Chapter Twenty - ‘Brandon Murphy-Northrop 1987-2015’
If Mary Fanning ever thought that nobody else but herself could have had as disruptive and as torturous an experience that she’d endured since the death of her parents and family in the coach crash fifteen years earlier, then Brandon Murphy would have clearly run her a close second.
The story that Brandon told Mary made her weep, but also filled her with happiness that what had started off a horrible life for Brandon, had at least resulted in him finding a sort of inner peace which he’d never previously imagined as being possible as a boy.
Brandon told Mary that between the ages of nine and eighteen, he remained the subject of Care Orders and that once he’d reached the age of criminal responsibility, he started receiving court sentences for the numerous offences he committed. He found himself in Children’s Homes run by the Social Services Department in Clonmel, Dungarvan, Galway, Kilkenny and then Limerick, followed by three spells of Youth Custody between the ages of 17 and 19 years of age.
“Most of my offending were petty thefts to start with Mary,” he told her, “but as I entered my mid-teens, the thefts became graver and the level of previous anger I’d always had went out of control. I found that once I hit out I couldn’t stop hitting. I would often finish hurting people badly; sometimes too seriously. I did many bad and hurtful things, Mary; serious enough to still shame me to this day each time I bring them to mind!”
“What brought about the change, Brandon?” Mary asked.
“A married couple called Harry Northrop and his wife, Grace, who lived in Limerick. It was just before I served my last prison sentence that I came into their lives in the most unwelcoming of ways.”
The story that Brandon told Mary was intriguing enough to have a novel written about it.
“One night I burgled their house, and part of the proceeds I stole included an Edwardian solid-silver framed photo stand and a leather-bound photograph album. Before I tried to sell the stolen goods to various second-hand shops, I burnt the photographs in the album, along with the enclosed negatives, and took the photograph of a young boy out of the silver photo frame and burnt that also. I didn’t want any evidence leaving that would lead the Garda back to my front door. I was twenty-two years old at the time and had started taking drugs a year earlier. I couldn’t hold down a job however hard I tried. The thefts and burglaries were the only means I had of funding my addiction,” Brandon told Mary.
Before Brandon could muster up the courage to continue, he paused and took a few minutes out. This was the first time he’d spoken to anyone about such matters, apart from a counsellor that Mr and Mrs Northrop paid for him to visit at the age of twenty-seven.
“It was Mr and Mrs Northrop who changed my ways, Mary, by pulling me up in my tracks and offering me a ‘second chance’ in my life when I most needed it. After my burglary of their house, they entered one of those programmes that seeks to bring both the offender and the victims face-to-face. This is so the offender can be brought to realise the harm they’ve done, besides helping the victims have some understanding why they were the ones offended against. It would seem, Mary, that most victims of crime often falsely believe that they were personally picked by the offender, when in fact, the crime scene and victims were invariably chosen randomly.”
“Initially, I agreed to take part in the programme in the hope of getting a lesser sentence from the Court, but my meeting with the couple whose house I’d robbed, shamed me to high heaven. The harm I’d done to this gentle couple, disgusted me, and sickened me to the stomach. The thing that most gutted me, Mary, was their capacity to still see me as being a worthwhile human who’d lost his way and done bad things. It was their ability to forgive that changed my ways and led me to never offend again, Mary.”
“I still got eighteen-months imprisonment, Mary, but the strange thing was, I didn’t mind. For the first time in my life, I knew I deserved it! For once I had to accept that it had nothing to do with this or that, or with any poor start in life I had or my mother abandoning me at birth. All that was nonsense! For the first time in my life, I wanted to take the blame for what I’d done instead of excusing my behaviour and projecting the blame elsewhere!”
“Little did I know when I stole those things from the Northrop house, Mary, that among the stolen items were personal items that were irreplaceable. During one of the reconciliation sessions, a tearful Grace Northrop revealed that they weren’t worried about my thefts of other items from their home, except for the photographs of their eight-year-old son, George, and some of the three of them during happier times.”
At this stage of Brandon’s explanation, he was clearly choked up emotionally and Mary could sense he held back a tear in his eye. A minute later he was composed enough to continue.
“You see, Mary, their only child was killed in a traffic accident when he ran into the road and was hit by a lorry and killed instantly by the impact. That accident had happened one year earlier, and they were still going through their bereavement period with a heavy sense of loss and raw emotions.”
