Relative Values: Sister Act

Pauline Farrell is a 44 year-old Human Resources Manager for the NHS. Her sister, Anne Farrell, is a 46 year old ex-pension expert, who is now unemployed. One is a single mother of two, who is currently seeing someone, and the other is happily married with no children. They both grew up in the same room, with the same brothers, sharing the same Irish heritage, and they both used to wait for their father to come home from work. Despite spending a lot of their adult lives apart, they now both currently live in Crawley, West Sussex, and are closer then ever.

Pauline: We didn’t really do a lot of activities whilst growing up; mum and dad had no money so we had to make do with what was around. We never shared interests as such, but we shared a room and were the youngest two siblings, so we spent a lot of time with each other. We both liked pop music and we used to imitate an old female dance group called ‘Pans People’ a lot. Some of my earliest memories are me and Anne walking the boys to school, this was before we had started school and mum couldn’t leave us on our own and so we had to go with her. As we all got older, I found myself being the only one not at school yet, and I remember trying to teach myself to write – although this was mainly me just jotting together letters and asking if it was a real word. We never disliked each other whilst growing up, but as we became teenagers we never really appreciated each other fully – it’s hard to have a personal life when your sister is in the room with you. I sometimes felt a bit left out, as everyone else were a few years older then me, and I often couldn’t join them whenever they went out. When we became adults, we both went our separate ways, I married and tried to start a life elsewhere, and Anne stayed at home and did pretty much the same. We kept in touched, and visited each other. We are much closer now because we know each other as adults. As children we were just like other siblings – you have good times and bad times but you take your family for granted and you only really get to know them when you are an adult. Anne would do anything to help me, she is so kind and generous. She supported me whenever I had a problem, especially when I became a single mother trying to raise two children. She was one of the reasons I moved back to Crawley. It’s strange though, because from my perception I spent as much time with my cousin Louise as I did with Anne when I was growing up, but it is Anne that I am close to now. It must be her amazing hand-crafted cards

Anne: One of my earliest memories with Pauline was when we helped mum walk the boys to school; we did it a lot since we couldn’t be left alone in the house. One day Mum was running late so she had to quickly put a coat around me whilst I was still in my pyjamas. So there I was, sitting on top of the pram with Pauline in it, in my pyjamas. It was very embarrassing. Me and Pauline did most of our activities together at school, since coming from a poor family meant there wasn’t much money to actually to go out and do things. However, I started flower arranging through the church and Pauline joined the Ifield Barn Theatre, which reflects some of the differences in our personalities. Around the home, our fondest shared memories seem to be of Dad, as we both used to spend a lot of time with him. Dad used to play with us a lot. He would lie on the floor and we would stand on his hands and we would catapult over his body and land at his feet. We would also Dress up and doing ‘impressions’ to entertain him. Mum would also take us shopping to Brighton on a Saturday, while the others stayed at home. As we grew up, I think we were so used to being together that we took each other for granted, although I defiantly did not appreciate her walking in on some intimate time with my boyfriend when I was a teenager. However once we started to live apart, we grew much closer together as we appreciated each other. I have no regrets about our relationship as adults; however I would have loved to have lived closer to Pauline while her boys were babies. I used to love it when they came to visit and was always sad when they had to go home. Now of course she lives just down the road from me, but her boys are no longer babies, they are still a credit to her though. I respect Pauline a lot, especially the way she coped when she was a single parent. I know I can rely on Pauline 100% and I trust her completely. I know she will support me whatever I do (no, I haven’t murdered anyone!) and her help and advice is invaluable.

By Joe Robinson.
Before anyone asks, these wonderful ladies are my mum and my aunt, respectivley.