My Life’s Journey

Born in December ’58, the year Connie Frances had a No.1 hit, ‘Who’s Sorry Now’

Hated school from day one. Discovered comedy got me friends.

Worked in Daintyfit.  Enhanced skills in comedic acting.

Went to London. Another world. Total anonymity. 

Moved back to Cookstown, with greatest achievement, baby daughter.

Went to college. Studied at my own pace, gaining qualifications that I wanted. 

Now ‘they’ call me…

A holistic Therapist

Philanthropist

Actor/Director/Dramatist

Writer/Playwright 

Founder of Hub

British Empire Medal recipient

Spirit of Northern Ireland Winner

Mental Health Campaigner

Public speaker/Motivator

I call myself…

A wife and mother

A dog lover 

A parrot lover 

A loyal friend

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“Before I go on stage, I stand in the wings frozen with fear and I pray, I tell God if he gives me this chance I won’t swear again, I will be so good and I will be grateful. (Doesn’t last long).”

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“I remember as a young girl before going to Sunday school, I back combed my hair so it looked like Cilla Black’s hair! My mother gave me an awful telling off, but was able to say to the neighbours it was the image of Cilla Black. Creating things made me believe I could do anything. I never saw it as acting, my mother called it ‘showing off’. And it was many years later I joined a drama group at well over thirty years of age.”

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“We rehearsed in Women’s Aid, they allowed us to use their living room and we gave them £12. The night we performed our first show in our local theatre ‘Burnavon’ it was the first time we stepped on a stage. I knew that night we needed a rehearsal space of our own, and I began to look about for premises. I was looking for a place that had a sense of belonging. And I could create a space where people would feel they belonged.”

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“I remember asking my husband could we begin the search for premises and the search began. A place that had been empty for over five years had a feeling that I liked. It also had rat droppings, dead rats and a lot of old rubbish. My friend Joe, had a look and gave it the thumbs up and more than the thumbs up, he renovated the whole place, enabling this warmth as you walk through the door.” 

“I’m most proud of my first play, ‘Fair play te ye’. I wrote it in a short space of time, when my husband went to Memphis with a friend for a week. I was lonely so I penned a script. Tony was shocked when I told him and he thought it sounded okay. He asked me where the break was, and I said, ‘Well there’s 44 pages, so I suppose at page 22!’. I was naïve and had a lot to learn.”

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“My dad was proud of us all, while he never spoke those words, it was in his eyes. I remember buying him a violin one year for Christmas. He loved music and musical instruments, and he would have tried his hand at any instrument. When he opened it, he smiled and threw his eyes to the ceiling. I told my husband ‘He loved the violin, I knew by the way he looked at me’.”

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“My dad was never in a theatre before, we had cajoled him into going to this one. The play received a standing ovation on the first night. I went to see him before he went home and I asked him if he enjoyed it. ‘They did’ he said, ‘They seemed to enjoy it rightly’. He never said he enjoyed it, and I suppose it was that moment I knew that while he would never utter the words, ‘I’m proud of you’, I knew he was.”

 
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“Dad was the most modest, humble man you could ever meet. We never realised the extent of his generosity and kindness or his connection with everybody in our community until we heard the stories at his wake. In our home we were born politically British and culturally Irish. Dad was very well respected by both sides of our community.”

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“I often tell my daughter to ‘be herself’ and not to worry what other people think of her. I believe that the younger generation want to be famous tomorrow; they don’t seem to grasp ‘working your way up the ladder’. We have a river of perceptions inside us, and sometimes we need to look from a different viewpoint.”

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“I couldn’t live without Patsi or Tony, my daughter and my husband. I have no interest in material possessions; I have little jewellery, no Gucci handbag, no Louis Vuitton shoes. My interest is in people, I love people and I love people watching (material for scripts).”  

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