“Their son, George, was their only child. Grace Northrop had George in her 39th year after they’d tried unsuccessfully to have children all their married life. Neither of them bothered with computers and laptops, and all the photographs I destroyed were the only ones they had of George and the two of them together. These images were priceless and had been wantonly destroyed by me to avoid possible police detection!”
“I was also to learn that their son, George, had Cerebral Palsy and was dependent on them to be able to negotiate his daily life. This handicap had made their relationship closer still, bonding them much more than that experienced by parents of an able-bodied child.”
“I never felt so ashamed, Mary. I wanted to bury my head in the ground and never show my face again. I often imagined as I was serving my prison sentence, what I’d have done had I only one photograph of my deceased mother and me, and someone had burnt it? I’d have killed the bastard! There would have been no prison time to serve because I’d have left nobody alive to serve it!”
Looking at Brandon, Mary could see the tears freely fall from his eyes, informing her that it still pained him greatly to recount such actions. After he’d composed himself Brandon continued.
“I got a prison sentence of eighteen months, Mary, for my burglary of their home, and as I previously said, I deserved every bit of it, and more besides!”
“To my utter surprise, I then received a visit from Mr and Mrs Northrop. I couldn’t believe it! They had visited to tell me that being Christians, they felt they needed to forgive so that they could emotionally move on with their lives. Also, the reports to court that revealed a lot of my background had moved them to compassion once they learned of my poor start in life from the Prison Welfare Officer.”
“Anyway, Mary,” Brandon continued, “Harry and Grace Northrop continued to visit me every two weeks, without fail, throughout my sentence. Three weeks before my discharge, during their final prison visit, they invited me to lodge with them following my release from prison. I could not believe how charitable and forgiving anyone could possibly be, Mary.”
“The upshot was they took me into their home as a lodger initially, and before three months had transpired, they started treating me as loving parents might treat their only son. After one year, we had all grown so close to each other that for the very first time in my life, I felt as though I belonged. I had a family, Mary, a proper home to live in. It felt so good to feel wanted at last!”
“Grace and Harry Northrop had effectively adopted me, despite what I’d done to them. Grace told me that if I wanted to redeem myself, then I was to offend no more, and added that whatever good I did with my life thereafter, I was to do in their son, George’s name. Although I had never met George, Harry and Grace said that I was to think of him as having been my own brother.”
The story that Brandon told Mary made her weep, but also filled her with happiness that what had started off a horrible life for Brandon, had at least resulted in him finding a sort of inner peace which he’d never previously imagined as being possible as a boy.
Brandon told Mary that between the ages of nine and eighteen, he remained the subject of Care Orders and that once he’d reached the age of criminal responsibility, he started receiving court sentences for the numerous offences he committed. He found himself in Children’s Homes run by the Social Services Department in Clonmel, Dungarvan, Galway, Kilkenny and then Limerick, followed by three spells of Youth Custody between the ages of 17 and 19 years of age.
“Most of my offending were petty thefts to start with Mary,” he told her, “but as I entered my mid-teens, the thefts became graver and the level of previous anger I’d always had went out of control. I found that once I hit out I couldn’t stop hitting. I would often finish hurting people badly; sometimes too seriously. I did many bad and hurtful things, Mary; serious enough to still shame me to this day each time I bring them to mind!”
“What brought about the change, Brandon?” Mary asked.
“A married couple called Harry Northrop and his wife, Grace, who lived in Limerick. It was just before I served my last prison sentence that I came into their lives in the most unwelcoming of ways.”
The story that Brandon told Mary was intriguing enough to have a novel written about it.
“One night I burgled their house, and part of the proceeds I stole included an Edwardian solid-silver framed photo stand and a leather-bound photograph album. Before I tried to sell the stolen goods to various second-hand shops, I burnt the photographs in the album, along with the enclosed negatives, and took the photograph of a young boy out of the silver photo frame and burnt that also. I didn’t want any evidence leaving that would lead the Garda back to my front door. I was twenty-two years old at the time and had started taking drugs a year earlier. I couldn’t hold down a job however hard I tried. The thefts and burglaries were the only means I had of funding my addiction,” Brandon told Mary.
