Remembering one of the Dagenham Yanks known as uncle Con

“My Uncle Con was always driving the latest Ford model back in the ’60s,” recalls his niece, Mary Linehan.

Con made regular trips home from England at the time, to his sister Hannah’s house.

He had taken up work at the Ford factory in Dagenham, Essex, in the 1930s — the plant became a haven for many Irish people like Con, who began work at the Marina factory in Cork, during downturns in production.

Many of the emigrants were known as Dagenham Yanks when they made their regular visits home.

“Nobody else had a car at the time,” says Mary. “Let alone one like a big American Yankee car like Uncle Con arrived in every summer during the month of August.

“He religiously came to visit his sister, my mother, Hannah. I remember we’d all congregate around the car and all the neighbours came out for a look.

“Even now, the image of those big flashy cars Uncle Con drove is as fresh as ever in my mind. I can remember the huge shiny wings of the car.”

Mary and her family looked forward to being chauffeured about in the plush fancy car.

“The young kids stuck out their tongues as we passed them by in the back of the huge car. I’m sure they thought that we were filthy rich!

“Uncle Con took us off touring every day,” adds Mary. “He stayed two weeks with us in Mallow and another week with his wife’s family, the Dennehys from Rathduff.”

Con didn’t come home empty-handed either.

“I am an only child,” says Mary. “He always treated me to a bag of new shiny pennies. I was delighted.”

Mary’s mother Hannah was very proud of her brother Con, who joined the Ford factory in Cork when he left school.

“It was his very first job,” says Mary. “He started on the factory floor.

“When the economic downturn came in the 1930s, he was given the option of a transfer to either Detroit or Dagenham.

“Con often joked in later years that he should have opted for Detroit. Some of his own children ended up in the USA and Canada.”

Many Corkonians found themselves on board the Innisfallen boat to England when tractor manufacturing was terminated in the Cork factory in 1933.

The ship would sail past the familiar Ford factory on the Marina, destined for pastures new.

“Con made a great life for himself in Dagenham,” says Mary. “He went over there very young, with nothing.

“His wife Anne and the family went with him. They reared their six children there.

“The eldest, Denis, died of diphtheria in Fermoy Hospital. That was sad.”

A few years after Con moved to England, in 1939, World War II broke out.

“When the war broke out in England, the children were sent back to Ireland to their grandmother,” says Mary.

“Olive was only weeks old. Her grandmother held onto her until she was 12!

“Olive and her sister, Phyllis, both married Ford men. They all did well for themselves.

“Con’s grandsons and granddaughter run a successful truck business in Canada.”

The work at the Dagenham plant could be arduous. The hours were long.

When the door of the furnace opened, it was said that the lilt of the Cork accents sang in the air.

“Con and his mate, John Maurice, worked in the furnace,” says Mary.

In black-outs during the Blitz in the war years, the men often worked in total darkness at night, with only miner’s headlamps to light the way.

“The furnace gave out heat like the Sahara desert,” says Mary. “The men shunned the air-raids and kept the machines going at their posts.

“Con could hear the bombs dropping over his home nearby.

“He worried for his family. Roof spotters would be posted on the rooftop of the factory to look out for enemy planes. They were very often women.”

There was a safe haven for the workers, when all was quiet.

“There was a pub across the road from the factory,” says Mary, who made regular trips to Dagenham as a child and even lived there for a while. “You’d hear all the familiar Cork accents there,” she recalls.

“Con lived on Beam Street in Dagenham. It seemed like every second house was occupied by a Cork family. It was like home from home.

“Broad Street was a buzzing marketplace. You could often bump into neighbours from home there.”

Mary and her mother travelled to Dagenham on a regular basis.

“It was like having an extended holiday,” she says.

“I was about nine years old when we moved there and I attended school there. My mother worked in Barkin’s Bakery.”

“My Aunt Norrie was living in Dagenham too. She was great. We came back home every three months.”

Mary and her husband, John, travelled to Dagenham in more recent times.

“We went to Sunday Mass there,” says John. “I met a neighbour of mine from Newmarket. I’m sure everyone there is half-related.”

Mary’s uncle Con worked in the Dagenham Ford factory until his death at the age of 66. He was the typical, swash-buckling Dagenham Yank, full of the joys of life.

“Con would go to the local in Cork and meet friends when he was home on holiday,” says Mary. “He promised my mother that he’d ‘do this; do that’. She told him; ‘Go way out of that! Tis the drink talking!’”

Con talked the talk and he never lost his Cork accent.

What happened to the bags of shiny pennies?

“She still has them!” says John, laughing.

“No I have not!” retorts Mary.

But she does have fond memories of her Uncle Con, the Dagenham yank; the local boy made good. The man who proudly drove the big fancy Ford motor car.