We Just Got On With It E-Book

Doreen McBride

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 349

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

'But we will do what we have always done – just get on with it.' The contributions of Northern Ireland to allied efforts in the Second World War are widely celebrated, acknowledged by both Sir Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt as vital to their eventual victory.Lesser known are the personal and individual lives of the people who made those contributions – the human cost and the everyday lives that would be changed forever. In We Just Got On With It, Doreen McBride gathers stories and interviews conducted and written by local historians and historical societies. From essential agricultural work to the sunken German submarine fleet that surrendered on the banks of Lough Foyle, and from childhood smuggling adventures to the devasting destruction of bombing raids, these are tales of humour and tragedy from those who have stories to tell.

Leseprobe

First published 2022

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Doreen McBride, 2022

The right of Doreen McBride to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 8039 9135 1

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Contributors

Introduction

1 Life in Northern Ireland Before and During the Second World War

2 Transport

3 Industries in the Province Before, During and After the Second World War

4 Preparations for War

5 The Blitz

6 Refugees

7 Prisoners of War

8 Smuggling

9 Military Camps

10 After the War Was Over

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank everyone who contributed to this book. It began during a discussion between good friends, who are members of local historical societies, namely Florence Chambers, Bridie Gallagher, Patrick Greer, Pat McGuigan and Bridgeen Rutherford. They realised that memories of how we lived in the recent past are in the process of disappearing and should be recorded. I was worried because editing somebody else’s work can lead to controversy. I didn’t find that. I found nothing but helpful attitudes and sensible suggestions, and I feel I’ve made good friends.

Special thanks are due to my husband, George, who not only made helpful suggestions but contributed his memories, and to another contributor, my cousin Vernon Finlay, who is a constant source of encouragement and inspiration. He read the manuscript, corrected many of my mistakes and made helpful suggestions.

Thanks are due to the Belfast Central Library’s Reference Library, Armagh Museum and the Linen Hall Library. They could not have been more helpful. As far as my personal memories are concerned, I’d like to thank my extended family, my sister Eileen Finlay and her husband Alan Finlay, cousins Alan Lyle and Rhonda Devonport, for jogging my memory by joining me in old-age reminiscences sessions. I enjoyed the craic and the happy memories of grandparents, Sam and Sarah Finlay, Norman and Lizzie Henry, great-granny (‘old’) Martha Henry, Auntie Teenie, Old Jim, Big Jim and Wee Jim, Auntie Carrie and Uncle Willie Husband and Uncle Norman Finlay and last but not least my parents, Bill and Anne Henry. My father was a keen semi-professional photographer who took many of the images. Thanks are also due to Belfast Zoo for permission to use photos of the baby elephant, to the Belfast Telegraph for permission to use photograph of a bus passing Stormont, Beryl Higgins and to North Belfast Historical Society and the Banbridge Chronicle, contributors, and others, who supplied photographs.

I appreciate information gleaned from old friends and acquaintances including Davis Martin, Judith Neely, Arthur Wallace, Florence Creighton, Neil Spiers, Linda Patterson, Mr Magill, Anne McMaster, Alan Finlay, Ella Brown, Alan Byrne, Norah Bates, George Close, Raymond Turner, Bobby Foster, The Spectrum Centre, The Strand Arts Centre, Millisle Primary School, Orangefield Primary School and Nigel McKelvey.

Thanks are also due to old friends who are no longer with us: Dr Bill Crawford, Ernest and Marjorie Scott, Edith Chaplin, Francie Shaw, my cousin Christine Pickin, Roy Leinster, Jim Lyle, Billy Simpson, Dr Vivien Gotto, Joan Gafney, Dolly Skuce, Mrs Mackay, Tommy McMaster and John Campbell.

Invaluable help has been given by Rosie Hickey and the Strand Arts Centre, the staff of the Banbridge Chronicle, especially François Vincent, who took local information I passed him and turned it into a series of newspaper articles. He also delved through the paper’s archives for photographs and contributed to this book. David Hume, who writes for the East Antrim Times, asked his readers for information regarding the war and that resulted in contributions from that area.

I am also very grateful to my editors Nicola Guy and Ele Craker, who are a constant source of encouragement, advice and patience.

List of Contributors

Some contributors do not wish to be fully named for personal reasons.

