Fond memories

ARCHBISHOP TUTU Africa figures prominently in the life of Mary Kennedy and her admiration for the refinement and gentility of the African people in the face of the utmost deprivation is palpable in her book.

A daughter’s fond memories

County View

John Healy

A CHANCE remark made a year ago on ‘The Late Late Show’ has led to a delightful personalised book of poetry and quotation making it into the bestseller list. ‘Lines I Love’ by well-known RTÉ presenter Mary Kennedy is a compendium of snatches of poems, songs and observations, which will strike many a familiar chord with those who like words, their rhythm and their deeper meaning.

When Mary Kennedy was interviewed by Pat Kenny just a year ago, she mentioned that after her mother’s death she had come across a very old copybook in which she had collected quotations that appealed to her. The book was full of verses and excerpts and snatches of writing – some thoughtful, some witty, some moralistic, but all having in common the ability to make the reader stop and think.

The coincidence in the find was that Mary Kennedy is herself a collector of verse and phrases. When she reads a book or happens on something which appeals to her, she jots it down, just as did her mother before her.

From that random conversation with Pat Kenny came the offer from Merlin Books to Mary Kennedy to compile a book of favourite quotations, from her own notes and those of her mother. The result is ‘Lines I Love’, a collection of pieces from different  sources and the different periods of her life. From childhood poems and adult wisdom to lines about friendship, adolescence, death, Africa, children and inspirational women, the pieces have all one thing in common – they make one pause and reflect.

And so it is that Goldsmith and Kavanagh, Yeats and Joan Rivers, Harry Belafonte and Sting, Mother Teresa and Kahlil Gibran, Emerson and Pope Paul, and dozens of unlikely pairings find themselves sharing the pages of a book which is a delight to dip into and often a revelation of discovery.

Maternal advice was clearly a priority with Mrs Kennedy and her family of four were often reminded of the virtues of never putting off until tomorrow what you can do today.

“He slept beneath the moon,

He basked beneath the sun,

He lived a life of going to do

And died with nothing done.”

Very much a lover of gardening, flowers, digging and getting close to nature. her book also makes allowances for those of us whose fingers will never be green and whose closest contact with the garden is via a TV screen.

Thus Charles Barr – “The best way to get real enjoyment out of the garden is to put on a wide straw hat, dress in thin loose fitting clothes, hold a little trowel in one hand and a cold drink in the other and tell the man where to dig”, or even the observation of Fra Lebowite – “The great outdoors is what you must pass through in order to get from your apartment to a taxicab”.

Poignantly, given his death in France last month, there is the beautiful ‘Beannacht’ written by John O’Donohue for his mother Josie. Neither he nor she could have envisaged that the call of the Lord would come for the son before that of the mother.

“and when your eyes freeze behind  the grey window `

and the ghost of loss

gets in to you,

may a flock of colours,  indigo, red and green,

And azure blue

Come to awaken in you a meadow of delight.”

Africa figures prominently in the life of Mary Kennedy and her admiration for the refinement and gentility of the African people in the face of the utmost deprivation is palpable.

But it is perhaps in the gentle irony of Archbishop Tutu that a vital part of that whole story reveals itself. “When the white missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray’. We closed our eyes  When we opened them ,we had the Bible and they had the land.”

But this warm, touching uplifting book is really about Mary Kennedy’s mother, who found such  inspiration in the notebook of quotations. Before she died, she had copied down an extract from the poem ‘Life’ by Anna Barbauld:

“Life, we’ve been long together

Through pleasant and through cloudy weather

’tis hard to part when friends are dear

’twill cost perhaps a sigh, a tear

So steal away, give little warning

Choose your own time.”