A LIFE OF RENEWEL TOUCHED BY WIFE'S GUIDING STAR
A life of renewal, touched by wife's 'guiding star'
KEVIN Skelton candidly admits that his life went 'off the rails' following the loss of his beloved wife, Mena, in the Omagh bombing, but equally refreshingly he concedes that he subsequently rediscovered the inner strength that had always been part of his parental home, regained the joy of love and marriage and the uplifting spirits of fatherhood and an enlarged family.
Philomena Skelton was 39 when she died and the mother of four children. Ray, the only one not in Omagh that fateful Saturday afternoon, was 16, Paula, 18, Tracey, 15 and the youngest, Shauna, also hurt in the horrific town centre blast, 13. Shauna suffered facial and neck injuries and was initially treated in Tyrone County Hospital, but was later transferred to Altnagelvin and then to the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald, ultimately spending three weeks in hospital.
She has made a complete recovery and is currently working in Melbourne in south-eastern Australia, while Paula has since married and Tracey has overcome the traumatic experience of discovering her mother's body in the rubble at Lower Market Street.
Ray, who had not seen his mother from the previous evening as he left home early to go fishing, also found it extremely difficult coming to terms with the Shockwaves reverberating through the Skelton home in Drumquin in the bombing's aftermath. But Kevin, now 53, found solace in a bottle. A lorry driver with the former Moffatts (Drumquin) Limited, he had parted company with his wife and daughters, who continued shopping that Saturday lunchtime, to price a flight to Romania at J&R Waterson Travel.
Kevin was planning to visit 10-year-old 'orphan', Andreea Cozac who had returned home the previous Sunday after holidaying with his family through the auspices of the North-West Romanian Relief Fund for which he remains a fundraiser.
He is presently helping oversee the transport of a "lorry-load of drugs, children's toys and clothes and a wheelchair", poignantly leaving these shores on Saturday.
That previous weekend he had refereed the Tyrone Ladies Senior Football Championship final at Omagh's Healy Park between St Macartan's and Dungannon at which 17-year-old Jolene Marlow clinched a winners' medal she was never to see. Jolene, too, died in the bombing, which brought Kevin, now vice-chairman of the Omagh Self Help Support Group, to his lowest ebb.
"For six months my children had no father. I was not working and I admit to going off the rails and hitting the bottle", he revealed. "Thankfully the children were old enough to care for themselves and Shauna kept an eye on me until one Sunday morning I woke up feeling much the worse for the previous evening's bender.
"I was staring at a family photograph on the wall and something clicked that brought me to my senses. With the help of my mother, Maggie, who was an absolute tower of strength, I got my life back together again, although I suffered a bout of ill-health in the spring of 1999, probably arising from all the stress and bottled up ill-feeling and helplessness I felt."
Compounding the stress were arrangements for Kevin to return to Romania in August to adopt Andreea. A kindly surgeon at Tyrone County Hospital ensured he would keep the date, albeit belatedly, advancing an operation to remove his gall bladder to June. Suitably convalesced Kevin flew to Romania in October and met Andreea's mother, Maria, for the first time at the orphanage gates.
"It was news to me, I didn't know there was a mother," explained Kevin, who is now Andreea's step-father. She said to me: "You've come to take my children" and I said, "No, just Andreea". It transpired that there was an elder sister, Nico."
After accepting an invitation to visit Kevin at Christmas 1999, Nico has also become part of the Skelton family and, having made regular visits since, she has married locally and is domiciled in Omagh.
Over the next five years Kevin was a regular visitor to Romania and to Maria. He said he recognised emerging feelings for her, but could never bring himself to express them. In August 2004 at the end of another two-week visit for the official opening of a new orphanage he again returned home without comment.
"Later in the year a letter arrived at my home, written in broken English, but readable, and I was suddenly aware that Maria had similar feelings for me. She did, however, apologise in the event that she had misread the signals," smiled Kevin.
During another Romanian trip in March 2005 Kevin spent some time with Maria, flew back for Paula's Scottish wedding, but returned immediately the ceremony ended in a bid to secure a visa enabling Maria to come to Northern Ireland. It required more than a little chicanery at the British Embassy in Bucharest; the end result, a six-month holiday visa to attend Paula's (already celebrated) wedding!!
Having decided to marry and needing to act before the visa expired on November 4, Kevin applied to the British Government for permission to do so. He was refused and sought the services of Foyle SDLP MP, Mark Durkan to appeal the decision. A highhanded piece of action by Labour MP, Tony McNulty, then head of the Home Office, paved the way for a successful outcome.
"McNulty said I should have utilised my own West Tyrone MP, Pat Doherty and, without my permission, sent all the documentation, much of it private, to the Sinn Fein man. I was having none of it," rapped Kevin. "Mark Durkan raised the issue in parliament and it was all quickly sorted and a certificate to marry issued."
Kevin and Maria wed on October 12, 2005, and on October 17 the following year Gabriella was born to the happy couple. It was as if Mena was looking down on her own handiwork as it was she who had involved Kevin with the North-West Romanian Relief Fund the year before her death.
"I would never have been in Romania but for Mena, and during the last 10 years it has been a source of regret to me that she never got to go there. There is no doubt that Mena has had a helluva lot to do with where I am at today," claimed Kevin.
"I've rebuilt my life, particularly my home life, moved to a new house in Omagh in April 2006 and rediscovered happiness and fatherhood. It's all been a bit of a shock, but it's fantastic. I saw Gabriella being born, something denied me when Mena's four pregnancies came of term, and I have gained another step-daughter, Iulia, who is eight and already a fluent English speaker after little more than three years here."