Before Brandon could muster up the courage to continue, he paused and took a few minutes out. This was the first time he’d spoken to anyone about such matters, apart from a counsellor that Mr and Mrs Northrop paid for him to visit at the age of twenty-seven.
“It was Mr and Mrs Northrop who changed my ways, Mary, by pulling me up in my tracks and offering me a ‘second chance’ in my life when I most needed it. After my burglary of their house, they entered one of those programmes that seeks to bring both the offender and the victims face-to-face. This is so the offender can be brought to realise the harm they’ve done, besides helping the victims have some understanding why they were the ones offended against. It would seem, Mary, that most victims of crime often falsely believe that they were personally picked by the offender, when in fact, the crime scene and victims were invariably chosen randomly.”
“Initially, I agreed to take part in the programme in the hope of getting a lesser sentence from the Court, but my meeting with the couple whose house I’d robbed, shamed me to high heaven. The harm I’d done to this gentle couple, disgusted me, and sickened me to the stomach. The thing that most gutted me, Mary, was their capacity to still see me as being a worthwhile human who’d lost his way and done bad things. It was their ability to forgive that changed my ways and led me to never offend again, Mary.”
“I still got eighteen-months imprisonment, Mary, but the strange thing was, I didn’t mind. For the first time in my life, I knew I deserved it! For once I had to accept that it had nothing to do with this or that, or with any poor start in life I had or my mother abandoning me at birth. All that was nonsense! For the first time in my life, I wanted to take the blame for what I’d done instead of excusing my behaviour and projecting the blame elsewhere!”
“Little did I know when I stole those things from the Northrop house, Mary, that among the stolen items were personal items that were irreplaceable. During one of the reconciliation sessions, a tearful Grace Northrop revealed that they weren’t worried about my thefts of other items from their home, except for the photographs of their eight-year-old son, George, and some of the three of them during happier times.”
At this stage of Brandon’s explanation, he was clearly choked up emotionally and Mary could sense he held back a tear in his eye. A minute later he was composed enough to continue.
“You see, Mary, their only child was killed in a traffic accident when he ran into the road and was hit by a lorry and killed instantly by the impact. That accident had happened one year earlier, and they were still going through their bereavement period with a heavy sense of loss and raw emotions.”
“Their son, George, was their only child. Grace Northrop had George in her 39th year after they’d tried unsuccessfully to have children all their married life. Neither of them bothered with computers and laptops, and all the photographs I destroyed were the only ones they had of George and the two of them together. These images were priceless and had been wantonly destroyed by me to avoid possible police detection!”
“I was also to learn that their son, George, had Cerebral Palsy and was dependent on them to be able to negotiate his daily life. This handicap had made their relationship closer still, bonding them much more than that experienced by parents of an able-bodied child.”
“I never felt so ashamed, Mary. I wanted to bury my head in the ground and never show my face again. I often imagined as I was serving my prison sentence, what I’d have done had I only one photograph of my deceased mother and me, and someone had burnt it? I’d have killed the bastard! There would have been no prison time to serve because I’d have left nobody alive to serve it!”
Looking at Brandon, Mary could see the tears freely fall from his eyes, informing her that it still pained him greatly to recount such actions. After he’d composed himself Brandon continued.
“I got a prison sentence of eighteen months, Mary, for my burglary of their home, and as I previously said, I deserved every bit of it, and more besides!”
“To my utter surprise, I then received a visit from Mr and Mrs Northrop. I couldn’t believe it! They had visited to tell me that being Christians, they felt they needed to forgive so that they could emotionally move on with their lives. Also, the reports to court that revealed a lot of my background had moved them to compassion once they learned of my poor start in life from the Prison Welfare Officer.”
“Anyway, Mary,” Brandon continued, “Harry and Grace Northrop continued to visit me every two weeks, without fail, throughout my sentence. Three weeks before my discharge, during their final prison visit, they invited me to lodge with them following my release from prison. I could not believe how charitable and forgiving anyone could possibly be, Mary.”
“The upshot was they took me into their home as a lodger initially, and before three months had transpired, they started treating me as loving parents might treat their only son. After one year, we had all grown so close to each other that for the very first time in my life, I felt as though I belonged. I had a family, Mary, a proper home to live in. It felt so good to feel wanted at last!”
