CHAPTER 1
The Beginning

I was born in Wakefield, West Yorkshire on February 10, 1921. My mother, Emily (née Clarke) was also born there. My father, Joseph Wiseman came from Salford in Lancashire. He had completed his apprenticeship as a paper ruler and travelled to different places in England as a journeyman. During his travels, he met my mother, continued his travels and then went to the war in 1914. He served in Gallipoli and in France. He spent the last nine months of WorId War I as a prisoner of the Germans in Northern France. He was repatriated in bad health, joined up again with Mother and they married.

I was the first born child. My godparents were my uncle and aunt, Harry and Annie Clarke. They took me to St. Austin's church that was staffed by the Jesuits at that time. Harry and Annie were sentimentally pro-Irish then and the song about Kevin Barry was sung in Irish circles. They suggested I should be called Kevin and my parents agreed. But the priest, probably an Englishman, required that a baby be given a Christian name, so they also called me Joseph after my father.

When I was 2 years old, my parents moved to Sheffield so that my father could find work. We lived in Heeley, sharing the house with an old man that I supposedly called "Gan-gan." My memories of this time were waiting for my father to come home from work and telling us how the bus got stuck on the hill and all the men got out and pushed. A boy across the street had a sandbox. He was a little bit older than me. His father had a motorcycle with a sidecar and they used to take exciting trips to the seaside and on each occasion came back with some sand for the sandbox. I was never invited to go with them on the seaside trips. There was a cinema house up the hill from where we lived and my parents would go and watch cowboy films of the 20's. I could never understand why the wheels turned the wrong way! There would be a serial film too and they would say "I wonder what will happen next week?" And so we got to go again. There was a shoe mender in the area (we called him a cobbler) and my mother claimed he was the best shoe mender in town. Years later, I was always sent to him for repairs.

When I was four years old, we moved to Intake, a district located on the other side of town, where we were able to rent a corporation house all to ourselves. It was really open farmland and the city built huge estate houses and streets, and the increasing population were able to rent what we called corporation houses. The new houses were soon filled up with tenants and it was a wonderful life. There was a farm at the top of the street and I became friendly with the farmer's boy. One of my chores was to go each day to the bread shop and buy a loaf of bread. It was about two miles away and in those times it seemed normal that a four-year-old boy should go alone.

Photo (left) : Great Grandma, Grandma, Mother and me.

While we were living in Intake, my parents bought my first bike. It was called a "Fairy Cycle." Dad used to send one of the apprentices from work to come and teach me how to ride it. It took a long time for me to learn but one wonderful day I found myself riding alone. It was such a big accomplishment. This was the only bike I ever had for the next six years until I outgrew it. At one time, I tried to make a cart with the wheels for carrying groceries, but it did not work, and I had to carry my cart and the groceries home.

Mother was pregnant at this time. I was taken to Wakefield to my grandparents to get me out of the way. I was about four. Later on I was told I had a sister named Marie. When I came back to my parents' home, I saw this baby sister. One of the few things I remember about her was her fondness of eating raw onions. But this obviously came some time later.

Mother would take Marie in a pram and also took me along for company. The walk into town was about four miles, mainly downhill and it seemed that we walked past a cemetery and many houses. We passed along some shops and sometimes the market place and this was enough for Mother. Downtown gave her the atmosphere she had been used to. She needed to be among other people besides two little children. I now realized the walks were some kind of a stress-releaser for her. During these walks, I would be on the lookout for "mucky-lorries" (dirt carrying trucks). On our way home I would draw these "lorries." After Mother felt better we would begin the four mile trip back home. Unfortunately, this was now uphill so naturally it was too strenuous for a little four-year-old although his spirit was more than willing to pursue the trail. So when my feet finally refused to go any further, I was allowed to sit in the pram with Marie (which made it harder for Mother to push) until she could not manage anymore so I was asked to walk agaIn.

Each day, Dad would walk about two miles to take the streetcar (tram) to and from work. When he got home, we waited for him to show us what he had brought. Usually it was a newspaper with a comic strip of Rupert the Bear, some coloured paper from work and, when times were good, he bought a gramophone record on a Saturday. Dad had a good baritone voice and loved to sing his own songs, and even sang along with the records playing. He also bought a banjo and he would strum it as he sang songs he knew well. Although he never took formal lessons, he could pick out some tunes on it.

