AT Mary Lavins funeral, there was no shortage of memories and stories. Everyone had a tale to tell. Mine went back to days in the classroom, because I taught two of her daughters at Pembroke School, and in the staff room we always said that Elizabeth and Caroline Walsh's mother was a dream to deal with. Teachers never have favourite pupils of course we didn't we cherished every child equally... but their parents, now that was something else.
In those days, we dealt almost always with mothers it was long before the age of parent/ teacher associations or open days so we knew the mothers because they delivered and collected their children, or they came to thank us or make inquiries or to complain or worry.
Most of them were very nice, with, of course, a bewildering non comprehension of their own children. The mothers of demons often thought they were angels, the mothers of nice, dreamy, idealistic children thought they were vixen, but as teachers we thought that just went with the territory. We understood the girls, but their parents mainly hadn't a clue.
What we loved was enthusiastic parents. And Mary Lavin was that in spades. She use to call in to the school in her flowing black clothes, briefcase clenched in her hand, and tell us we were all wonderful. I can still remember the smiles around the little table in the tiniest staff room in the world when she had paid a visit. We were, after all, no matter what the children believed, humble, eager humans dying to be loved and appreciated. A visit from Mary Lavin was like a vitamin shot we marched off to our classrooms full of enthusiasm, knowing that it was, after all, the most important job in the whole world.
What exactly did she say? That's what I have been trying to remember this week without huge success, because it was mainly the mood of the thing that was so strong. But whenever we saw her come into the building there was a sense of cheer. She knew all our names and any little funny story we had told in class she repeated as if it were the latest pearl from Peter Ustinov.
She had a great sense of wonder about things, and she would always tell you that something you had said in class had made her look up a book on the matter, and she would lend it to you.
We loved being lent books by her it never seemed like she was trying to widen our horizons, or deepen what she could well have identified as a somewhat shallow grasp of things. No, it sounded as if we were all ongoing partners in the business of educating children. We would adjust the halo and read whatever she gave us with huge gratitude.
AND I remember my friend Mary Clarke, who taught Irish there, saying that she used to repeat over and over the praise that Mary Lavin heaped on her, and saying that when she was old she would remember that Ireland's greatest living writer at the time had said this to her.
Mary Clark and I used to be invited to parties, too, in Lad Lane where there would be strong drink and liberal chat and late hours, but Mary Lavin had her children so well trained that not a word of this ever leaked out to the pupils. No tales were ever told that Miss Clarke and Miss Binchy might have been boisterous in civilian life.
Mary Lavin also de-mystified the whole business of being a writer, which was very endearing. She said that she regarded going to the National Library as going to the office, and that if she was late she would run down Kildare Street as anyone would run if they were going to be late for a job. She always said you could never be sure of inspiration but you should be sitting down quietly with your pen and paper ready in case it did strike rather than be asleep or having coffee with friends. Which still ranks as terrific advice for any writer.
And she seriously seemed to believe that our job as teachers was much more important and demanding than hers. I can see her now, her hands clasped with admiration. "I don't know how you do it, I really don't. Dozens of them day after day, hour after hour. And you're so patient with all of them. You never lose your tempers, you should all be canonised."
Of course we lost our tempers but we didn't admit it to her we simpered and said there was nothing to it, you either loved it or you should get out of the kitchen.
And if you met her socially she would introduce you with awe as a Teacher, just as you might introduce an Explorer or a Lion Tamer. "You know they aren't paid nearly enough when you think what they do," she would say about us.
"What kind of a society are we at all that we don't rate teachers as the highest of the high? The Greeks used to think that the teachers were the most important members of the tribe, the Jews use the word rabbi, signifying a position of huge importance in the community. What can be wrong, with our values that we don't feel the same?".
Oh it felt great. To be recognised and singled out.
NO teachers are, or ever were, in it for the money, but lots of us were in it because we thought we were doing something worthwhile and it was sheer joy when the parents saw that too.
Mary Lavin wasn't the only supportive parent in that school. I remember a line of them, kind women who would pick me up from the railway station on a wet day, and who would campaign for anything we wanted a school excursion, the loan of sports fields, a new globe for a classroom. They were mainly marvellous and appreciative and knew we weren't sadists who had it in for their daughters and lived a life of short hours and long holidays.
But Mary Lavin was special, not just because she was famous or an amazing extrovert but because she genuinely did seem to believe that we were special.
I always thought that if I had had children I would have been just so loving and admiring to their teachers. I would have been the Parent From Heaven as Mary Lavin was, reassuring about how happy they were and how much they were learning and how great it all was. Because that kind of enthusiasm does make you work harder, not just for her children but for everyone's.
There was no need to give her children any particular favouritism anyway they were fine, and continued to be fine. I have even forgiven Caroline for changing her status entirely and moving from being a little girl in my classroom in Pembroke Road to being my boss as features editor of The Irish Times.
I don't think it can have changed all that much over the years teachers still love the enthusiastic parent and hate the one who wants to know when a child is nine how many points he or she will get in the Leaving. They love a bit of appreciation and interest, and hate the parent who asks are you sure that this or that is on the course?.
In years to come when Mary Lavin is remembered in history books and in literary criticism, I don't want people to forget that she was also a benign, enthusiastic parent loved and remembered by a generation of school teachers whose true worth she was able to recognise and acknowledge.