George Beattie, Thomas Black, Bob Beggs, Larry Breen, Marjorie Burnett, Florence Chambers, Garnet Chambers, Jimmy (Jimbo) Conway, Jason Diamond, Duncan Mundo Jr, Frankie Elliott, Jane Elliott (née Burns), Bobby Evans, Joe Evans, Margaret Farnsworth (née Cairns), Vernon Finlay, Eileen Finlay, Joe Furphy, Bill Graham, the late Paddy Gillespie, Margaret Graham, Patrick Greer, Bill Gordon, Adrian Hack, Evelyn Hannah, Rosie Hickey, William Hillis, Jay, Margaret Jones, John Kelly, John Logan, Alan Lyle, Pat McGuigan, Doreen McBride, George McBride, Noel McBride, Eileen McCormick, Marian McDowell, Bridie McGillion, Sean McIlroy, Marianne Nelson, George Nesbitt, Lisa Rawlins, Bridgeen Rutherford, Heather Taylor, Jim Taylor, François Vincent, Billy W., Charles Warmington, George Wilson, Marion Wilson.

Introduction

This book is the result of what could be loosely called an OAP reminiscence session, except one of us is only in his fifties! We are friends who belong to Historical Societies in Northern Ireland. Bridgeen Rutherford is Chair of New Buildings & District Archaeological and Historical Society in County Londonderry, Patrick Greer is Chair of West Belfast Historical Society, Florence Chambers is the Secretary of Banbridge Historical Society. I’m Press Officer of Banbridge Historical Society. Last but not least there’s Pat MacGuigan, whose fingers are in so many pies he’d prefer not to be classified as belonging to a particular society. We are busy people who meet irregularly, for a meal and a bit of craic, in a pub in Belfast.

It was at one of these meetings that the subject of the Second World War came up. President Roosevelt is on record saying the Allies could not have won the Second World War without the contribution made by Northern Ireland. We started chatting.

Because we live, in Northern Irish terms, so far apart, we either had personal memories, or memories passed down from parents and grandparents from different parts of the province. Our stories ranged from being hilariously funny to absolutely tragic. We looked at each other and agreed that when our generation snuffs it those memories will disappear. That would be a shame and they should be recorded. ‘You write it!’ they said. I protested, ‘I can only write about my memories! I can’t write about yours. You’d have to do that yourselves.’ They agreed.

Florence looked thoughtful. ‘We’re all members of historical societies, the book would be improved if we collected memories from members as well. It would be more complete.’ I groaned, ‘That’s a nightmare.’

Bridgeen agreed. ‘You’re right. We’d get lots of accounts about how everyone used newspapers instead of toilet rolls and that would be boring.’

Mac piped up, ‘Doreen could act as editor. She could tell History Press about it and see what they think.’

I agreed.‘The book should be written but – and it is a big BUT – I don’t think I want to edit it because people could be highly offended by my actions.’

‘No problem!’ said Patrick. ‘We’ll explain what you’re doing. Arrange the book in chapters and make sure everyone who contributes gets a mention, and make sure it’s not all doom and destruction. You’re sure to find a lot of humour! (I did!) We want a complete picture of life before, during and after the war in Northern Ireland.’

I went home and wondered if the Banbridge Chronicle would be interested in local war stories, so I had a chat with François Vincent, a journalist on the paper. He was very supportive and suggested publishing a series on whatever local information turned up. I also contacted Nicola Guy, a commissioning editor at The History Press, and found her, as usual, a supportive, helpful mine of information and encouragement.

I was born in East Belfast just before the Second World War and have the type of memory that is both a blessing and a curse. I have a very good memory for conversations, places and how I felt at a particular time, but my memory is abysmal for names and faces. That can be very embarrassing! The good thing is that if my memory is jogged I can usually redeem myself by saying, ‘Oh! I’m sorry. I remember now. We talked about …!’ I remember life during the war very clearly and am delighted to share my recollections, along with those of friends and acquaintances, because the old lifestyle has disappeared.

This is not meant to be an academic exercise. It’s simply a record of the day-to-day lifestyle of people in Northern Ireland, their contribution to the war effort and the changes that began to occur after the war. I am sure the lack of facilities and the poverty described were common throughout the British Isles and were not confined to Northern Ireland. People appear to have been happy. Time and again those who are now in their nineties said, ‘We were poor, but we didn’t know it so we were happy.’

Originally we thought we’d stop recording after the Festival of Britain in 1951, but we discovered there were no big changes until television became a common possession in the 1950s, the advent of supermarkets and the pill in the early ’60s, so we extended our time line.