“Grace and Harry Northrop had effectively adopted me, despite what I’d done to them. Grace told me that if I wanted to redeem myself, then I was to offend no more, and added that whatever good I did with my life thereafter, I was to do in their son, George’s name. Although I had never met George, Harry and Grace said that I was to think of him as having been my own brother.”
~~~~~
“Did your blood mother and you ever have contact with each other?” Mary asked, adding, “Did the letter I helped you write to her ever reach her?”
“No, sadly not,” Brandon replied. “That letter you wrote on my behalf, Mary, was the very first kindness to me that I can ever recall. I never forgot your kind act then, and I never forgot the young girl that was prepared to put herself out for me when I felt least wanted. That gratitude remained with me, Mary, all those years in-between, and it’s what led me to seek you out to renew contact and thank you for your kindness to me.”
“Incidentally” Mary asked, “how did you discover my address?”
“I have my adopted father to thank for that. He is close friends with the Post Master in his home town and he pulled in a favour that was owed to him.”
“You asked about my blood mother, Mary,” Brandon continued. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of the letter you wrote for me, although I was able to find out more about my mother’s background with the help of my adopted parents six years ago.”
“My poor birth-mother must have been distraught to have found herself pregnant with me. She was three months short of her 15th birthday on the day I was born, Mary. The worse thing of all is that I was clearly an unwanted child, as my blood father was my mother’s older brother, Uncle Kevin. My mother didn’t abandon me, Mary. I have long ago accepted that she ‘gave me up’ to have the chance of a better life than the one she could ever offer me. You see, Mary, she was also escaping the incestuous intentions of her brother Kevin, who’d raped her since she was eleven years old, and who then went and took his own life years after when the law became aware.”
“My adoptive parents paid thousands of pounds for further inquiries to be made. It was learned that my mum also spent a few years in prison when she too became a drug addict like me, and after spending some years as a prostitute in Dublin and sleeping rough, she was found dead one morning at the side of a river bank, having taken a heroin overdose. She was only twenty-four!”
Brandon started to overfill with tears again and I instinctively found myself placing my arm around his shoulder.
Before that day with Brandon came to a close, he told Mary that he had completed an Open University Degree Course and had followed that learning on by obtaining his Masters in Dublin at the age of twenty-nine. Since then, he’d spent the past seven years working as a ‘Nursing Home Manager’ in Limerick, looking after the supervision of children with special needs.
“No, sadly not,” Brandon replied. “That letter you wrote on my behalf, Mary, was the very first kindness to me that I can ever recall. I never forgot your kind act then, and I never forgot the young girl that was prepared to put herself out for me when I felt least wanted. That gratitude remained with me, Mary, all those years in-between, and it’s what led me to seek you out to renew contact and thank you for your kindness to me.”
“Incidentally” Mary asked, “how did you discover my address?”
“I have my adopted father to thank for that. He is close friends with the Post Master in his home town and he pulled in a favour that was owed to him.”
“You asked about my blood mother, Mary,” Brandon continued. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of the letter you wrote for me, although I was able to find out more about my mother’s background with the help of my adopted parents six years ago.”
“My poor birth-mother must have been distraught to have found herself pregnant with me. She was three months short of her 15th birthday on the day I was born, Mary. The worse thing of all is that I was clearly an unwanted child, as my blood father was my mother’s older brother, Uncle Kevin. My mother didn’t abandon me, Mary. I have long ago accepted that she ‘gave me up’ to have the chance of a better life than the one she could ever offer me. You see, Mary, she was also escaping the incestuous intentions of her brother Kevin, who’d raped her since she was eleven years old, and who then went and took his own life years after when the law became aware.”
“My adoptive parents paid thousands of pounds for further inquiries to be made. It was learned that my mum also spent a few years in prison when she too became a drug addict like me, and after spending some years as a prostitute in Dublin and sleeping rough, she was found dead one morning at the side of a river bank, having taken a heroin overdose. She was only twenty-four!”
Brandon started to overfill with tears again and I instinctively found myself placing my arm around his shoulder.
Before that day with Brandon came to a close, he told Mary that he had completed an Open University Degree Course and had followed that learning on by obtaining his Masters in Dublin at the age of twenty-nine. Since then, he’d spent the past seven years working as a ‘Nursing Home Manager’ in Limerick, looking after the supervision of children with special needs.
