Marion wanted to marry an Irishman
Family feud
Marion's marriage
Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive
I wanted to marry an Irishman, my family said he was a gypsy, you know, a tinker. After a lot of fighting and I was two and a half months pregnant they agreed to the marriage - I was sixteen and a half. I eventually had nine children. I was an outcast for about eight years, that's when I began to fall out with my family, they offered no help, not once. When my parents passed away they left me nothing, you do get hard. I used to say to my father "you do it yourself".
I have a brother and a sister in Australia, I haven't seen them for years.