I apologise as I feel this book is incomplete. The time lapse, and the fact that it is recording personal memories, means there are notable omissions from such organisations as Harland and Wolff, Short Brothers, James Mackie and Sons, and others, and the magnificent contribution they made to the war effort.

Patrick Greer has placed our work in context.

1

Life in Northern Ireland Before and During the Second World War

Politics and Attitudes

Northern Ireland was established in 1921 when six of the nine counties of the Province of Ulster choose to retain British rule, while the other twenty-six counties opted to become a separate entity ruled from Dublin but remaining within the British Commonwealth and known at that time as the Irish Free State. After the war, the Irish Free State decided to break all ties with Britain. It opted out of the Commonwealth and became known as the Republic of Ireland. Its constitutional name is Ireland.

It is difficult to know how to refer to that part of Ireland that remains connected with Britain. To say ‘Ulster’ is incorrect. Ulster has nine counties and three of the them, Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal, are in the Republic. The six that voted to remain in the United Kingdom are referred to as Northern Ireland. That’s not strictly true either because parts of County Donegal are further north than the rest of Northern Ireland. For the purpose of simplicity I’m going to refer to that small part of Ireland that remains under British rule as either Northern Ireland or the ‘North’ and the Republic of Ireland as the ‘South’.

Wounds caused by the Easter Rising, the subsequent Civil War in the South, and terrorist attacks in the North were still raw. Great wrongs were done on both sides of the political divide. Many people tended to be suspicious of the ‘other sort’. It was something not apparent in my family, although my mother did say, ‘Doreen, Catholics are perfectly nice people. I’d like you to be friends with them, but you mustn’t think of marrying one because they’ll make you change your religion.’ That was true at the time. The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland (I don’t know what happened elsewhere) refused to allow a Catholic to marry a Protestant unless the Protestant underwent instruction in the Catholic faith and accepted it as the only true religion. Religion was an important part of life. Practically everyone dressed up in their best clothes, wearing good shoes, with the women wearing a hat and gloves and the men wore a tie, shirt and suit going to church on Sunday. Catholic attitudes to marriage softened so for some time Protestants did not have to change religion, but had to promise any children would be brought up as Catholics. Today there is no problem. I have many friends and acquaintances who are in mixed marriages, and churches have lost the tight hold they once had.

Many Protestants were forced out of the South during the Civil War, leading to great feelings of bitterness. When I taught in Wallace High School the late Fred Maunsell was Head of the Classics Department. Fred’s father was a policeman, stationed in County Cork during the Civil War. Fred said, ‘My father was in a terrible state one evening when he came off duty. He said he’d got a tip-off that the IRA intended to burn us out that night. We gathered whatever valuables we could put in our pockets, climbed up a large tree and waited in fear and trembling. The IRA arrived about one o’clock, set the house and outhouses on fire and disappeared. I was so frightened I shook so much I thought I might fall out of the tree.’ At dawn the family climbed down, walked through the fields and headed north. Protestants comprised 40 per cent of the population of Dundalk (a border town) prior to partition. Today it is 2 per cent. In contrast, the Catholic population in the North of Ireland has gone up. At the 2011 census it was 49 per cent Catholic and 51 per cent Protestant.

This book has been produced with the help of close friends of differing beliefs, who are genuinely fond of each other and who have been working to collect cross-community memories. I feel privileged to have been involved.

Industrialisation

(also see Chapter 2)

Belfast was a thriving industrial city with great pride in itself. Its citizens boasted, ‘Belfast has the world’s largest single shipyard, Harland and Wolff, and the world’s largest rope works.’ (It was surrounded by a huge wall on the junction of the Albert Bridge and the Newtownards Road.) Towering ships, in the course of construction, dominated terraced houses. People living in Belfast knew the names of all the ships in the yard and were interested in their fate. I remember my mother and her best friend, who I knew as Auntie Sally (Sally Anderson), crying because HMS Eagle had been sunk.

Harland and Wolff held the British record for ship production. It built 140 warships, 123 merchant ships and more than 500 tanks, and became a key target for the Luftwaffe.

Harland and Wolff shipyard in 1941 after the Blitz. (Photograph printed with kind permission of East Belfast Historical Society)

Medical Services

Before the introduction of the National Health Service (1944 in England, 1947 in Northern Ireland) people had to pay for medical services. Many were living on the breadline. They couldn’t afford a doctor’s fee, so they didn’t send for one until it was too late. Most people self-medicated, relying on herbs to cure disease.

