My friend Donal Flanagan, who has died aged 96, led an active life into his tenth decade, working as a volunteer at the Sobell House Hospice shop in Oxford until last year. An Irishman who talked often of his cherished memories of postwar London theatres and pubs, he epitomised the companionable, eccentric Oxford character, more town than gown. He habitually addressed people as “Dear Boy”, which over time became his own nickname.
Don was born in the County Dublin village of Castleknock. When he was nine his father, Daniel, a surveyor, died of a heart attack, and with his three sisters Don was taken by his mother, Jane, to her home town of Nenagh, in Tipperary; the Christian Brothers school there was an experience he did not enjoy. In 1940 he left Ireland to live in an aunt’s “posh boarding house” in Belsize Park, north London, arriving just before the Blitz.
Source: Donal Flanagan obituary
Category: Oxford, Ireland, Hospices
