe’ to get my clothes. It seemed that the story line was very simple. The ‘set’ was a locker room and the girls would enter wearing gym slips and carrying hockey sticks, chatting and laughing like they had just finished a game. Then they would undress and put on some pretty clothes before leaving.

The wardrobe mistress was called Mary. I was introduced and she ran a practiced eye over me.

“You’re about the same size as Gloria. I’m sure you’ll fit into her costume,’ she said. “Strip off darling and I’ll get your clothes.”

I hesitated. I was a bit shy in those days. “Hurry up, darling,” she said. “Time is money and they are waiting for you. Don’t be shy – we’re all girls here and you’ve got nothing I haven’t seen before a hundred times.”

The thought of the five pounds galvanized me into action and I stripped off and put on the blue knickers, blue cotton bra and gymslip she gave me. Then the makeup girl sat me down and put some lipstick on me and some powder on my cheeks. I looked at myself in the mirror and almost gasped at the effect. Agnes took charge of the underclothes and dress I would be changing into, while I took the hockey stick and we returned to the studio. The lights were now blazing and a man was standing at each of the cameras. Another man, who introduced himself as Mr O’Brien, was the director, who would be telling us all what to do.

We started with a rehearsal of entering the locker room, laughing and chatting and he asked for us to repeat the action, but this time with a bit more animation. As we entered the set, I could hear the quiet whir of the cameras as they shot film. We put down the hockey sticks and began to strip off with our backs to the camera. Each of us had a small pile of very pretty nylon and lace-trimmed underwear to put on and we were told to put it on slowly and sensuously. The underwear was in pink, not that it would show on black and white film but I now think the reason was that it wouldn’t overexpose like white material might. There was a brassiere, knickers, suspender belt, a siip and some sheer stockings. Once we had put on the bra, knickers, and slip, then we could turn around towards the cameras, although we were told not to look at them. We sat on the bench to put on our stockings. I had never worn silk stockings in my life, and Agnes showed me how to put them on, being careful not to ladder them.

“Slow and sensuous, girls,” called out Mr O’Brien. He called for one of the cameras to do a closeup of my legs. I had to pull up the lace-trimmed hem of the slip, stretch out my leg and slowly and sensuously run my hands up one of my legs in their silken covering. It felt amazing.

I had never worn such pretty underwear in my life before, and I was starting to realise what I had been missing. The final item was a pretty dress in the latest straight style with a drop waist.. I wanted to look at myself in a mirror and see what it looked like.

There were plenty more closeups to be shot, including our faces as we smiled and looked to the left or right of the camera. It was explained to me that these shots would be cut in with other shots and we would look as though we were admiring the other girls. I had no idea what that meant.
The story ended with us all leaving the locker room, and it had taken about four hours to shoot. When I asked Agnes how long she thought the film would run for, she surprised me by saying ‘about ten minutes’. There was a lot I had to learn about film-making!

Back at the dressing room I had an opportunity to look at myself in the full-length mirror before undressing. When I was younger, people used to tell me I was pretty, but now I didn’t just look pretty, I felt pretty, and feminine. I wondered how I could go back to the farm and the drab clothes I always wore. Agnes did not fail to notice the look on my face.

Before we left the studio, Mr Matthews gave us our money, and I was surprised when he gave me an extra pound for agreeing to step in at such short notice. I could harly believe my luck.

When we arrived back at her flat, Agnes asked what I thought of the film-making experience.

“I thought it was so interesting,” I said. “About once a year a man brings a travelling picture show to the village hall, and somebody plays the piano as the moving pictures appear on a white sheet used as a screen. I’ve never seen what goes on behind the camera, and I imagine it was not unlike the way they make films in Hollywood, although with a lot more people and the stars of course.”

“Well, now you have seven pounds, so what do you propose to do with it?”

I suddenly felt that I had a problem. I couldn’t possibly take it back to Kilcarnie or Daddy would be wondering where the money came from, and probably think the worst, so I confessed that frankly I didn’t know what to do with it.

“Would you like to buy some fashionable new clothes and underwear?” asked Agnes

Again, I had a problem. How could I possibly take new clothes back to Kilcarnie?

“How’s this for a solution?” asked Agnes. “If you would like to buy some clothes, you can leave them here with me. I have a suitcase which would do for your underwear, and you can hang any frocks you buy in my wardrobe. I do hope you will come back and see me again and then you can wear them.”

That seemed the best solution, so I agreed to it, but I also insisted that she take some money for my keep, and she reluctantly accepted a pound.

The following day we did what all young women like to do – we went shopping. At the end of the day, I had two complete sets of underwear in crepe de chine, knickers, slips and a suspender belt, together with four pairs of silk stockings. I had a well-developed bust, but the fashion then was for the ‘boy look’, so Agnes showed me how to bind my breasts to flatten them. I hoped that fashion would change again so that I could free them!

I bought two new dresses in the current style with a long narrow skirt, one for ‘best’, and also a new pair of shoes and a fashionable ‘cloche’ or bell-shaped hat. The last thing I acquired was some basic makeup of lipstick and powder. By the time I had finished, most of my money was spent, but we had enough to stop for a bowl of Irish Stew while we were shopping. I think Agnes had as much fun as I did, seeing me turn from a ‘caterpillar into a butterfly’ as she put it. There was one final thing to do and that was to have my long hair cut and styled in the latest ‘bob’ fashion which I thought looked very stylish.

The week was going much too fast. Suddenly it was Saturday, and Agnes suggested that we go to one of Dublin’s famous pubs where they played great Irish music, and I readily agreed. After a bath and dressed in my new clothes, with makeup applied by Agnes, who was teaching me how to apply it, and my hair styled, I looked like a typical Dublin city girl.

Agnes looked at me, gave me a nod of approval and led me to the full-length mirror in her bedroom where I could admire myself. I could hardly believe that I was looking at the same girl who came up from the country only a matter of days ago, now looking so very different.

Before we left the flat Agnes gave me a word of warning. “You are a very pretty girl, Marie. There will be men at the pub. Most will be alright, but some will think that for the price of a drink they can get into your knickers. Stick with me and we will have a good night, alright?

I’m sure I blushed as I said, “Alright Agnes.”

The pub was nearly full, but they found seats for two pretty girls and soon we were having a lovely time. As Agnes had predicted, we seemed to be the centre of attention from the young men present. We were offered drinks by two handsome young men who seemed to be friends, but I remembered Agnes’s advice, and like her I drank sparingly. Of course, I didn’t know how much for me might be too much while chatting, and if I’m honest, flirting with the two young men. Then everything changed.

To be continued.