Family doctors were invariably male. The doctor had consulting rooms in his home and his wife acted as secretary. He did everything – syringed wax out of ears, dressed wounds, sounded chests, took samples of blood, the lot. There was no system of booking appointments. You went into the doctor’s invariably crowded waiting room, sat down on one of the hard Bentwood chairs and waited your turn. Eventually the doctor came and escorted you to his consulting room. If you needed a house call you phoned the doctor, or what was more likely, went and knocked on his door and he came to you. Home births were the norm. Babies were delivered by the doctor and husbands weren’t allowed to be present at the birth. If the woman was comfortably well off she had a midwife in attendance as well as her doctor. New mothers were supposed to stay in bed, and be waited on hand and foot, for two weeks after the birth while the midwife undertook running the house. If there was no other help she cooked and cleaned as well as cared for the ‘patient’ and her baby. Many mothers couldn’t afford to go near a doctor until towards the end of their pregnancy and infant mortality was consequently high.

Hospitals smelt of disinfectant. They had large single-sex wards. Each bed had curtains that could be pulled round to give an illusion of privacy. There were usually two private rooms at the entrance of the ward for individual patients who were seriously ill. Fresh air was thought to be good for patients, so wards in many hospitals, such as Belfast’s Royal Victoria, had a wide balcony with French doors so patients could be wheeled out into the fresh air. Visiting hours were strictly regulated and a matron was in charge. She was an intimidating force, ruling with a rod of iron and making sure the hospital stank of cleanliness! She inspected nurses’ uniforms, made sure beds were made up with immaculate hospital corners, and she was known to barge (scold) doctors, patients and nurses alike.

Cowan Heron Hospital. (Sourced by François Vincent from Banbridge Chronicle archives)

Thomas Black’s mother died in 1947 in the Cowan Heron Hospital, Dromore. She was 46 years of age. Thomas was never told either why, or exactly when she died. There were no phones and he doesn’t even know how his father heard of her death. When Thomas realised his mother wasn’t coming home he took comfort from the following verse:

Isn’t it strange the one we liked,

And the ones we loved the best,

Are just the ones that God loves too

And takes them home to rest.

Thomas has often wondered why his mother died. Penicillin was the first antibiotic to be freely available. It didn’t come into general use until towards the end of the 1940s and diseases such as scarlet fever and diphtheria were killers. The only vaccination available was against smallpox, a disease that has since been eradicated, so babies weren’t protected against disease the way they are today.

The introduction of the NHS changed attitudes and habits. Some people, when they hadn’t to pay their doctors, took advantage of the system. Thomas remembers attending his doctor, Dr Sterling, in Dromore. Thomas says, ‘After the introduction of the NHS two Dromore women used to go to the doctors every day. They must have enjoyed the waiting room craic because there wasn’t a thing wrong with them! One day one of the women was absent. The next day Dr Sterling asked, “Where were you yesterday?” She replied, “I couldn’t come. I wasn’t well!”’

The late Angela Dillon, past President of Banbridge Historical Society, had scarlet fever as a child. She recorded her experiences of being a patient in Spelga Fever Hospital during the 1940s. (The hospital was in the grounds of Banbridge’s workhouse. The site now contains Banbridge Healthcare Centre.)

Angela recorded: ‘On admission you were given a good scrub in a bath containing Jeyes Fluid, which made your skin smart. Patients with diphtheria were separated from those with scarlet fever, and most diphtheria patients died.

‘Once they started to recover, children with scarlet fever were allowed out into the fresh air to play. We used to stand in the playground and goggle as tiny white coffins were carried across from the diphtheria wards to the morgue. That didn’t strike us as having any particular significance. You never thought that you were going to die and you didn’t know who was in the coffin. My Aunt Minnie came to a ditch at the edge of the hospital grounds and threw sweets to me.’

I have my own unhappy memories of being in hospital in Belfast. I was very young when I was rushed, with suspected scarlet fever, to Haypark Fever Hospital on the Ormeau Road. My mother was allowed to come with me in the ambulance. A nurse lifted me and told my mother she’d give me a bath. Mum said I’d had a bath earlier in the night. Nurse said a rule was a rule and I would be bathed. Mum was sent away. Nurse was very rough. She dumped me in lukewarm water containing Jeyes Fluid and scrubbed me with carbolic soap. My skin smarted, she hurt me and I screamed. She said, “I’ll give you something to cry about!” and gave me a good hiding!

