The Troubles in Ulster

Photograph Quiz:

Photo number 116 in the born again photo counting:- I thought I would give you a clue about the College question I set you two letters ago to encourage you to have a speculative guess, Blog. Interesting medal?????

Dear Blog,

         Returning from this morning’s trudge, as no one else was in the manse, I switched on the radio just as the news bulletin was being broadcast. The headlines reported an estimated 25000Unionists  marching through the streets of Belfast to celebrate the Centenary of the Ulster Covenant which opposed Home rule for Ireland and led to the Partition of the State half a dozen years later. The Centenary bit rang a bell in my mind and after showering I checked to confirm that the dim recesses of my mind were not playing tricks. The march might have been a 100 year celebration but it was 50 years to the day that I encountered my first experience of bigoted sectarianism in Ulster. Hearing the headlines on the radio I assumed that the dates were a coincidence but having had time to mull over the situation in the shower I am now no longer sure; I suspect that the whole experience might have been engineered because of the date. What has this to do with athletics I hear you ask Blog. Read on. I’ll tell you what it has to do with athletics Blog.

 In September 1962, three weeks after joining Bingley Harriers, the secretary asked me if I was interested in going with the Bingley team to the bi-annual fixture in Northern Ireland against the Belfast 9^th Old Boys. I told him that although I would like very much to go, I was afraid that there was no way could I afford it. I didn’t explain the financial plight of home. I was in the upper sixth at school, mum worked in the mill on the evening shift, dad during the day. With two kids, money was tight. My pocket money did not exist. No way could I be kept in the sixth form at Grammar School and be given pocket money; I had to ask for any required money as to when and why it was required. The furthest I had been from home on holiday was the yearly week we spent with relations in Nottingham, although one year we did have a caravan near Bridlington, easily the greatest distance I had travelled from Keighley. I never found out what went on in discussions down the club during the next few days but the following week the club coach took me on one side and explained that someone had dropped out of the trip to Northern Ireland and it was too late to get a replacement; the club was in a fix as we were one short of our eight counters required for the Inter Club. It would be appreciated if I could help out by running. There would be no cost to me as the athlete who dropped out had forfeited his deposit. Bullshit, but I was too naïve to realise that at the time. This world of athletics was all new to me.

Two weeks later the club were met off the overnight ferry steamer from Heysham to Belfast, treated to breakfast and took on a trip by coach around Northern Ireland. I knew nothing about the past troubles in Northern Ireland. I knew nothing of the Easter Rising in Dublin. I was unaware of the bubbling sectarianism that went on in Belfast. What was the IRA? I was 17 years old attending a Northern Grammar School who’s only concern was to get to University against all the odds that my background had stacked against me. No one in the family had stayed at school beyond the age of 14. No one had ever been near a Grammar School. I was expected to leave before my GCEs and get a job in the office of the local mill, a much better paid job than anyone in the family could have ever hoped for in the past. I managed to stay at school in the sixth form. The only world event which threatened to impinge on my life was the events going on in Cuba with the very real fear of nuclear conflict. I knew all about that. For a 17 year old that was frightening. The newspapers were full of it.

I knew nothing about the tentative peace that had held for a number of years in the six provinces, although the border unrest had been in progress since ’56, it hardly impinged on the British population at large. Open sectarian violence was for the future with the emergence of the UVF in May 1966 with the first assassination occurring in the following month.  So. A morning coach trip around Belfast and environs, something for me to look forward to before the afternoon race. The coach trip organised by our hosts turned out to not be a trip to the Mountains of Mourne to enjoy the views.  So many policemen were killed by a bomb at that Police Station. An assassination took place at that pub. Four marchers were shot during such and such a parade near that chapel. Two civilians were blown up in a car bomb in that village centre. All this happened years ago we were informed. BUT. And a big ‘but’, the troubles will be starting soon, it was repeatedly emphasised. There will be more killings. Many more killings. It all seemed highly fanciful to me; I had an Inter Club race in three hours’ time, and lunch was ready. After all, shootings and killing only took place in far off lands and on the cinema screen. Not in this country.

The ferry started its return journey at midnight, steaming slowly out of Belfast harbour to the dying strains of ‘Danny Boy’ sung in the cold night air by a lone baritone on the quayside;  all the Irish passengers pressed around me on the rails above the stern deck, weeping openly, the men as well as the women. It was so sad. The memory of that chill dark early morning departure has stayed with me. As have all the dire warnings of future bloodshed.

My first task on returning home was to research the Irish Question at the local library. Interesting.

Six months later I sat an ‘A’ level in the General Studies Paper along with my ‘A’ and ‘S’ level papers in Physics, Mathematics  and Further Mathematics. On the General Paper was a question about the ‘Irish Question’.

My grade in the General Studies Paper was rather good. I felt my trip to Northern Ireland and the two hour intense enforced doctrinal history lesson to which I had been subjected on the coach trip helped me gain admittance to one of the country’s top universities!

                                                       Colin

PS Sorry Blog, I have no idea what the result of the races was. I do remember feeling very weary as we ran up and down the sloping park course.