Shirl: Part I

Shirley Bourge- or as everyone knew her "Shirl"- passed away in January 2011, having been diagnosed with mesothelioma (cancer caused by asbestos) almost a year beforehand. One of her many qualities was her organisation, and before she passed away, she put together a book of her memories and anecdotes. Some would call these her memoirs, but Shirl simply called the book "My Life". It means that as well as my memories of her, I am also able to put some of her own stories, in her own words, up here. She may as well have called the book "My Voice", because it's written exactly as she spoke, and even reading through it now, I can hear her voice in my head, turning the words over in that Cardiff accent that I'll never forget.


I've found a couple of things in the book that give a pretty accurate reflection on the kind of person Shirl was, and made me smile when I read them.

"We lived in a big house that had 4 attics (...), best rooms were always let out to the lodgers and us kids used to sleep 4 to a bed" -Shirl was the youngest of 12 children!
"My eldest sister Lily lived in Canton and we thought it would be a good idea to go and visit her; of course we had to walk there and did not even have the address. The only thing in our mind is that Lily was 'posh' because she gave me a tin of Gibbs toothpaste to clean my teeth; we always used soot from the chimney and salt."
[On teaching a life-saving class at the pool] "They were always telling me off because I would take any one in the class even if it took a year to pass their award. They said it was the last straw when I took a non-swimmer who wanted to become a life saving teacher."
[Receiving an award from the Life Saving Society] "We were all nervous (...) The only thing was the size of my heels walking across the stage, by the time I got to Prince Michael (...) I bowed instead of curtsied."
[A parent enquires about her son learning to swim] "She explained her son was born with no arms. When I explained this would not be a problem, she thought I had lost the plot."


Shirley was a person with a simple background, had no airs or graces, and throughout her life, her view of the world seemed to be that everyone deserved a chance, and deserved to have their aspirations recognised:

-When I was in primary school, Shirl was a supervisor at the Empire Pool in Cardiff, and she knew I loved writing. Consequently I ended up with a ridiculously big box of stationary from her work. It was full of folders, staplers, notebooks, pens, highlighters, glossy flyer paper and a dynamo! To anybody else, this would have been a weird present, but to me, intent on writing a masterpiece one day, it was amazing.

-When I was 16, we had to to a work experience of some kind. I had tried to get into at an advertising company, and another at the South Wales Echo. They both apologetically told me that I was too young to carry out a work experience with them. Disheartened, I was about to do what everyone else I knew was doing, and apply to my old primary school, when Shirl- who now worked at Cardiff County Hall got me a week working at the marketing and events department! During this week I sat in meetings where festivals were arranged, I went to brainstorms coming up with ideas for The Big Weekend, and I got to go out with Lisa (the lady who Shirley had arranged it with) in her convertible, for business lunches in Cardiff Bay!


There was never a favour too laborious, or a task too great for Shirley to take on. As my Grampy Joe said at the funeral, "Shirley was generous with that most precious of things, her time- and it is precious; the richest man alive wouldn't be able to buy another little bit".