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- Strictly for Adults Novels >
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Tales from Portlaw
>
- No Need to Look for Love
- 'The Love Quartet' >
-
The Priest's Calling Card
>
- Chapter One - The Irish Custom
- Chapter Two - Patrick Duffy's Family Background
- Chapter Three - Patrick Duffy Junior's Vocation to Priesthood
- Chapter Four - The first years of the priesthood
- Chapter Five - Father Patrick Duffy in Seattle
- Chapter Six - Father Patrick Duffy, Portlaw Priest
- Chapter Seven - Patrick Duffy Priest Power
- Chapter Eight - Patrick Duffy Groundless Gossip
- Chapter Nine - Monsignor Duffy of Portlaw
- Chapter Ten - The Portlaw Inheritance of Patrick Duffy
- Bigger and Better >
- The Oldest Woman in the World >
-
Sean and Sarah
>
- Chapter 1 - 'Return of the Prodigal Son'
- Chapter 2 - 'The early years of sweet innocence in Portlaw'
- Chapter 3 - 'The Separation'
- Chapter 4 - 'Separation and Betrayal'
- Chapter 5 - 'Portlaw to Manchester'
- Chapter 6 - 'Salford Choices'
- Chapter 7 - 'Life inside Prison'
- Chapter 8 - 'The Aylesbury Pilgrimage'
- Chapter 9 - Sean's interest in stone masonary'
- Chapter 10 - 'Sean's and Tony's Partnership'
- Chapter 11 - 'Return of the Prodigal Son'
- The Alternative Christmas Party >
-
The Life of Liam Lafferty
>
- Chapter One: ' Liam Lafferty is born'
- Chapter Two : 'The Baptism of Liam Lafferty'
- Chapter Three: 'The early years of Liam Lafferty'
- Chapter Four : Early Manhood
- Chapter Five : Ned's Secret Past
- Chapter Six : Courtship and Marriage
- Chapter Seven : Liam and Trish marry
- Chapter Eight : Farley meets Ned
- Chapter Nine : 'Ned comes clean to Farley'
- Chapter Ten : Tragedy hits the family
- Chapter Eleven : The future is brighter
-
The life and times of Joe Walsh
>
- Chapter One : 'The marriage of Margaret Mawd and Thomas Walsh’
- Chapter Two 'The birth of Joe Walsh'
- Chapter Three 'Marriage breakup and betrayal'
- Chapter Four: ' The Walsh family breakup'
- Chapter Five : ' Liverpool Lodgings'
- Chapter Six: ' Settled times are established and tested'
- Chapter Seven : 'Haworth is heaven is a place on earth'
- Chapter Eight: 'Coming out'
- Chapter Nine: Portlaw revenge
- Chapter Ten: ' The murder trial of Paddy Groggy'
- Chapter Eleven: 'New beginnings'
-
The Woman Who Hated Christmas
>
- Chapter One: 'The Christmas Enigma'
- Chapter Two: ' The Breakup of Beth's Family''
- Chapter Three: From Teenager to Adulthood.'
- Chapter Four: 'The Mills of West Yorkshire.'
- Chapter Five: 'Harrison Garner Showdown.'
- Chapter Six : 'The Christmas Dance'
- Chapter Seven : 'The ballot for Shop Steward.'
- Chapter Eight: ' Leaving the Mill'
- Chapter Ten: ' Beth buries her Ghosts'
- Chapter Eleven: Beth and Dermot start off married life in Galway.
- Chapter Twelve: The Twin Tragedy of Christmas, 1992.'
- Chapter Thirteen: 'The Christmas star returns'
- Chapter Fourteen: ' Beth's future in Portlaw'
-
The Last Dance
>
- Chapter One - ‘Nancy Swales becomes the Widow Swales’
- Chapter Two ‘The secret night life of Widow Swales’
- Chapter Three ‘Meeting Richard again’
- Chapter Four ‘Clancy’s Ballroom: March 1961’
- Chapter Five ‘The All Ireland Dancing Rounds’
- Chapter Six ‘James Mountford’
- Chapter Seven ‘The All Ireland Ballroom Latin American Dance Final.’
- Chapter Eight ‘The Final Arrives’
- Chapter Nine: 'Beth in Manchester.'
- 'Two Sisters' >
- Fourteen Days >
-
‘The Postman Always Knocks Twice’
>
- Author's Foreword
- Contents
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen
- Chapter Fourteen
- Chapter Fifteen
- Chapter Sixteen
- Chapter Seventeen
- Chapter Eighteen
- Chapter Nineteen
- Chapter Twenty
- Chapter Twenty-One
- Chapter Twenty-Two
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Celebrity Contacts
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Thoughts and Musings
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Bill's Personal Development
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- 'Mother /Child Bond'
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- 'Soldiering On'
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- Always wear clean shoes
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Chapter Two: 'Patrick Duffy's Family Background'

