This nightmare disease took away my glamorous mother: The devastating effects ... - Daily Mail
Mum was the eldest of 14, brought up in a remote Southern Irish farmhouse. She found a room in a boarding house in Fulham – the only one that didn’t have a ‘No Irish, no dogs, no blacks’ sign hanging in the window. Yet she was a welcome change from the brassy, made-up casino girls that my father liked to go dancing with. For his part, Dad was no angel – he was to play an instrumental role in one of the crimes of the century, the Eastcastle Street robbery of 1952, when he was at the wheel of the getaway car, speeding away with a haul of £6 million in today’s money. Dad fell for the innocent young Irish girl, and she for him. It didn’t take Mum long to replace her shapeless outfits with the latest Dior dresses and glittering sapphire rings that shone like her eyes. She was a gifted cook who could throw together a feast with just a few ingredients, but she rarely needed to do so – my father wined and dined her at the finest restaurants in London. She felt like a film star, and life was like a giddy, glorious Hollywood movie. After the Eastcastle Street robbery, they moved to a large house, and the innocence that had so beguiled my father was gradually corrupted by wealth and everything that went with it. Mum. Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
