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I am a retired male of 78 years old. During the blitz on Belfast in 1941, I was evacuated to Newry at age of thirteen. I had just a few months left before finishing school. However, I didn’t go back after I was evacuated. I stayed in Newry for one year. Coming back to Belfast, I started as messenger for Johnston’s Umbrellas and worked there for one year. That was followed by an apprenticeship in painting and decorating. I mostly worked at that trade before emigrating to New York in 1960, where I stayed until my retirement in 1993.
During my younger days, I was fond of history and classical music. Going round Smithfield on Saturday, I would buy classical music records. History and music were my main interests. History of ancient Greece I found very interesting and I also developed an interest in Irish history.

While living in New York, I entered for a high school diploma issued by the State of New York. I passed and received my diploma. Since I had not been to school for twenty-five years, this gave me a new found confidence. After that I graduated from Empire State College of New York with a B.A. degree in Labour and Management.

My memories of the blitz are varied; some are sad, some are funny. The sad part was that so many people were killed. I lived near the ship yards on the Newtownards Road. I remember some funny aspects despite how frightening the blitz actually was.

The Popular cinema got hit, and I remember seeing a serial that we use to watch every week — ‘Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars.’ It was Larry Buster Crab who was the hero, the evil Ming the Merciless was Charles Middleton. I was walking past the Pop, and I saw a bit of this movie lying on the ground. As I continued up the Newtownards Rd and I could see a dentist’s chair, sitting on its own, swinging round in the middle of the road.

There was a pub across the way which sold rather cheap drink, wine, and pints of Guinness. When the bomb hit the Popular, it blew the top off it, it was actually carried away. Going past on a double-decker bus later, I saw these men in there drinking in McKeag’s and they were still serving drink under the open sky because the roof had gone completely. So what happened afterwards, they got the roof fixed. They got a wooden roof and they put felt and tar on it. And the owner felt he would not be defeated so he got a sign painted and put some poetry on the shutters of the windows. The poem went:

Though we were blitzed by Nazi planes
The roof was on McKeags again
And though us all he tried to shock
With beers and wines we’re newly stocked
So gather round from near and far
We’ll work together and win the war

On the other shutter:

It ain’t gonna rain no more, no more
On this cosy bar
Our roof is repaired, our stock is renewed
And we’re ready for business as usual!

Earlier this year I paid a visit to the street in Newry to where my family was evacuated. I met a local lad called Walter. I had, as a youth, been a great friend to Walter. Walter was a hired hand who looked after the milking-cows such as putting them out early in the morning to graze and bringing them to be fed and then milked. As we walked around the town it brought back fond memories of the time we were evacuated to Newry in 1941.

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