After my bath I was taken into a large ward. It was completely empty apart from rows of cots. Nurse threw me into one and left me alone. I thought the ward was full of ghosts. I was terrified!

My parents visited every day. They weren’t allowed into the ward but could watch me through a small window set in the closed door. Nurse told them if I saw them I would be upset and want to go home! I thought I’d been abandoned, lost my appetite, refused to eat and became so run down one of the glands under my left arm went septic. Nurse was cross and scolded as she dressed it. She said it was my own fault because I wouldn’t eat! I was frightened because I thought my arm would fall off, but didn’t dare say so.

My parents said afterwards it broke their hearts watching me cry my heart out so they brought me my favourite toy, a cuddly pink rabbit with well-sucked bald ears. I wasn’t allowed to bring it home in case it carried infection. It was burnt and I mourned its loss. Afterwards my parents said if they’d been told what would happen they’d never have brought it to the hospital.

Eventually an older girl, called Patsy, was put into the cot beside me. She’d had scarlet fever and was waiting to be discharged. When nurse left the room Patsy looked at me and said, “You poor wee soul. You need a hug.” She climbed out of her cot and into mine and cuddled me. I snuggled up to her and was comforted. Next morning nurse found us fast asleep in each other’s arms. She smacked Patsy for climbing out of her cot and thumped me for allowing her into my bed! Unfortunately Patsy must have had nits so I went home with head lice, but I’m still grateful for the comfort she gave me. It was very difficult to cure head lice in those days. Mum was told to repeatedly wash my hair with Dettol and make me sit with my head bent over a spread-out newspaper while she combed my hair with a fine-toothed nit comb. The nits were knocked onto the newspaper and it was rolled up and burnt, but some eggs survived and the process had to be repeated.

A nurse, known as the ‘nit nurse’, travelled around schools inspecting children’s hair and sending those unfortunates harbouring nits home. She also inspected ears. We stood in miserable lines spitting on our handkerchiefs, feverishly using them to hoke down our ears to make sure they were clean. A school doctor also did the rounds. He decided I looked pale and needed ultraviolet sun ray treatment, so I was made to attend a clinic in Cherryville Street once a week. I had to get out of school, walk to the clinic and join others, stripped to the waist, wearing dark goggles, sitting cross-legged on the floor while ultraviolet lamps shone on us. As far as I remember we were ‘cooked’ for twenty minutes back and front. A very nice woman supervised us and we played games such as “I spy”. I hated it. It’s ironic that today we use sunscreen to protect us from ultraviolet rays!

It was a long walk from Orangefield Primary School to Cherryville Street Clinic. Once I was very frightened because a large dog followed me as I walked alone up Orby Drive. Normally I like dogs but I thought this one might think I smelt cooked and might want to eat me!’

Attitudes to Women

Before the war the only jobs available to women were working in a mill or factory, shop assistant, secretarial work, teaching, domestic service, or nursing. There were very few women doctors. Girls from wealthy homes used to ‘stay at home and help Mummy’ until they managed to find a husband. My father did well in business, so in my late teens we moved to Belfast’s Malone Road, an upmarket area. By that time I was determined to go to university. Some of the other girls there sneered at me, ‘You must be very clever!’ Being ‘clever’ was considered a disadvantage in the marriage market! Marriage was considered a lifetime career and divorce a disgrace. Unfortunate women had no means of support apart from whatever money their husbands gave them, so if a woman’s husband was unfaithful, or abusive, she just had to grin and bear it. There were no state pensions and help for the unemployed was practically non-existent. The dreaded workhouse, also known as the poorhouse, was still in existence.

It was usual for women to stop working on marriage and most definitely after the birth of your first child. That attitude persisted until well into the 1960s. I caused a split in the staff room of Wallace High School in Lisburn by returning to work after the birth of my daughter in the 1960s. I felt I hadn’t spent years studying for a degree to sit at home scratching! In those days women were allocated twelve weeks’ maternity leave, six weeks before the birth and six weeks after it. There was no provision for paternity leave and men were not allowed to be present at the birth. My very welcome daughter was born in April 1964 and I went back to work in May. I was extremely lucky because the Headmaster of Wallace High School, T.C.C. Adams, was a caring individual. He called me into his office on my first day back, and I entered in fear and trembling. I suspected he might enquire if I thought I could do my job now I was a mother! To my surprise he said, ‘My wife has had six children. I know you’re not going to admit it, but having a baby takes a lot out of you. I’ve been looking at your timetable. You have A Level classes every afternoon and a couple of first-formers. I want you to go home every day at two o’clock until the end of term. My wife used to teach biology. She’ll cover your first-formers out of love of teaching. In September I expect you to work hard!’ His attitude was very unusual!

