大象传媒

This story is taken from an interview with James Doherty, and has been added to the site with their permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interview was by Walter Love, and transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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The Warden [helmet] is with a W on the front. It is steel, and portrays the person wearing it. The ambulance service, just the same hat, a different person and a different function. Finally, the Rescue. In 3 hats we have the history of the civil defence.

Now it came down to the Public. Gas was expected. Maybe it was a memory of the [19]14 war. Gas was a terrible thing that was expected, and preparations were made top protect the public. We start with this contraption for a baby. The function would have been, a mother would have put on her own gas mask, then put the baby inside [the contraption] ...

[It looks like a miniature spacesuit]
Then the mother would have pumped this, giving the fresh air into the baby. A terrible experience, I was demonstrating this to a lady, she was laughing, but when I set it on her knee you can see a complete change. It was a joke when I was pumping it, but when she was responsible for it you could see the expression in her face. And I honestly thought that any mother who found herself in this situation was in trouble.

[Why did you join the ARP?]
I suppose it was like everything else. I thought I had something to offer. I was a young man, I thought that 鈥渉ere 鈥︹�� some people thought Belfast wouldn鈥檛 be bombed. I always thought it would be. Not only bombed, but devastated. Strange, because I wasn鈥檛 a prophet.
It had a lot of industries. The most important in the world. And we were using our port. When ships couldn鈥檛 get into London, Liverpool and places, they came to here and we actually transported the stuff out again.

[You saw some terrible times, didn鈥檛 you?]
I did. I have the knowledge of seeing others鈥� difficulties, and I stood for about 10 minutes outside my own house after having seen 6 of my comrades dead. I came up into my own street, and my own house was devastated.

[What is this? It鈥檚 a black metal grill]
This was a blackout cover that fits over the headlamps of a car. The light was deflected.

Trams had a blue light inside at night. It was a funny feeling, at night you didn鈥檛 know where you were.

[If you didn鈥檛 have a petrol ration, you had to use public transport]
Even if you had some petrol, you could be stopped along the road and asked 鈥渨hy are you using the petrol?鈥�
There was a restriction. You had to have special permission to use the petrol you were rationed with. Strict, everything was strict.

There was always a funny incidents.
When people were looking for a new ration book. If you lost a ration book, there was quite a lot of trouble getting a new one. One old dear said 鈥淢r Churchill said something about this鈥�.
鈥淲hat did you mean?鈥�
鈥淣ever was so much done by so many for so little.鈥�

Comradeship was everything. We were a squad. To a certain extend, I know in my own unit, most of us were homeless. So we lived the Civil Defence.
I was 3 months camping out before I could get the family together again.

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