Sometimes Dad would take me to church. It was a long walk to St. Joseph's in Handsworth and we did not always make it. We would stop and pick flowers for Mother, or go sliding on the frozen pond. It was a happy time until a man came into our lives and spoiled things. He was called the "school board man," checkingto see why a five-year old child was not enrolled for school. My mother could not agree to my going to the council school. She believed it was where non-Catholic children went as well as children who were not good Catholics. Besides, there was no Catholic school within a reasonable distance. As a compromise, I was sent to a private school, a house where boys and girls of various ages used to sit around a table and learn to read and write.

This lasted for a short duration until we moved. It was sad. We returned to Heeley where the houses were old and dirty, where there were no woods with bluebells but we were close to St. Wilfrid's Catholic Church and School. I was enrolled in the Catholic school and we began to be regular churchgoers. My first teacher in the infant school was Miss Haskew who was gentle. On the other side of the curtain was Miss Bulloch who was the head mistress of the infant school. She was more frightening. I sat with a pretty girl called Philomena, whose father was a war veteran. He had been wounded in the First World War and lived in a house built for veterans.

At the age of seven, I went to the big school down the corridor and my teacher was Miss Finnegan, who later became a nun. In my second year, the teacher was Miss Minow, I think. I never knew how to spell her name. One day she was teaching us how to sing and somebody said, "Someone is making a funny noise." It continued and she walked in front of each child and finally said, "Kevin, you are making a funny noise. Keep quiet." This began a long period of keeping quiet as a non-singer until I was preparing to be ordained a deacon and would have to intone "Ite missa est".

The academic quality of St. Wilfrid's was not the best and when scholarship time came, none of us were awarded scholarships to go to secondary schools. My friend Austin Maher and I were in fortunate positions because our parents managed to pay the fees and we both went to De La Salle, a secondary school for Catholic boys. St. Wilfrid's was our church. It was there that I made my first Confession, first Communion, and was confirmed by the children's Bishop, Dr. Cowgill. I was an altar boy and served Mass for our priest, Father Bradley, a very kind man who lived in a big dark house that was attached to the church.

There were three Miss Bradleys working for him in the parish. There was Miss Bradley, the housekeeper. She looked after Father and kept an eye on us altar boys. She had two nieces who lived with her. Miss Fletcher was a teacher in another school. Then there was Miss Fletcher, "the designated driver." That was how we described her. Over the years I only saw her driving Father's car twice. It was a big event. She would open the door to the garage under the church. The car was an antique Renault, and she would start it. Eventually, Father would come down in his priest's coat. It was black and reached down below the knees, topped by a French clerical hat. He had been educated in a college in France called Douai, but, like his peers and Catholics at the time, he pronounced it "Dawee." I saw him go out twice with Miss Fletcher in the car. Otherwise, I did not know what else she did.

Father Bradley must have influenced me more than I thought. He never preached about money. He taught me to love and revere the English martyrs and I think I wanted to be a person like him. To me St. Wilfrid's was so dark, so dirty, and I wanted some adventure in my life. I wanted to go some place farther away from Sheffield. My father had wanted to go to America when he got married but Mother would not hear of leaving her family, and the security of England.

The First Car
We had the first car in our street. It was an Austin. It had no starter, just a crank. Dad bought a licence. He never had driving lessons. He always had a problem changing gears. There was a steep hill in Chapeltown. So he stopped his car at the bottom of the hill, lit a cigarette, and put the car into first gear and stayed that way until he reached the top. Eventually, he smashed this car in an accident.

When I was seven years old, my brother CarI was born in the house at Fieldhead Road. Auntie Kathleen came over to help my mother. That evening she came my room and announced, "Kevin, you have a baby brother." I was so excited and I already thought of teaching him how to ride the bike. But then three years later, another brother was born in the same house. The midwife came to help deliver Paul. In each case, I went with my father and Auntie Kathleen to St. Wilfrid's church for the boys to be baptized. I don't remember making a festival out of this affair. I don't even remember mother coming with us to the church. I was going to St. Wilfrid's and was preparing for high school at De LaSalle. CarI and Paul were both born when we had left Intake and had gone back to the other side of town.

I left St. Wilfrid's school and now, as a big boy of ten years, I began my secondary school at De La Salle College. Times had improved and my Dad bought me a real bike, a Royal Enfield, with the caption, "Built like a Gun." It was strong, but was it ever heavy ! However, it opened a whole new world for me. I could go off into the country and I remember once going to my grandparents in Wakefield, twenty-four miles away, and then going to the Post Office and sending a telegram. "Arrived safely. Signed Kevin." We did not have a telephone. This bike was stolen when I left it outside an office in Sheffield.

At the new high school I had Brother Aidan for a Form Master. Mostly he was a kind man but he had a rd nose and after lunch if his nose glowed, we got scared. He could be mean and use the strap on us. We decided he had been drinking at lunchtime, but now I prefer to think that it was some medical problem.