~~~~~
Mary returned home to her house in Portlaw that evening and thought much over the days ahead of the many changes which had taken place in both her own life and the life of her old school friend, Brandon, over the years.
She had said very little about the troubles which had beset herself during the past two decades during their first meeting. Such information would be disclosed to Brandon bit-by-bit, during their next half a dozen meetings at ‘Slade’s Coffee House’ in Waterford.
Over the course of the next three months, gradually the couple had exchanged all the trials and tribulations suffered by each other since their school days.
When Mary asked Brandon why he came to Waterford at weekends if he worked in Limerick, Brandon told her that his adopted parents had moved to Waterford four years earlier, and that he now lived between the two places.
Three months after having first met up with Mary, Mary Fanning took Brandon to see her own teenage daughter. To observe him in young Mary’s presence, and the ease with which he coped with her, pleased Mary. It told her that Brandon had indeed found his vocation working with children who displayed her own daughter’s limitations.
“You’re a natural with children, Brandon,” Mary said, “especially a child with special needs. Young Mary here doesn’t take to strangers as a rule, but she’s interacting with you as though you’re her father.”
As soon as she’d spoken these words, Mary felt somewhat embarrassed.
It was at that point that Brandon revealed to Mary that during his mid-teens, he had started to hold sexual feelings whenever in the presence of certain young men. As he never seemed to hold similar feelings for any females with whom he came into close contact, he’d been obliged to conclude that he was probably gay.
However, given his adoptive parents’ Catholic Church beliefs, there was no way he was prepared to ever hurt them again by even exploring the prospect of a gay lifestyle. They had effectively brought him in from the cold and helped him to reform his lifestyle by adopting him, and he had no intention of ever hurting them again, by offending their values and deeply-held religious principles.
Also, since Brandon had lived with the Northrop’s, he had changed back from being a lapsed Catholic and was once more practising his religion in every sense of the word. He told Mary that despite believing himself to be gay, he had never acted on that sexual preference once in his life; or any other sexual preference for that matter!
Looking straight into Mary’s eyes, Brandon said, “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my parents happy, Mary, and at peace with themselves and their religion. Like the priest who is also pledged to a life of celibacy, if that is what’s required to keep my adopted parents content, then that is the life I’ll lead.”
She had said very little about the troubles which had beset herself during the past two decades during their first meeting. Such information would be disclosed to Brandon bit-by-bit, during their next half a dozen meetings at ‘Slade’s Coffee House’ in Waterford.
Over the course of the next three months, gradually the couple had exchanged all the trials and tribulations suffered by each other since their school days.
When Mary asked Brandon why he came to Waterford at weekends if he worked in Limerick, Brandon told her that his adopted parents had moved to Waterford four years earlier, and that he now lived between the two places.
Three months after having first met up with Mary, Mary Fanning took Brandon to see her own teenage daughter. To observe him in young Mary’s presence, and the ease with which he coped with her, pleased Mary. It told her that Brandon had indeed found his vocation working with children who displayed her own daughter’s limitations.
“You’re a natural with children, Brandon,” Mary said, “especially a child with special needs. Young Mary here doesn’t take to strangers as a rule, but she’s interacting with you as though you’re her father.”
As soon as she’d spoken these words, Mary felt somewhat embarrassed.
It was at that point that Brandon revealed to Mary that during his mid-teens, he had started to hold sexual feelings whenever in the presence of certain young men. As he never seemed to hold similar feelings for any females with whom he came into close contact, he’d been obliged to conclude that he was probably gay.
However, given his adoptive parents’ Catholic Church beliefs, there was no way he was prepared to ever hurt them again by even exploring the prospect of a gay lifestyle. They had effectively brought him in from the cold and helped him to reform his lifestyle by adopting him, and he had no intention of ever hurting them again, by offending their values and deeply-held religious principles.
Also, since Brandon had lived with the Northrop’s, he had changed back from being a lapsed Catholic and was once more practising his religion in every sense of the word. He told Mary that despite believing himself to be gay, he had never acted on that sexual preference once in his life; or any other sexual preference for that matter!
Looking straight into Mary’s eyes, Brandon said, “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my parents happy, Mary, and at peace with themselves and their religion. Like the priest who is also pledged to a life of celibacy, if that is what’s required to keep my adopted parents content, then that is the life I’ll lead.”
