“Patrick asked me to meet him in church,” she recalls. “He was an altar boy, and after Mass we went to the pictures. I don’t remember the film because we were snogging so much.” The couple married at St Charles Chuch, Attercliffe, on December 27th, 1954, and were together until Patrick passed away in 2019. “Accommodation was scarce in the 1950s,” says Maureen, who is 90, “so we set up home in an aunt’s house until we could afford to rent a two-up-two-down for 14 shillings a week,” (70p today). Maureen was born in Attercliffe, the only child of Mary and Dennis Kelly. “They both were small, though mum liked to boast that she was taller than dad. He was 5ft 2in, but she was 5ft two-and-a-half.”
As a child, Maureen contracted tuberculosis, and for two years was confined to an isolation ward at King Edward VII Hospital in Rivelin, where her parents were allowed to visit only once every two weeks. The disease caused her left leg to become one-and-a-half inches shorter than the right. Maureen started her working life as a shorthand-typist, but later trained to be a nurse, and worked for 34 years at the Northern General Hospital, where she became a staff nurse in A & E. Patrick and Maureen had four children (a daughter and three sons) and 11 grandchildren. It was in 2022 that Maureen moved to Loxley Park. “After Patrick died, I stayed at our bungalow in Loxley for a couple of years, but always felt scared living alone. In my apartment at Loxley Park I feel very safe, and must say that the team are fantastic. I really enjoy living here.”