Courtship

Joe Furphy. (Photograph by David Murray, printed with kind permission of joe Furph)

Joe Furphy describes a typical courtship of the time. He recalls, ‘When I became organist in Hill Street Presbyterian Church, Lurgan, I discovered there was something about the controls of the organ that I did not quite understand and enquired if there was anyone in the choir who could help. I was told a young lady called Margaret knew the workings of the instrument and, yes, she helped me out of my problem. However, there was something about her approach that I did not like and I thought to myself, “That’s one girl I won’t have any dealings with.” Much later I discovered that I had had a similar same effect on her! Thanks to our initial reaction to each other, our relationship developed at even slower pace than most.

‘It was customary for Hill Street Presbyterian Choir to have a dinner and entertainment approaching Christmas and one of the altos, Winnie Cranston, made a suggestion that perhaps Margaret and I could play piano duets at it.

‘We reluctantly agreed. However, there was a certain amount of shared pleasure at this musical activity. Winnie persuaded us to continue, kindly making her piano available to us for practice. Something else developed – Margaret lived on the Banbridge Road and I began to give her a lift after our Sunday evening service. Discovering that neither of us had a social partner of the opposite gender, I plucked up courage and suggested a date.

‘She agreed and we had our first evening out – appropriately – on St Valentine’s Day.

‘Single and eligible though we both were, these were very different times – particularly within church settings – and our romance started as a top-secret liaison as we felt it could lead to comments – frivolous and otherwise – in the choir. However, one evening, the Lurgan Harmonic Girls’ Choir, including six or seven members of the church choir – one of whom being Margaret – performed at Belfast Music Festival. I was there in another choir, and after the competition Margaret and I went off for a cup of coffee. On the way back to the car, we met our Hill Street friends and our cover was blown!

‘The following summer we were both teachers, so we had the opportunity to spend time together during the holidays. We made use of our free days to visit many beautiful places. We also enjoyed two overnight stays in Dublin in a guesthouse – in separate bedrooms.

‘I mention this because societal norms have changed beyond recognition since the 1950s and ’60s. Courtship was a much slower process than it appears to be today. A girl was considered a “disgrace” to herself and to her family if she became pregnant outside marriage. She could be forced to marry the father of her unborn child. If the man concerned refused to acknowledge paternity her parents would, in all probability, turn her out of the house. The only thing she could do then was to turn to one of the terrible homes for unmarried mothers, run by the churches – and, as we all know, their notorious legacy has been all over the news. There she would have been harshly treated, forced to work hard doing something like laundry, and been forced to give her baby up for adoption.

‘We had actually been more discreet than we had realised, and on the evening we approached our minister to make the wedding arrangements, he confessed he was completely unaware of our relationship!

‘We tied the knot in Moira Presbyterian Church. After getting married, we spent our honeymoon on the Isle of Skye.

‘Sadly our marriage came to end much too early with Margaret’s death through illness in 2010.

‘By today’s standards, our life journey could almost be described as an “alternative lifestyle” in that Margaret and I married and actually stayed married until death did us part.’

Law and Order

Northern Ireland’s police force was called the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). They were armed from their inception due to the threat from the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Locals called them the ‘polis’ and they were treated with respect bordering on fear. Children used to whisper to each other, when they saw a policeman, ‘There’s the polis’, and disappear indoors. The crime rate was low, murder was unknown. We told each other, ‘You mustn’t kill anyone, or you’ll be hung!. On 12 November 1952, Judge Curran’s 19-year-old daughter Patricia, a student at Queen’s University Belfast, was murdered. Her body was found in the driveway of her home, Glen House, Whiteabbey, County Antrim. She had been stabbed thirty-seven times. Everyone was shocked! Such things didn’t happen in Northern Ireland. It was a great scandal, the subject of conversation for months afterwards. Imagine that! A murder! Here!

