Patrick Collins

But yeah, she had been in the room that night and she'd been saying to me, oh, look at what I'm buying because it was...

the Christmas bonus you know every time it's issued every Christmas I always think of her because I always think well if it had come the week before and you had got the phone would it have made a difference Nicola would I be sitting here today talking to you I don't know there's another unanswered question that I never know the answer to one that inevitably runs through my mind anyway

How it was, yeah.

Yeah, how shattered it was.

Because the dream was over that she'd come home the way we wanted her to come home.

And, you know, when I think back now, I was thinking about, I always used to look forward to

The day that I'd see her again and I'd say, oh, guess what, Sandra, I did my leave insert, I did this, I did that.

You've missed out on so much.

And I bought my first car.

You had lots to tell her.

Yeah.

As well as probably say, what the hell did you do to us?

You know, naturally, Nicola, I get, I mean, I'm not saying that there wouldn't have been a little bit of anger, but, you know, I mean, the way things had gone, but

that would have been soon dissipated when we'd have thrown our arms around her and told her all the lovely things that we had done and what she'd missed out on her lovely nieces and nephews being born and she'd have got to meet them then and I suppose it was just this hope and this dream for us and for my dad because mam had died obviously in the meantime he was still left carrying the flag you know

Well, yeah, most definitely.

That's the main hope, isn't it?

To bring her home and to find her and to end this story for us, you know.

Yeah.

That's the most important thing of all.

I think, you know, the census came out there lately, the 1926 census, so everyone got to look up their ancestors.