My mother, Eileen Fadden, who has died aged 85, was a dedicated nurse and midwife in the NHS for many years and then became a school nurse in Birmingham.
Born Ellen Doherty in County Tipperary, Ireland, Eileen, as she soon became known, lived an idyllic childhood on the family farm with her parents, Edmond Doherty, a farmer, and his wife, Bridget (nee Woods), a former nurse, and her two sisters and two brothers. A third sister died in infancy.
Eileen attended a convent school in Tipperary, travelling there by pony and trap in all weathers, and would be caned on the fingers for being slightly late.
She showed a keen interest in the workings of the farm and had set her sights on studying agricultural science. The death of her father when she was 18, however, was a severe blow. Ireland was not yet sufficiently emancipated to countenance a woman pursuing a farming career.
Instead, Eileen and her sister, Noreen, opted to follow in the footsteps of their mother, who had been a nurse in Britain during the first world war. Eileen became a trainee nurse in Bridgwater, Somerset, where she worked on the wards and in theatre. She moved to Northampton and finally to Queen Elizabeth hospital, Birmingham, where she became a state registered nurse.
And then, along with Noreen, she decided to go into midwifery. From the home they shared, they would take turns to answer calls, delivering babies in Saltley, Alum Rock and Washwood Heath. She later became a district nurse and would often cycle around Birmingham.
Eileen was a lover of literature, especially poetry, a passion she transmitted to her sons. She often recalled how a senior surgeon would put his mainly Irish and Commonwealth nursing charges in their place by quoting from the English canon, then quizzing them as to the lines’ provenance. On one such occasion, Eileen repaid him, with interest, giving her own word-perfect rendition from Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Eileen married Mat Fadden, a factory worker at the Austin car works, Longbridge, in 1964, and dedicated herself to motherhood, raising six sons. Some 20 years later she resumed her career at her children’s secondary school, Archbishop Ilsley comprehensive, in Acocks Green, as a nurse and assistant to pupils with disabilities.
She was loved and relied upon at the school as much for her wit, good humour and wise counsel on any number of issues as for her medical skills. “Ask Mrs Fadden” was a familiar refrain. She retired in 1997 and was an enthusiastic gardener, jam maker, Scrabble player, reader, and crossword solver.
Mat died in 2016. Eileen is survived by her six sons, 15 grandchildren and her sisters, Noreen and Breda.