Our Portlaw hero of this story is Patrick Duffy. His father, Patrick Duffy Senior, had been born the oldest of eighteen children and, his mother, Bridie, was born the oldest in a family of fifteen girls and no boys. Because of their family commitments and the economic circumstances of the times, Patrick Duffy’s mother and father had to withdraw from their formal education at the age of twelve and thirteen years respectively in order to join the workforce. Consequently, when they married each other at the age of seventeen years, neither had very much learning behind them and they rarely managed to get time alone.
One of the few occasions that they managed to get on their own was on Sunday mornings after church when they'd take the woodland walk home, along the path that courting couples and dog walkers of Portlaw had frequented over so many years. The woodland walk was to prove the true testing ground when it came to resisting the temptation of the flesh, as concealment behind the floral hedge provided ample opportunity for a quick kiss and a daring cuddle. Many a Portlaw citizen had been conceived within this floral setting.
One of the few occasions that they managed to get on their own was on Sunday mornings after church when they'd take the woodland walk home, along the path that courting couples and dog walkers of Portlaw had frequented over so many years. The woodland walk was to prove the true testing ground when it came to resisting the temptation of the flesh, as concealment behind the floral hedge provided ample opportunity for a quick kiss and a daring cuddle. Many a Portlaw citizen had been conceived within this floral setting.

However, the one thing that did enjoin Patrick and Bridie closer than any other (with the exception of their faith in the Catholic Church), was their exceedingly handsome looks. As growing male and female specimens of beauty in-the-making, Patrick and Bridie had no competition from any quarter in the whole of Ireland. Like the Irish Sea, they were wild and beautiful to behold. There was no chance that a marriage between the two of them would ever founder on the rocks for want of physical attraction.

Upon meeting each other for the first time, Patrick and Bridie were instantly attracted to the other and every look or touch that they exchanged thereafter, merely reflected the growing passion inside them that threatened to excommunicate their most sensuous of thoughts from their strict religiosity. For a number of months they managed to restrain their game of courtship and never strayed beyond that of ‘first base’, but it was their attendance at the wedding of Bridie’s cousin when the reins of all restraint was abandoned between the couple. As her cousin’s wedding guests, drank, danced and made merry downstairs in the house of the bride’s parents, Patrick Duffy and Bridie Lowe were ‘making out 'on the bedroom floor upstairs.

Before they’d been seeing each other for six months, all prospects of the beautiful black-haired Bridie, one day ever becoming a nun had been truly quashed when she found herself expecting Patrick’s baby. She was quickly dispatched to an Aunt’s house in County Down where she and Patrick Duffy posted the banns and were quietly married within the month. Only Bridie’s mother attended the wedding. Both mother and daughter were extremely close and extremely beautiful. As she and Bridie caressed after the wedding ceremony, Patrick Duffy could easily see where his bride’s looks had originated from. Despite her mother having given birth to fifteen girls, she still looked as beautiful as any 33-year-old woman Patrick Duffy had ever set eyes on!

In fact; Patrick’s father was the best looking man ever to come out of Portlaw or any Irish woman’s womb for that matter! He was a veritable Adonis. The girls in Portlaw started to chase him from the age of six onwards and they never gave up the pursuit until he married Bridie Lowe after his 17th birthday in County Down.
Patrick had been seeing a young girl for a few months prior to meeting Bridie, but instantly gave her up for this new love of his life. Bridie was herself a beautiful woman who seemed to be the natural Venus to this Portlaw Adonis, and despite not yet having reached 17 years of age, she was becoming more fetching to the male eye each time she received another glance of admiration.
Patrick had been seeing a young girl for a few months prior to meeting Bridie, but instantly gave her up for this new love of his life. Bridie was herself a beautiful woman who seemed to be the natural Venus to this Portlaw Adonis, and despite not yet having reached 17 years of age, she was becoming more fetching to the male eye each time she received another glance of admiration.

