‘They scrumped for apples, and headed out on the water in flimsy dinghies. It was part-Enid Blyton, part-Lord of the Flies.’ Going back to my grandparents’ home in Cork
By Bonnie Burke-Patel
Copyright independent
The water at Pol Gorm was so cold that even in mid-summer, you swam quickly just to get out at the other side of the cove. It was a feat of great daring and bravado, and as a nine-year-old, I was proud of it. Every subsequent summer in the late Nineties and early Noughties, Dad took my three siblings and me back. Every year I tried to swim Pol Gorm.
These holidays were a sort of homecoming for Dad, whose own parents, Kevin and Margaret Burke, had emigrated from Cork to the outskirts of Bristol in 1951. My paternal grandparents were both doctors. Newly wed, Grandma Burke was affected by the “marriage bar”, which meant that as a married woman, she was unable to work full-time as a GP, or own a practice.
