William Reading's Page

Hello Everyone, I am a new member to this site, now is the difficult part, explaining why I have an interest in this site. Oh! where to start, the obvious place to start is at the beginning, but then where is the beginning and when was the beginning. From what little information I have my mother was born in Ireland some 100 years ago, and she was incarcerated in one of the Roman Catholic Laundries in Cork. I say laundries as I did not know that possibly they were all called Magdalene Laundries, this I have only understood in recent times. I am not sure where my mother was born, I understood it was Cork, but I now think it could possibly be Waterford, nether am I sure of the year she was born, possibly around 1920 plus or minus maybe 5 years.

I understood from my family information that she ran away to England at the age of 14, but I do not think that this might be correct, as I now think she was a little older. The reason for this is due to ignorance and not due to misinformation on her part. She seemed to have received very little education or maybe non at all. I do not know how she managed to escape from the laundry, but I guess Cork would be a good place to start from to get to England. I do believe that once in England she worked for Lyons Cabby Hall in London. She got married to my father in about May of 1937 and then lived in the Kilburn area of London. My mothers maiden name was Fennelly. Given names Mary H (I believe the H is for Helen). So WHO was my mother? Was she a Irish non person?

This is briefly what I know, there are some more bit of information that I have which I will leave for now, but maybe reveal in the future. If anyone has any interesting information with regard to my writing I would be pleased to hear from them

The thing that astounds me now is how long this carried on for, I have not long learnt that the last one that closed wad in 1996, how was this allowed to carried on for so long? --- Human Rights!

I am sorry I do hope I have not overstepped the mark here if so I apologies

William (Ernest)