Bridie stayed in County Down until her 19th year of life before eventually returning to Portlaw with her husband, Patrick Duffy and the two children they’d had, plus the third that she was expecting. Heavily pregnant with number three had not taken away from her beauty of face. She was as good looking as she'd ever been and could have doubled in the films for her lookalike, Demi Moore had her waist been at its usual size.
Patrick and Bridie had been made for each other. They seemed to be perfect soul mates with matching interests in life. Both were devout Catholics like their respective families and both could recite the Catechism word perfect from start to finish. Had family circumstances been more economically favourable in their youth, Patrick Duffy Junior's father would have undoubtedly trained for the priesthood in his teenage years and his mother would probably have become a novice in the Waterford Nunnery (as was customary for the oldest child in most Catholic families in those days). Having sowed their wild oats however outside the banns of marriage, each seemed determined to become good Catholic parents within it!

Once back in Portlaw, the couple settled down to live a religious life as devout Catholics and staunch workers of the local Catholic church. Henceforth, they intended their religious observance to be as sound as the church bell. Indeed, to live as devout Catholics was now their uppermost aim in life. Circumstances may have prevented each of them proving unworthy to become a priest or nun, but they were determined to become the best Catholic parents that they could possibly be! They wanted to raise a big Catholic family and this was the best way each parent saw themselves serving their God and the Pope in Rome.

So Bridie became a full-time earth mother who took in washing and ironing from the community to earn extra money to keep their growing family, of which Patrick Junior was the oldest and only boy. Patrick Duffy Senior worked in the Portlaw Tannery during the week, Monday to Friday, but devoted every minute of his weekend hours to the Catholic Church in the town.
At 4pm on a Friday evening after the Tannery hooter had sounded for the last time until the following Monday morning, Patrick Duffy Senior would hurry home and, within half an hour, he’d be up at the Parish Church cutting the grass and tending to any overgrown and untidy graves. He would also manage the Sunday collections in church and generally act as a caretaker for the church in his leisure hours and perform the odd bit of building and roof work. There was always roof tiles to replace, a spot of painting to be done or broken windows to repair.
At 4pm on a Friday evening after the Tannery hooter had sounded for the last time until the following Monday morning, Patrick Duffy Senior would hurry home and, within half an hour, he’d be up at the Parish Church cutting the grass and tending to any overgrown and untidy graves. He would also manage the Sunday collections in church and generally act as a caretaker for the church in his leisure hours and perform the odd bit of building and roof work. There was always roof tiles to replace, a spot of painting to be done or broken windows to repair.

His wife Bridie would wash and iron all of the priest’s garments, clean the church floors once weekly and ensure that the altar always had fresh flowers that she grew herself. During the seasons of the year when flowers were scarce in her own garden, she would make the church more attractive by using offerings that Nature provided; a sprig of this or that added to with a few wild flowers. She would also play the church organ for the choir on a Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation.

On a Friday evening, while Patrick cut the grass at church; back home in the Duffy household, Bridie would be preparing the family evening meal. The family would patiently wait for the head of the household to return from the church gardens before all eating together around the table. Having a fast-growing family, by the time Patick was in his teens, the Duffy family would have to eat from two different tables placed side by side. Throughout their entire marriage, Grace at the family table was always said by Patrick Duffy Senior and when he had finished ‘thanking the Lord’ for what they were about to eat, the prayer would always end in the same manner:
"Thank you for what we are about to eat Lord, and if you see fit to bless this household any further, we pray that you leave your ‘calling card’ to the priesthood in the heart of our son Patrick so that he may one day serve in your ministry on earth through the good offices of the Holy Roman Catholic Church,” to which all the assembled family would echo, "Amen."
"Thank you for what we are about to eat Lord, and if you see fit to bless this household any further, we pray that you leave your ‘calling card’ to the priesthood in the heart of our son Patrick so that he may one day serve in your ministry on earth through the good offices of the Holy Roman Catholic Church,” to which all the assembled family would echo, "Amen."
Both parents also encouraged Patrick Junior to pray that he might one day prove worthy enough to become a Catholic priest. Even Patrick’s younger sisters were told by their parents never to go to bed without first saying their prayers and, never to pray without praying that their brother Patrick would one day become a priest. By the time Patrick Duffy junior was 10 years old, he had the combined prayers of his parents and eight sisters, along with those of his own
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