THANKS MAM
MEET THE OTHER WOMAN IN NICKY'S LIFE



It's Mother's Day, but as they laugh about old times, Nicky and Yvonne can't escape their grief.

Eddie Rowley

Midway into their exclusive SWM photo shoot, Nicky Byrne turns to his mum, Yvonne, and asks if she'd like a glass of champagne. The Westlife heart-throb has been attentive all afternoon, making sure his quietly-spoken mother feels relaxed and comfortable as she poses with him for our special Mother's Day feature.

It's her first formal photo shoot for a newspaper, but Yvonne, a serene and glamorous 50-something mother and grandmother, is taking it all in her stride and enjoying the range of designer outfits she's getting to model.

Yvonne is dignified and compased in front of the camera. And in the interview that follows, her warm and enagaging personality shines through.

Clearly, in the glances they exchange throughout our afternoon together in a plush suite of Dublin's La Stampa Hotel, mam and son adore each other - and their relationship is charmingly like brother and sister.

Nicky agrees with this obervation, but quickly points out that he's always respected his mother's authority: "I always saw Mam as the boss in the house," he reflects. "Dad was more lenient. You could get away with anything with Dad, but he always stressed: 'Never bring the guards to the door.'

"But Mam was more strict, and she ran the household. She had a look, and all she had to do was give you 'the eyebrow'. If you got that look, that was it, you knew you were in trouble."

Yvonne smiles. She doesn't betray an ounce of self-pity in conversation, but it's impossible not to sense the sadness and loss she hides. Her idyllic life and the lives of her three kids, including Nicky's older sister, Gillian, and younger brother, Adam, were shattered last November when her husband, Nikki, died suddenly at work from a heart attack at the age of 60.

Like a lot of wives and mothers, Yvonne run the home. She took care of her children's needs and made sure all the bills were paid. Nikki handed over his wages and never worried about the bills.

But it's obvious that Yvonne is struggling to come to terms with the loss of her loving husband.

"While I looked after everything, Nikki was the backbone to the whole thing," she acknowledges.

"He was so easy-going and so positive. He had a great attitude, 'Just go for it, it's a great opportunity' he'd say. Even for this shoot, he'd have been saying last night: 'It'll be grand, go and do it,'"

Nicky admits that he didn't inherit his father's laid-back personality: "I'm a worrier like mam," he says. "I'm already worrying about the kids and they're not even three. If Georgina went out for a night and I was at home in bed, I'd be worried, Iwouldn't sleep unless I got a text or a call from her. Mam was like that when we were growing up."

Conversation then turns to Yvonne's obsession with house cleaning. "Mam is addicted to cleaning," Nicky laughs. "All my mates slag her about it. Her famous saying 'nothing done'. She's forever saying: 'I have nothing done.' When Bertie was Taoiseach he had a slogan: 'A Lot Done, More To Do.' My pals used to say to mam: 'Oh here she is, nothing done, more to do.'"

Yvonne then admits she was up at six-thirty that morning 'to get everything done' before she met SWM at lunchtime.

Nicky chips in: "Everything done means not just beds made - the kitchen floor has to be scrubbed, even though she scrubbed it last night before she went to bed. Noone has walked on it for eight hours but it has to be cleaned again."

Yvonne then tells a story against herslef, how at the church of the day of her husband's funeral a female friend apologised for not calling to the house. "Thank God you didn't because it's upside down," Yvonne replied.

Nicky laughs. He reminisces about his early memories of his mother, how she used to rub Nivea cream on his face when he was a child, dipping her finger in and then putting a blob on his cheeks, forehead and nose before rubbing it in.

He adds: "And she always blessed me with holy water at the front door on the way out."

Yvonne tells how she was heart-broken when Nicky left home at the age of 17 and went over to Leeds United to try out for a career in soccer.

"I used to go into his bedroom, open the wardrobe door and smell his aftershave," she reveals.

"And I always set his place at the table for him. I always felt that some day he might just appear, and he did surprise us on a couple of occasins."

She vividly recalls the day Nicky came home from school and announced that he had met the girl he was going to marry. He was 14 years old and the girl was Georgina Ahern.

When he became his girlfriend, Nicky would take Georgina home for lunch.

"From day one, Georgina became part of the family," Yvonne says. "She's lovely; Georgina would never see a fault in anybody."

Nicky remembers how his mother used to serve them tea when they were courting.

"We'd be sitting in watching telly and she'd bring in a little table with the tea on it," he says.

Then he turns to Yvonne and adds: "It was proper impressing, you couldn't have done it any better."

Yvonne can still lure her son home with the promise that she'll cook his favourite breakfast fry-up.

"I miss Mam's fry-up, especially when I'm away. I remember when I went on my stag to Marbella with the lads for a weekend, and that Sunday on the way back I called Mam from Malaga airport and asked her if she'd cook breakfast for all the lads after three days on the beer," he says.

So the six lads were there with Mam and Dad and my brother, Adam, and we tucked in to a big fry. Memories like that will live with you forever."

Yvonne says that success with Westlife hasn't changed Nicky.

"I don't think he's changed and my neighbours and friends all say, 'God, he's still the same, he's never changed.' Over the years he gave us the opportunity to move house but we never did and I know secretly he still loves driving down the avenue."

As he gets set to celebrate Mother's Day with Georgina and mum, Yvonne, Nicky acknowledges that he has been fortunate in life, despite the loss of his beloved father.

"I had a nice, stable background growing up," he adds. "Mam and Dad were happy together. We all sat down to dinner together every single night as a family. I was blessed with that. And I really appreciate that."

Credit/Source: Sunday World Magazine / Thanks Katrin for the scans / the committed