The Summer Of 69

From the window he saw below the patchwork of little fields, sewn together by blind faery folk who felt in their souls the random beauty they created.  On the tannoy came the usual pre-landing announcements which should have, in all honesty included, “We’re about to land at Aldergrove airport.  Please put your watch back 50 Years.”  It was the middle of August, 1969 and he was back in God’s Own Country to meet an old and distressed friend.  We’ll call him Tom.

Tom shambled over, a smile of delight on his weary, lined-before-time, bearded face, gave him a great bear hug as they greeted, and as dusk lay a soft veil across the land they drove in his old A35 van – a splendid pink and black it was, hand painted by him and his dear Papa, using a roller and brush, and his pride and joy which he was delighted to see Tom hadn’t crashed in his absence – and piled into the nearest hostelry, there to imbibe a pint or three of Guinness and to open discussions on Tom’s woes.  That done, they returned to the luxury of his limo – sure, isn’t everything relative? -  and headed along the Cave Hill road.  Before they started the descent, what they saw obliged him to pull over, and they stared down.

In the darkness the city lights gave it a kindly, enchanted, almost magical look where the Wee Folk would not be out of place.   The image was disturbed though, with a scar down between, as near as they could reckon, the Shankill and Springfield Road, a line of flame wild-dancing, smudged and blurred by the smoke, accompanied by the occasional flat crack of rifle fire.  This was not like the usual bonfires of 11^th July night, for he’d seen those from this very spot and heard the lambegs thundering their disturbed passion.  No, there had been plenty of rioting and burning out this summer, here in Belfast, in Derry, Newry, Crossmaglen, Dungannon, Coalisland, Dungiven and the lovely town of his birth, Armagh.  The Province seemed to be alight and one was obliged to wonder if that fire could ever be extinguished.

The burning scar, they were to later learn, was Bombay Street.  All of it.  To their shame, the army and the RUC had done little to nothing to stop it as Protestants had petrol bombed and fired all the houses and the wee cobblers shop, ironically owned by a Protestant.  A sniper, too, had been taking pot shots, killing one of the folk trying to help with the evacuation.  From the 12^th to 17^th over just 6 days, 8 people were to die, 750 were injured, 150 Homes were burnt out and nearly 2000 people evacuated.  The ‘Troubles’ had started and weren’t to end for another 30 years.

They descended to the city and drove carefully, having to turn back at barricades, avoiding carefully those areas where they knew ‘their kind’ would not be welcome.  Here they would see a man in a Balaclava pointing a Sten, there another with an old .22, a faithful .303 or a shotgun.  They saw, too, the RUC and soldiers, all seemingly very young, twitchy and more like as not to shoot first if there was anything dodgy or suspicious about their movements.   That tension was also to become part of daily life, and 3500 folk would die and countless others be maimed.

It’s said you can take a man out of Ulster but you can’t take Ulster out of the man.  It’s over 40 years since he lived there full time and he can tell you that it’s true.  Sure, he still won’t sit with his back to a door, and he assiduously, drunk or sober, keeps an eye on strangers or ‘suspicious’ (read ‘any’!) packages, but the reason you can’t take Ulster out of the man is not because of that, however.  It’s because of the great kindness.  The hearts of Ulster folk, Catholic or Protestant, Nationalist or Unionist, are the world’s biggest and most loving.

You have to understand, nearly everyone wanted peace, wanted to be able to get on with folk around them, but because of the actions of very few, on both ‘sides’, as the Troubles deepened it became dangerous and possibly fatal to hang about with  folk who were not on ‘your side’ or go into their areas.  And though the Troubles are now hopefully over, these big hearted people still send their kids to Protestant or Catholic schools – 51% to Catholic Schools and at least 38% to Protestant ones.  Great progress!  That’s bound to help Ulster society become integrated! 

Like they say, a child is not born racist; they aren’t born bigots, either, but that which you do not know in a divided society you grow up treating with suspicion.  In the Six Counties it is especially so because of those echoes of more dangerous times, the peace walls – though some have come down there are a still 108 of them to this day, varying in length from a few a few hundred yards to 3 miles - and grand graffiti on many a gable end, and continued avoidance of certain places because of ‘them’.  In truth, to this day, he’s pretty certain he’d never walk down the Falls if he had a choice – and he knows that’s more than a little sad, as the Falls is full of folk with hearts that are grand, warm and welcoming.  His natural desire to avoid violence would also preclude him attending a Linfield Glentoran ‘derby’.

Tragically, too, that legacy of sectarian suspicion is reinforced by the fact that over 80% of people still live in areas which can be defined loosely as Protestant or Catholic.  Interestingly those who sit in parliament and we laughingly call a Government don’t know that any of the above is dangerous, it appears, or they believe somehow it does not lead to prejudice.  They do nothing to discourage ghettos and wildly encourage faith schools in England, living as they appear to in an alternate universe, on the principle that it’s bound to help people integrate into society if they attend Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Anglican etc. education establishments and don’t get to know any of their peers in other groups, don’t get to learn how much they are alike.  Of course, they won’t get a chance to know that though.   Why?  Because the Government see how well educating children separately in Ulster has worked over the generations.  Not.  Morons!  When will this absurdity end!

So, is there anything one can do about this?  Yes.  One can rant, like I’m doing, and one can oppose the setting up of any more faith schools in the UK and ensure we don’t send our children to one, or do our best to ensure our grandchildren don’t.  I say this with amongst my headships a Church Of England school and an essentially Muslim school which I eventually amalgamated with another to form a Muslim faith school.  Am I a hypocrite?  Maybe.  Somebody was going to do it and I reckoned I would do it ‘better’ than some folk.  In those jobs I did my best to engage all the kids and as many parents as possible with people of other faiths, and ensured the curriculum really focussed on the issues of sameness across people of all faiths and none, and the common humanity which united us.

You in the UK who read this, indeed wherever you are, don’t believe that as politicians try to divide and rule us, setting one group off against another, that Ulster’s situation with the Troubles couldn’t happen where you are.  It could.   It might be different groups, different bigotries, different ignorant hatreds but the results will be the same … and if you educate your children in a ‘faith’ school, they may end up being part of the problem.   Think about it.

Oh, and by the way, if you agree with me you could always share this.  You never know, somebody might read it and have a change of heart.  One must hope.

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