A lay teacher, Mr Hostie, influenced me in my second year. He asked us to buy a copy of Far East, a Christian magazine about Irish missionaries who went to China to convert the Chinese pagans. He said to us, "Perhaps some of you boys will go to be missionaries. " I felt a strong attraction to be a missionary and the opportunity to go to foreign lands.

Life at De La Salle was not full of surprises. It was a routine — traveling to and from school with friends, sports days and cricket matches. I realized I was not heavily into sports and was not an enthusiastic sportsman. I played football and cricket with my classmates but I was just average. I did excel in an area — cycling. From the moment I learned to ride a bike I never wanted to be away from it. So on De La Salle Sports Day, I entered for the Slow Bike Race. From start to finish was ten yards and the last one to arrive was the winner. I won the race — the only thing I ever won. As a winner, I was given an alarm clock.

Modesty aside, riding a bike was my forte. On Saturdays, my bike gave me the freedom to ride with my friends after I had done the shopping. I always wanted to go to places away from home, even when it was only ten miles away.

Photo (left) : Kevin aged 12 at De la Salle College

While still in Heeley our growing family needed a larger house. Business must have been improving because my parents bought a big house in Walkley that was on the other side of town. This house had a greenhouse and grapevines. When mother was satisfied with my choice of this house, we moved in. It was a huge place, built of stone, with three bedrooms and a fourth up in the attic. It had a big kitchen, a bathroom and a toilet. There was a lounge (never used), and a dining room, which was used twice a year. Mother wanted to keep the lounge and the dining room in good order in case we had company.

A new life began for me. I was established in high school. I had become an altar boy in our new parish at St. Joseph's on Howard Hill.

By the time I was thirteen, Cecily was born (we fondly called her Ces for short). It's funny but I just remember Mother being pregnant and then suddenly Cecily came. My sister adored me and thought a lot about me even up to this day. To her, I always did the right thing. I was the big brother although I had very little memory of growing up with her.

Another sister, Bernadette (Bernie) came along in 1938. When the two girIs grew up, they both went to Notre Dame. They came home together, turned on the radio and talked. I was bigger, older and didn't have much to do with both of them. I was mainly away in the seminary. Marie commented later that my mother just loved having babies, but when they got older, she would lose interest in them.

Mother was more meticulous about taking her children for walks and teaching them how to talk. I remember CarI and Paul would fight endlessly. They would both come and talk to me for comfort but I couldn't do much about it. I continued to do the grocery shopping for the family. I knew what was needed and I had a bike. I would haul the groceries home, sometimes in the evening, but more often on a Saturday morning. It seemed that my Saturday afternoons were spent babysitting my two brothers who got to me because they were always fighting. My greatest pleasure was when I could go to earIy Mass on a Sunday morning and take my bike and escape into Derbyshire for the whole day, alone or with a friend.

One morning while walking to school from the bus we, four boys from St. Joseph's, Louis O'Dea, Bernard Higgins, Ron Chapman and myself, asked ourselves, "What will I become when I grow up?" Louis would follow his two brothers and be a priest (he did). Bernard Higgins would be a priest (he did, too). Ron Chapman also an altar boy said he planned on being a priest but he did not make it. They asked me what I planned on becoming. I dreamed of adventure, of travel but common sense dictated that I would follow in my father's business. That was not an unpleasant thought but I said, "Perhaps, I shall be a priest too?" And they all laughed! Obviously, I did not fit their idea of a priest as I was becoming interested in girls at this time!

There were two ways of going to and from school. I took the circular bus most of the time which meant walking and paying one fare and walking up the other end. The other way was taking the tram. One day, two girIs wearing Notre Dame High School uniforms passed us on a tram. They smiled at me as I was walking with the other boys after taking the circular bus. I was intrigued. The next day, I experimented and took the tram with the hope of seeing these two girls. Jackpot! I saw both of them and sat across from them. As the tram passed the boys from my school, they saw me. They laughed so hard and I blushed beet-red. It was known later that these two girls had come to our sports day at De La Salle and were excited that I had won the Slow Bike Race. Unfortunately, I never saw them again.

The more exciting part of my childhood was going to my grandparents for holidays. I started doing this on my own from the age of four. I went for walks with Grandad. The aunts took me to church and I got to play with the other boys on the street. Two uncles were married, Harry and Louis, and they had children who were my cousins. I would visit with them and enjoy them much more than I did my own brothers and sisters. At that point, I guess my brothers and sisters didn't realize we had cousins because they didn't get to see much of our extended families as I did.