Jim Taylor. (Photograph printed with kind permission of Jim Taylor)

Jim Taylor was born in Conway Street on Belfast’s Shankill Road. He writes: ‘Not all visitors to our street were welcome! Pig Manelly was a very large policeman (back then we never knew the significance of Pig, we just knew everyone called him that). We would be playing football in the street, he would come pedalling around the corner on his black BSA police bike, jump off, chase us and give us a clip around the ear. We didn’t tell our parents as we would have got another clip.’

Housing

Housing for industrial workers was poor, although the city escaped most of the notorious back-to-back slums once common in England. Blue-collar workers lived in small terraced houses of the type known as a ‘two-up two-down’, meaning it had two rooms downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs. Their walls were built of single brick and their construction was so shoddy that if one was hit by a bomb it caused a domino effect, making the whole row liable to fall down. They didn’t have bathrooms, just an outside toilet in the yard and a cold water tap over the jawbox (Belfast sink) in the scullery, an inner room that passed for a kitchen. Families took great pride in their homes and wives, or daughters, scrubbed the outside step every day.

White-collar workers lived in well-built semi-detached houses with bathrooms and gardens in the suburbs, such as those on the Castlereagh and Cregagh Roads.

I lived in a semi-detached house in Orby Parade off the Castlereagh Road, Belfast. My father, William Lyle Henry, was a white-collar worker. It was a typical 1930s semi-detached, very different from the terrace houses that housed mill workers. My parents bought it off-plan, it was finished in February 1938 and I was born in it. It had cavity walls everywhere except the one at the back of the kitchen. Dad painted it with waterproof paint so it wasn’t damp. We thought it was very posh because it had two toilets, one built into the house and opening into the back garden and one upstairs beside the bathroom. Neither toilet had a wash-hand basin. The bathroom contained a built-in bath, a wash-hand basin and beside the bath there was a large dual-purpose box, with a cork top, that Granda had made. It was used as a seat and a soiled linen basket. Dad had a small cabinet, with a built-in mirror, above the wash-hand basin. A towel rail was screwed into the door and we all used the same towel.

Large terraced houses in South Belfast.

Mill and factory owners lived in large houses on the Antrim Road, the Malone Road or on what is known as the ‘Gold Coast’, that’s the road between Belfast and Bangor. There was a regular, reliable train service that gave easy access to the city. Most of these houses had extensive gardens, bathrooms, kitchens and the occasional one even had central heating, a fridge and a washing machine, things that were very expensive and largely unknown.

My father’s aunt, Christine Lyle (née Henry), known as Teenie, lived in Morpeth Street off the Shankill Road in West Belfast. It was a typical two-up two-down.

Aunt Teenie was fun. I loved visiting her and am in a good position to describe life in a blue-collar worker’s home during and immediately after the war. What I have to say is also applicable to mill workers’ houses throughout the province. Repeatedly people have told me, ‘We were poor, but we didn’t know it, so we were happy. We didn’t know what we were missing.’ There was no television, the ‘pictures’, now called movies, showed a world of make believe, sheer escapism as far as we were concerned. We didn’t take the luxury depicted seriously. The Second World War, dreadful though it was, didn’t make an appreciable difference to attitudes and lifestyle. The advent of Social Security, television and the pill between the end of the war and the 1960s did.

(Auntie) Teenie Lyle and grandchild Jim Lyle. (Photograph printed with kind permission of Alan Lyle)

Life in Morpeth Street was typical of the period. It was a very supportive community. On warm summer evenings the women came out of their houses and sat on stools, or chairs, beside their front doors. There they knit, sewed or mended while chatting to each other. Anyone walking up the street received a friendly greeting. Children played on the street and relatives lived close by. Teenie and her family were typical. She lived with her husband, Old Jim Lyle, her daughter Betty Lyle and her mother, Martha Henry, while her son, known as Big Jim Lyle to differentiate him from his father, and his son Wee Jim Lyle, lived further down the street with his wife Lily, Wee Jim and his second son, Alan Lyle, who was born in 1948. My grandmother, Lizzie Henry, lived in the corner shop at the end of the street with her husband Norman Henry before buying a small semi-detached house, 1 Glencairn Crescent, Ballygomartin Road. She was the first family member to buy a house. The vast majority of people lived in rented accommodation.

Granny and Granda Henry (Photograph by Bill Henry)

As far as I know, the roof spaces in Morpeth Street weren’t connected. In Dee Street, on the Newtownards Road in East Belfast, the houses were built as one continuous unit with internal walls separating the houses and a continuous roof space. Anyone being chased by the police could disappear in the door of one house, climb the stairs and find access to the roof space, run across it and come out a door at other end of the street when the coast was clear!

