Books: Solicitor with Cork roots publishes first novel at 63 

UK-based Claire Baker, who recently published her debut novel, Family Matters, has strong Cork roots.

This retired solicitor (63) shares a talent for writing with her Cork aunt, Mona Lynch, whose first collection of poetry was launched at Cork City Library in June. Claire attended the launch. She is very proud of her octogenarian aunt and was particularly touched by one of her poems, which is about Claire’s grandmother on wash day.

“Wash day went on all day long,” says Claire. “The poem made me think about how far women have come. I wish my grandmother could have lived long enough to see me become a solicitor. That would not have been in her sights at all.”

Inadvertently, the former Cork Examiner was responsible for Claire’s father, Patrick Dwyer, being able to fulfil his ambition in England. Patrick, from Blarney, left school just before he turned 14. He became a weaver, working at Blarney Woollen Mills. When he was 17, he took the boat to England, staying with a relative in Essex. Patrick did an apprenticeship as a printer but couldn’t get a job as a compositor in London, which was his goal.

He and Claire’s mother (a Londoner) went back to Cork for a holiday. While in Crosshaven, they saw some youngsters in difficulty in a small sailing boat. “My father went into the sea to help them and brought them back. He got talking to the father of the children, who was the son of the Cork Examiner’s owner. He told my father that if he ever needed a job, he should get in touch with the Cork Examiner, which he duly did, working there for a year. That gave him the relevant experience to get a job in England. He and my mother lived in Manchester where my father worked for the Manchester Guardian. He ultimately worked for the Daily Telegraph.”

While Claire had a fulfilling career as a solicitor working mainly in criminal law, writing was always “a niggle in the back of my mind.” She studied English at Sheffield University. “I was young and lacking in confidence. I thought you needed to go to Oxford or Cambridge if you wanted to be a writer. I thought I’d never be good enough. I went and did law at Manchester Polytechnic because I thought it would be a good career.”

Cheshire-based Claire says she always had “an avoidance mentality. I’ve done other things. I trained as a reflexologist, I learned piano and enjoyed it but played badly. I tried to learn German, but I’m not a linguist. When I retired from my solicitor job, I thought it’s now or never so I did some creative writing courses. Writing the novel was a long road with lots of editing before it got to the stage where it is now.”

Set in Manchester in the 1980s, Family Matters is about a trainee solicitor called Clodagh MacNamara (who has Irish roots) and is forced to make the choice between career and motherhood. Her mother is dead, her boyfriend has left her, and her estranged alcoholic father is remarrying.

After one reckless night with a stranger, Clodagh finds herself pregnant. She is caught between her strict Catholic upbringing and the views of Cosmopolitan magazine, her unofficial bible. Work turns toxic, and she is haunted by the voice of her late mother, who had high standards.

Claire was interested in writing about the brand of feminism being touted by glossy magazines like Cosmopolitan in the eighties. “It was about having it all. You could be successful in your career, but you also had to be attractive. You had to have a beautiful home and the right man. Basically, if you were a feminist at work, you had to wear black suits with high heels, full make-up and great hair.”

But Claire says the glossies were often a waste of money as they showed women a life they didn’t have. Married to a barrister, Claire has two children, James (nearly 24) and Grace (almost 25).

“I went back to work after having the kids, and I was lucky that I was able to work part-time. It was like having the best of both worlds. But like a lot of women, you always feel as though you’re not necessarily giving your best to everything, while striving for perfectionism in all areas.”

With a friend, Claire came to the conclusion that you could have it all – just not at the same time.

“I’m talking from the position of having been a professional woman with a husband who has a good job. I was able to work part-time. So I’ve been very lucky. The conversation we’re having would be a different one if you had to work three jobs as a single mother to put food on the table. It’s a very first world problem, very privileged.”

Claire recalls being interviewed for her law training and being asked if she could see herself having children. “I just laughed and said ‘not now, I’m much too young.’ At the time, I didn’t mind being asked. In all fairness, the man who asked me wasn’t a nasty man and wasn’t a woman-hater. He was of a generation, trying to run a firm, in different times to today.”

Women have come a long way since the days of doing the laundry without modern appliances. Claire’s grandmother would no doubt be in awe of her granddaughter’s life.

Family Matters will be released on August 28 and is available from the Book Guild. https:/bookguild.co.uk/bookshop/contemporary/family-matters