My Left Foot 4

B Oh, very much so. There was a lovely moment where I am
very pregnant with the next child and I’m carrying Christy 
up the stairs to put him to bed. I remember I was panting
and puffing going up the stairs, we kept doing it again
and again. And Hugh O Conor, although he looks like a
bird, he weighs a ton. Jim Sheridan came over and said:
‘Look’, he said ‘the mother loves this son so much that
she would never let him know that it was tiring or heavy
for her to bring him up the stairs. So when you say at the
top of the stairs, ‘we’re nearly there Christy’, stop panting.
Just say the line quietly so that you wouldn’t disturb him’.
That was the best note ever. I’ve no children so I
wouldn’t know about that kind of love but that was a key
for me. So, yes, she gave birth 22 times and 13 survived
on no money, no mod cons, nothing. I met some of her
daughters who are still alive and they said ‘that’s what
she was just like, one of those heroines. They are few
and far between today.
fii
The church has quite a strong influence on her.
B Yes, well in those days, I think it did on most people. I
think also there was a genuine relationship between her
and the husband. I mean difficult as it was, they did seem
to get on very well. 
fii
There is that one brief moment of affection between them,
when they are out on the street?
B On the bicycles? Yes, we just did that as an impromptu
thing one day. I think its lovely.
fii
Students are asked to consider the world of the film, the social
context within which the story is told. How do you think its
portrayed?
B We did talk a lot about that. We just went literally by his