Norman, like most of the men in his district, worked in Harland and Wolff’s Shipyard. He drove a crane. Old Jim was a butcher. He was a very hard worker who had originally owned three butcher’s shops in the area but had been burnt out by the IRA during the troubles in 1921. He swore like a trooper when he remembered but held no grudge against Catholics in general, just the b****y f*****s who’d put him out of business!

Morpeth Street was off Northumberland Street, which connects the Shankill and the Falls. Its residents could remember rebels shooting up and down the road at the time of partition. As a result the Shankill became predominantly Protestant and the Falls Catholic. Attitudes of residents on either side of the divide were mixed. The vast majority simply wanted to live in peace with their neighbours and secretly maintained their old pre-Trouble friendships. Auntie Teenie had a very close friend who lived on the Falls. They supported each other through thick and thin, to the extent of giving each other money in times of need. After the ‘Troubles’ they could no longer meet openly in their respective neighbourhoods because of the existence of the occasional sectarian hothead. They met, in central Belfast, every Wednesday afternoon for afternoon tea in The Carleton, and continued to do so until the 1970s when Teenie’s friend died.

Teenie’s house living room was tiny. It was heated by a coal fire on the wall furthest away from the front door and at right angles to it. The room was lit by a small window near the door and had two small upholstered chairs that matched the small two-seater sofa occupying the wall opposite the front door. It was beside a door leading into the scullery.

The scullery took the place of today’s kitchen. It was very sparsely furnished with a gas stove, and a jawbox supplied with cold water from a tap. There was a cupboard to the right of the door housing all kitchen utensils, a pine-scrubbed table under the window and a back door leading to the yard.

Jim Taylor, who was born in 1945, writes, ‘I was born in 165 Conway Street in my grandmother’s house. It had two bedrooms. My grandmother and her daughter, Betty, slept in one room. My mum, dad and I slept in the other at night. My uncle Willie, who worked night shift, slept in our bedroom during the day. When I was one year old we moved around the corner to 34 Fourth Street.

Johnny the knocker-upper. (Printed with kind permission of Jim Taylor Jim Taylor)

‘The area where I lived off the Shankill Road in Belfast was surrounded by factories and mills and every morning the hooters would go off to let people know it was time for work. The factory’s gates would close exactly at 8 a.m.; if you were late you were locked out without pay.

‘Alarm clocks were rare and John the knocker-upper was hired to go around the streets with two large bamboo canes joined together. John would come at an agreed time and use the bamboo canes to knock on the upstairs bedroom windows.

‘The houses were small. Each side of the streets had about thirty houses and most workers slept in the upstairs front rooms so they could hear the knocker-upper.

‘When I was growing up the air raid shelters, built during the war, were still there with brick walls and a large concrete roof, which we climbed on. They were disgusting because children and drunks weaving their way home on a Friday night often used them as urinals.’

Sewage Disposal and Water Supply

(See Lifestyle)

Teenie’s house, in common with Jim Taylor’s and other two-up two-downs, had an outside toilet in the yard. It was of the type known as a dry toilet, a comfortable wooden seat over a large wooden box, situated in a small outhouse at the end of the yard, beside the backyard’s door that led to an entry behind the house.

Belfast Municipal Corporation sent men around to the empty the toilets approximately every three or four months. They did it one day when I was there. The smell was appalling. It seemed to permeate the bare bones of Auntie Teenie’s house along with the rest of the neighbourhood. My cousin, Jim, and I weren’t allowed to play in the street that day. I wasn’t allowed to observe closely because of the ‘germs’, so I don’t know how many men were involved. They came with a large cart and horse and pushed wheelbarrows up the back entries behind the houses. Auntie Teenie told me residents had to leave their back doors unbarred to enable the men to enter. When it was her turn there was a loud blatter on the door, a man poked his head round and yelled, ‘Mrs, I’ve come to redd out yer privy.’

I was allowed to peep out the back door because I was born nosy (my mother used to call me ‘aspidistra face’ because I was always in the window). A man came into the yard pushing a wheelbarrow. He went into the privy, took the top off and started digging the contents out with a spade. I retched because the stench was so awful and Auntie Teenie pulled me back indoors. When he’d finished he shouted, ‘All done Mrs, ye hadn’t as many visitors this time. She was only half full!’ and disappeared back into the entry. The full wheelbarrows were taken to the cart and the contents emptied into it.