Every two weeks, Matthew would come and get us in the car and we’d all go up to The Hill to speak to John when he rang from the hall of his digs on the payphone. He had written to explain that everyone could hear him so he would be keeping things brief – and this from a man whose brief was truly brief. It didn’t suit my mother one little bit to have Poor Bridie Johns as a regular visitor but we all had to make do and mend so that we could hear his voice. I nodded at my father if he was in the house and he nodded back.

My mother eyeballed me every time a phone call came through but he spoke mostly to his mammy and then to Serena and – surprise, surprise – he would run out of ten-pence pieces as soon as it was my turn. We had the same conversation twice a month, my husband and me.

–  Mary.

–  John.

–  Do you need anything?

–  No.

–  Does Serena need anything?

–  No.

–  There’s the pips now …

–  Bye.

The days, the weeks, the months flew in. Every day was pretty much like the last and the seasons came and went with only the bloom on the hawthorns in June a real highlight. Its pink and white flowers filling the air with heavy musk was so welcome. I walked out to the forest with Bridie and Serena, making sure I kept a wide berth of Brooky Hay down in its secret hollow, my auld kissing place.

John was still in London when Margaret Thatcher signed the Anglo-Irish agreement with Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald of Fine Gael in November to support cross-border co-operation between the Republic and Northern Ireland. Bridie and me had to park ourselves in front of the wireless for the translation. It meant that the politicians in Dublin would have a say in how to promote power-sharing in the Six Counties. This’ll see some feathers flying, says Bridie.

Every Unionist MP in ParleyMint resigned in December because it gave the Republic a role in governance for the first time ever while Nationalist party Fianna Fáil’s leader Charles Haughey said it officially recognised Britain’s jurisdiction in Northern Ireland. All in all, the whole place was torn up, with MPs baying at the moon, and thousands of people from both sides of the divide took to the streets for rallies and strikes and petition-signings and good-auld fist-fights, which was reported as ‘civil disobedience’ – the same dog only washed.