Of What Is Past

As shadows of impending war lengthen in 1939, a lone woman, shamed and shunned by her family in Northern Ireland, has no option other than leave her rural community. With nothing more than a few pounds and a scribbled note, she carries her expected child to an address to go to in London. The Marie Stopes worker she meets there finds her short term accommodation. Unable to continue in her lodgings, she is forced to surrender her boy child, born in Romford, Essex, into the care of an Order of Religious Sisters. In this book, the author describes his early life living with others in similar circumstances. Reflecting on a period of twelve years, he describes how the Sisters controlled a wide variety of behaviour and situations in a setting containing over a hundred boys grouped together. He is led to believe his mother has died and his father died heroically in war torn France. He makes friends that last a life time. ＂Of What Is Past＂ is the first book in a series entitled ＂Scenes From An Examined Life＂.

Anthony J. M. Brady was born in 1940 in London. He retired in 1994, having completed a career in local government as a Principal Officer Team Leader with the London Borough of Camden, from whose Social Services Department, he had been seconded to the Department of Health & Social Security (Resettlement Centres) for 15 years. In 1997, he moved to Northern Ireland and lives in Brockagh, Tempo, Co. Fermanagh. A Communitarian, he participates in part-time voluntary work involving social reconstruction, advocacy, renewal and reconciliation. His first writing in print was an essay in the London Chest Hospital Staff Magazine: Shakespeare and Medicine (1964). His first letter to a newspaper appeared in the Catholic Herald and this led to a series of polemical exchanges in its letter’s page about the American/Vietnam War with the writer John Braine (1969/70). His first writing fee was for a book review: Caring on Skid Row by Anton Wallich-Clifford - the founder of The Simon Community, commissioned by The Catholic Herald (1974). Subsequently, (1981-1986) he had letters published in The Catholic Universe, Hackney Gazette, The Guardian, The East Ender, The East London Mercury and The Greenwich Mercury on topics such as Apartheid; Drug Addiction; Homelessness and social justice issues. Many of his letters on topical issues have appeared in The Fermanagh Herald and The Impartial Reporter. The Guardian printed four of his letters (1987-1990). One highlighted the threatened closure of a service for adolescent mentally ill people at The Maudsley Hospital; another two were arguments against reduction of hospital provision in London and the fourth objected to the euthanizing of the first person in England to have feeding methods legally withdrawn to assist his death. A Paper entitled: Helping the Resettled Person with a Relapsing Drinking Problem, was published by the Charity, Good Practices in Mental Health. ISBN 0 948445297 Tony began to send out creative work for the first time in 2003. A short story: ’Sister of Mercy’ was published by the weekly magazine ＂Ireland’s Own＂ and in 2004 an historical profile about Angela Burdett-Coutts: Queen of the Poor, was published by the bi-monthly magazine ＂Ireland’s Eye.＂ Both publications are popular in Ireland and the United States. Since 2003, he has had published (in anthology) numerous poems in various publications under the aegis of Forward Press: Anchor Books, Triumph House and New Poetry.