大象传媒

I was at school when the war broke out. My father and his four brothers joined up, one of whom was killed at Dunkirk. My father was stationed in Northern Ireland at the outbreak of war and was billeted at different locations where barrage balloons were sited. Incidentally, my father was one of five brothers who joined the forces just as the war was about to break out. We were a family of six children. I was the eldest girl. On Easter Monday 1941, we went to Bellevue Zoo for our yearly day out. During the fun, my younger sister came to me rather concerned to point out that 32 Barrage Balloons were visible and that spelt trouble; normally only 28 could be seen. They were at a lower altitude and there was no threat of an air attack. Our fears were realised the following night, Easter Tuesday, when we were bombed all night. Many were killed that night and rows of houses and businesses were flattened. The best words we heard in the midst of all the chaos was, 鈥淭here鈥檚 the all clear Sirens.鈥�

On the evening of VJ day, victory over Japan, I was sitting in the Dental Surgery with toothache. The Dentist was coming and going into a room listening to the news and between times he was injecting my gum and I was nearly ready to jump out of the chair with fear. The Dentist, Mr Morris on the Shankill Rd, was aware of my state and pain as he continued to inject my gum then he went into the room one more time and when he finally appeared again with the pliers he said, 鈥淭he war is over.鈥� I wouldn鈥檛 believe him. I thought he was trying to keep me from screaming. I went home from the Dentist with a couple of painkillers and headed onto Agnes St and was met by the crowds heading down the Shankill Rd with all sorts of makeshift bands. They were beating buckets, basins, biscuit tins or anything that rattled. The people were so relieved that the nightly bombing and terror was over. A night of dancing, joy and happy madness ensued.

Everything was rationed. This was controlled by the allocation of coupons per household. Only people who were well off financially could buy extras on the black market. Very few people could afford this, and members of families who did not eat sweets or chocolate gave their coupons to other family members or sold them. The
cream of the milk was collected and shook to make butter for the Daddy. He was the breadwinner, otherwise we ate margarine. Dried eggs were a favourite, and tasty, as we only got one egg a week and two ounces of bacon. Tea, butter, and sugar were rationed too, but sugar was in good supply in summer for jam making.

When a supply of a certain commodity came into a shop a crowd queued right away and everybody was asking what it was but most shops displayed a notice:

NO CIGARETTES
NO MATCHES
NO CHOCOLATE
NO LOOTING.

During the war years of bombing every night, many people, mostly men, could be seen pushing prams with blankets on board, heading up the Woodvale Rd for cover in the hills. Their wives and children would be in the air-raid shelter or in the coalhouse (coalhole as it was known then). My father was away to the war with the RAF. Out of his four brothers, three were in the ARMY and one was in the ROYAL NAVY. Of the five sons of a widowed mother, one son did not return, he was killed at Dunkirk. This was not verified until after my grandmother鈥檚 death. She had been notified that he was missing, presumed killed. After demob, my parents decided to visit Dunkirk, where his missing brother鈥檚 name was engraved on the cenotaph. This was photographed and brought home to his widow and baby daughter. By the way, these five relatives were featured in a bold headline in a Belfast Newspaper as 鈥榯he fighting five鈥� and a poem has been printed in their honour by a gentleman known as the Bard of Ligoniel. To end this epistle of a seemingly never ending horrific experience (namely WW 2). The war had just ended, and as a young teenager I met up with a young soldier who was on demob leave who had spent six months in hospital in North Africa. He had been rescued with four other members of a patrol from the Italian mountains. Two of them died the first night out and the others all suffered severe frostbite. The worst of the situation was that the others required limb amputations. My husband survived this and live to tell the story to the papers and his name appears today in a book by Richard Doherty entitled 鈥淐lear the Way.鈥�

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