HARD KNOCK LIFE I was born in the slums of southwest Dublin in 1944. As a child, I had hardly any formal education. My mother came from a countryside family - she was a very devout Catholic and well-educated. She came up to Dublin to study, but she gave that up after she married my father. My father was a bare-knuckle boxer; he suffered some damage from fighting and was kicked out of police training school. After that he started to drink a lot - an alcoholic out and out. That was very hard for Mummy. She was sick a lot of the time - she had tuberculosis. I was the eldest girl, and I had to do everything I could to help my family. As things got worse financially, there were no textbooks, pens or pencils, therefore you took a lot of abuse at school. And you had to try to make peace as best as you could.
I watched my mother die in hospital when I was 10. I don't think there's anything more horrific than losing your mother. You feel completely alone. Intellectually, I knew she was dead, but emotionally, I always thought she'd come back - I think it was a way to cope with the pain. I'm happy that she left the foundation her values - not to hurt, judge or disrespect people; to go to church; and no matter how bad things get, stay clean with soap and water - being poor is not an excuse to be dirty; don't go overboard with pride, but don't lose your dignity; don't assume anything in life; and hard work didn't kill anybody.
THE CALLING At 18, I ran away to England to join my brother, Andy. I met a man, got married and had children. I'd rather not go into my marriage here - it was not the happiest - but the UK gave me opportunities I never had as a child. I couldn't believe the breaks I got and the sense of equality. I could go back to school, I went to workshops, I started my catering business. The health care was great. I never felt like an outsider. I did social work with the elderly, which I loved. I had an amazing life there.
In 1971, when my children were still young, I had the most vivid dream. In it, I could see the sky - it was raging, roaring crimson-red fire and black smoke. There were children running from a war zone, and they were burned. I could see their little faces so well - and I identified with the pain. The ground was opening up and they were going to plummet into the rift - so I had to catch them before that happened. I saw words in the sky, written in light: Vietnam. At that time, I had no idea where Vietnam was, much less that there was a war going on. What I can say is that the dream was meant to change things.
BLOOD AND SWEAT It was only in 1989 that I finally went where the dream wanted me to go. When I first arrived in Hanoi, I was naive. I just started walking the streets, trying to help anyone I could. I'd buy meals for old ladies; I'd bathe and house street-kids in my cheap hotel room; take them to hospital when necessary. I wanted to help them because I had been there myself - that was my thinking. I did a few things wrong in the beginning. I got into trouble with the Ministry of Culture for holding a charity art sale to show the expat world what exceptional artists the country had and also to benefit the children - I didn't clear it with them and they didn't like that.
In any case, it was a one-woman effort at the start. It wasn't until I got to Ho Chi Minh City a few years later that I first learned to fund-raise and build something. I lobbied the government to donate an old derelict building, where I built our first social and medical centre. I got some seed money donated by a British petrol company, construction gear from Singapore shipped over; then I went back to the UK on a fund-raising trip, telling my childhood story in Dublin [which can be found in Noble's book Bridge Across My Sorrows] to raise awareness and getting medical equipment donated from hospitals. To tell you how hard all that was would take a week. I hadn't even registered the foundation at that point. I think the reason the government began to accept what I was doing was because they saw how hard I worked and how little I had for myself.