大象传媒

I was born in east Belfast, Ballyhackamore in 1931. Was 8 years old when war broke out.
I remember after the Easter blitz my brother who was 3 years older than me and myself moved to live with my grandparents in Caledon, Co. Tyrone.
Most of our friends and neighbours children were evacuated, but my brother and myself went to school in Caledon. It was quiet there - country life.
The British Troops had moved in. At that time some of the local mills were derelict, so the troops moved into them, one of them was in the grounds of Caledon Castle.
Some of the troops were billeted with some of the families that lived there. One of these troops was sent to France and he wrote to me, I remember he came from Seattle, his name was Lopez. I used to run errands for him, and that was how we became friendly.
My brother and I came back home to Belfast before the end of the war, I did some errands for the troops that were stationed nearby where we lived in Cherryvalley.
I remember the bombers coming over, people would listen at the chimney after the siren went off, to hear the sound of the bombers overhead as they approached, the worst part was hearing this sound, it was awful, then you would see the people running down the street to go to the air raid shelters. They would drop flares to higlight the area that they were going to hit.
Barrage Balloons were put up to keep the planes up. I remember one at Sandown Road, it was a big barrage balloon there, to keep them from bombing the target.
We, as young boys used to watch the men putting this up. At that time we always carried an identification card and a gas mask.
During the war in local schools they held an event for collecting books for the troops at the front, those that collected were assessed in military rank. I reached the raank of Field Marshall, and for that we were rewarded tea and buns in the Governer's hall - a real treat. To get these books I used to go round people's doors and ask for any books they didn't need!).

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