KEVIN Skelton candidly admits that his life went 'off the rails' following the loss of his beloved wife, Mena, in the Omagh bombing, but equally refreshingly he concedes that he subsequently rediscovered the inner strength that had always been part of his parental home, regained the joy of love and marriage and the uplifting spirits of fatherhood and an enlarged family.
Philomena Skelton was 39 when she died and the mother of four children. Ray, the only one not in Omagh that fateful Saturday afternoon, was 16, Paula, 18, Tracey, 15 and the youngest, Shauna, also hurt in the horrific town centre blast, 13. Shauna suffered facial and neck injuries and was initially treated in Tyrone County Hospital, but was later transferred to Altnagelvin and then to the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald, ultimately spending three weeks in hospital.
She has made a complete recovery and is currently working in Melbourne in south-eastern Australia, while Paula has since married and Tracey has overcome the traumatic experience of discovering her mother's body in the rubble at Lower Market Street.
Ray, who had not seen his mother from the previous evening as he left home early to go fishing, also found it extremely difficult coming to terms with the Shockwaves reverberating through the Skelton home in Drumquin in the bombing's aftermath. But Kevin, now 53, found solace in a bottle. A lorry driver with the former Moffatts (Drumquin) Limited, he had parted company with his wife and daughters, who continued shopping that Saturday lunchtime, to price a flight to Romania at J&R Waterson Travel.
Kevin was planning to visit 10-year-old 'orphan', Andreea Cozac who had returned home the previous Sunday after holidaying with his family through the auspices of the North-West Romanian Relief Fund for which he remains a fundraiser.
He is presently helping oversee the transport of a "lorry-load of drugs, children's toys and clothes and a wheelchair", poignantly leaving these shores on Saturday.
That previous weekend he had refereed the Tyrone Ladies Senior Football Championship final at Omagh's Healy Park between St Macartan's and Dungannon at which 17-year-old Jolene Marlow clinched a winners' medal she was never to see. Jolene, too, died in the bombing, which brought Kevin, now vice-chairman of the Omagh Self Help Support Group, to his lowest ebb.
"For six months my children had no father. I was not working and I admit to going off the rails and hitting the bottle", he revealed. "Thankfully the children were old enough to care for themselves and Shauna kept an eye on me until one Sunday morning I woke up feeling much the worse for the previous evening's bender.
"I was staring at a family photograph on the wall and something clicked that brought me to my senses. With the help of my mother, Maggie, who was an absolute tower of strength, I got my life back together again, although I suffered a bout of ill-health in the spring of 1999, probably arising from all the stress and bottled up ill-feeling and helplessness I felt."
Compounding the stress were arrangements for Kevin to return to Romania in August to adopt Andreea. A kindly surgeon at Tyrone County Hospital ensured he would keep the date, albeit belatedly, advancing an operation to remove his gall bladder to June. Suitably convalesced Kevin flew to Romania in October and met Andreea's mother, Maria, for the first time at the orphanage gates.
"It was news to me, I didn't know there was a mother," explained Kevin, who is now Andreea's step-father. She said to me: "You've come to take my children" and I said, "No, just Andreea". It transpired that there was an elder sister, Nico."
After accepting an invitation to visit Kevin at Christmas 1999, Nico has also become part of the Skelton family and, having made regular visits since, she has married locally and is domiciled in Omagh.
Over the next five years Kevin was a regular visitor to Romania and to Maria. He said he recognised emerging feelings for her, but could never bring himself to express them. In August 2004 at the end of another two-week visit for the official opening of a new orphanage he again returned home without comment.
"Later in the year a letter arrived at my home, written in broken English, but readable, and I was suddenly aware that Maria had similar feelings for me. She did, however, apologise in the event that she had misread the signals," smiled Kevin.
During another Romanian trip in March 2005 Kevin spent some time with Maria, flew back for Paula's Scottish wedding, but returned immediately the ceremony ended in a bid to secure a visa enabling Maria to come to Northern Ireland. It required more than a little chicanery at the British Embassy in Bucharest; the end result, a six-month holiday visa to attend Paula's (already celebrated) wedding!!
Having decided to marry and needing to act before the visa expired on November 4, Kevin applied to the British Government for permission to do so. He was refused and sought the services of Foyle SDLP MP, Mark Durkan to appeal the decision. A highhanded piece of action by Labour MP, Tony McNulty, then head of the Home Office, paved the way for a successful outcome.
"McNulty said I should have utilised my own West Tyrone MP, Pat Doherty and, without my permission, sent all the documentation, much of it private, to the Sinn Fein man. I was having none of it," rapped Kevin. "Mark Durkan raised the issue in parliament and it was all quickly sorted and a certificate to marry issued."
Kevin and Maria wed on October 12, 2005, and on October 17 the following year Gabriella was born to the happy couple. It was as if Mena was looking down on her own handiwork as it was she who had involved Kevin with the North-West Romanian Relief Fund the year before her death.
"I would never have been in Romania but for Mena, and during the last 10 years it has been a source of regret to me that she never got to go there. There is no doubt that Mena has had a helluva lot to do with where I am at today," claimed Kevin.
"I've rebuilt my life, particularly my home life, moved to a new house in Omagh in April 2006 and rediscovered happiness and fatherhood. It's all been a bit of a shock, but it's fantastic. I saw Gabriella being born, something denied me when Mena's four pregnancies came of term, and I have gained another step-daughter, Iulia, who is eight and already a fluent English speaker after little more than three years here."
Further Information
Publisher: TYRONE CONSTITUTION
Ref: TC10An/38
Published Date: 14-Aug-08
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