Meet Tom Holmes, a Third Age member in Summerhill
Posted on 4th August 2016
Tom Holmes, 79, returned home to Summerhill after spending 57 years in London, and has no regrets: “I sometimes ask myself if I had stayed in Ireland what kind of person would I be now? Everything seems to have resolved, and I have come full circle.
“I was very resistant to joining Third Age, partly because I think I did not want to accept my age. But they have made such a difference. I needed a chiropodist, and it is part of the service. I can no longer drive, and now I am on trips seeing parts of Ireland I never saw before. I have had some health problems recently and everyone has been kind, a great support.”
With no jobs in Ireland, he left aged 19, arriving in a very different culture. “I am probably an over-sensitive individual, but some experiences were devastating. I worked with a group of people who were particularly anti-Irish, I was sneered at, and there was racism right, left and centre". Tom finally got work and was employed for many years by British Telecom. But his real love was music and drama. He had been an enthusiastic member of Dangan Drama Group in Ireland, and even though he was told in the UK, ‘you will never get anywhere with that dreadful Irish accent’, he auditioned and gained a grant to cover fees for three years at drama school. He worked for many years in repertory and gained small parts on a bigger stage: “I did many one liners, and was in the television show Emergency Ward 10 with my head bandaged!” he said.
“I sometimes ask myself if I had stayed in Ireland what kind of person would I be now? Everything seems to have resolved, and I have come full circle."
However, in spite of help and support from is fellow thespians, acting did not always bring the expected fulfilment. By his own admission, Tom suffered from performance anxiety, worried about remembering his lines. “I was never satisfied with anything I had ever done”, he said.
His membership of the Shakespeare Reading Society created a new outlet in 2003. The Society includes actors, students and academics meeting monthly to share a performed reading of a Shakespearean play. Tom was noticed and cast in a production at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival. This led to three years work the Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe, and the realisation of how he had changed: “I felt really part of the company. All the things that had held me back in the 1960s had gone. I had changed as a person”.
The eldest of four, Tom’s brother and sister live in Summerhill. “I am the only single one, my sister began asking ‘what are you doing all alone all this time in London?’ I felt it was time to come home. I now have my own self-contained apartment in the original family home, looking out over the back garden.”
"At the age of eight, I began to teach myself the piano and than at about fifteen I took lessons with Sister Ignatius, Mercy Convent in Trim, a hard taskmaster but a great teacher."
On his actor’s equity card, Tom had always described himself as ‘actor/musician’. His musical tuition began even earlier than the acting. “At the age of eight, I began to teach myself the piano and than at about fifteen I took lessons with Sister Ignatius, Mercy Convent in Trim, a hard taskmaster but a great teacher”. Over the years, he has tinkled the ivories in hotel lounges, clubs, pubs. “Most importantly of all, years ago, I saw a piano in the window of the Age Concern offices in Ealing, I went in and asked if it was being used.” This led to a twenty-year voluntary residency in Ealing where he provided music for people of all ages, culminating in his receiving an award from the Lord Mayor of Ealing for 20 years service to the older people of the Borough.
One of the best aspects of joining Third Age for Tom is that he is now playing the piano again “I had given it up professionally, but one of my real pleasures has always been able to play by ear. I started playing in Third Age, just background music, and noticed the effect on the nursing home patients who come during the week. People began asking for requests, this triggered memories of music, memories of people, memories of life. I was told after that day that the people sang all the way back in the bus!”
Tom has now completed a set of songbooks for Third Age, and feels he is in a happy chapter of life: “I have found my niche. I can look back and realise that there is a reason for everything. If things in the past did not work out, it was because it not meant to do so. Through my music, I can now do something useful. I believe when you give freely, you get it back. It all comes around.”
