'One of my first memories was sitting on the floor in the living room with the mice running over my legs.'

'One of my first memories was sitting on the floor in the living room with the mice running over my legs.'

Norma remembers moving into a mice-infested house before moving in with her grandmother.

Norma McCullough

Trinity College Dublin

1940

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Norma McCullough

Childhood and Early Life

Life Story

Belfast

1940s

My name is Norma Stewart McCullough. I was born on 26th September 1937. For the first ten years of my life I moved around quite a bit. The house I was born in was in Joanmount Crescent on the Ballysillan Road,where I stayed until my father joined the Royal Air Force at the outbreak of world war two,in 1939. My mother was lonely on her own with a small baby,so she moved to a large old house in Cuper Street,off the Springfield Road to be nearer to my grandmother. However,the house was overrun with mice and rats. One of my first memories was sitting on the floor in the living room with the mice running over my legs. That was that,we then moved in with my grandmother and my aunt Mabel into a hose which was a lot smaller but wasn't infested. It was on the Shankill Road in Brookmount Street. My aunt Mabel was a bit of a snob,she used to make me say we lived on the Woodvale Road,which was considered a bit more up market.

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Irish Research Council for Arts,Humanities & Social Sciences (IRCHSS)

Dr Kathleen McTiernan (Trinity College Dublin)

Dr Deirdre O'Donnell (Trinity College Dublin)