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William Logan is not currently a member of MENSA, but he has given us permission to post excerpts from his autobiography, "A Lane Less Travelled".
The author understands the terms and conditions.
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"A Lane Less Travelled"
by William C Logan

Friday 1st September 1939.
Mrs Moore [the schoolteacher] had gone to the door to speak to Mr Moore and when she came back she was in avery solemn mood and she announced that there was very bad news - Germany had invaded Poland. We did not understand the significance of this at the time. Two days later before we went to church the whole family sat around the "wireless" to hear Neville Chamberlain's announcement that as Germany had not withdrawn from Poland we were at war with Germany.
Although as children we could not appreciate the gravity of the situation we knew from the reaction of the adults that the situation was serious. They remembered all too clearly the suffering and massive loss of life in the 'Great War' that had ended only 21 years before.

A ritual on Sunday evening was the allocation of the "extra piece". As it was wartime we managed to have one small bar of chocolate with eight squares once a week and as there were seven people in the house we took it in turn to have the extra piece.
Sometime about early summer 1941 it was proposed that I go and stay for a day or two with Uncle Sam and Aunt Logan at 10 Wheatfield Gardens Belfast. As I could not travel by myself and Uncle Paul was on one of his occasional visits it was decided I should go with him. However he had business to do in the west of the province so I left with him and went to Derry then to Strabane and Omagh and stayed the night in The Northland Arms Hotel in Dungannon. We made all these journeys by train and Uncle Paul visited several hardware shops in each town and made several lists of orders. It was all very interesting to see so many new towns and of course staying in a hotel was a totally new experience. I can remember feeling slightly lonely when he left me in bed on my own for a couple of hours in the evening. The next day we visited portadown, Lurgan and Lisburn before reaching Belfast. 1 can remember being most impressed by the big wide streets full of busy shops in Portadown and Lurgan.

When we reached Belfast the most memorable part of the visit was seeing the devastation caused by the bombing in April of that year. There were large heaps of rubble where had once stood houses and shops especially in York St and along the Antrim Rd. The Germans had targeted Belfast because of its ship building activities and appeared to mistake the large expanse of water at the waterworks reservoir on the Cavehill Road for the docks so these areas got the worst of the bombing. Since we lived quite a bit away from Belfast and there were no television pictures in those days we were not really aware of the devastation in Belfast. I was intrigued by the tramcars -the sheer numbers of them and all the different destinations. Along Donegal Place there might be a row of a dozen trams all heading for a different destination and in the evening when workmen were getting out they would be so over crowded with men standing everywhere inside and hanging on outside. I was thrilled just to go off for a ride in the tram-either to the terminus at Ligoneil or to the tram depot at Aerdoyne and watch the driver and conductor at work.

My father's Uncle and Aunt lived in a fine three storey red brick building built just before the war at 10 Wheatfield Gardens off the Upper Crumlin Road. They had started off in a small terrace house in Agnes Street, then moved via Tennant 5t and Woodvale Road to this house. It had excellent accommodation and a toilet with a long chain reaching up to a large cistern near the ceiling and an ever present smell of gas which ~ was Belfast gas used for cooking.

Back home it was about this time that my father sold a horse and part of the deal was that it would be delivered to a house eight miles away. I managed to get my father to let me come with him. We left in the early morning long before it was clear and walked for about two and a half hours and I remember one of the longest conversations that I have ever had with him. We covered a whole range of subjects from farming to school to what I would do in the future. I can remember so clearly the walk in the dark, the morning chill, the lead grey sky and then the winter sun peering through. As there was no bus back for a few hours and we did not want to prolong the heart break of parting with the horse we decided to walk another four miles into Kilrea and then get the bus home from there. Kilrea is set on a hill and we could see the Church Spire from a long way off and as we walked along it gradually became nearer, just like a description in one of Thomas Hardy's novels. However we finally got there and after a waIk of twelve miles the tea and scones that we got in a simple cafe have never tasted better.

During the war years there were numerous military parades in Coleraine often associated with recruiting drives and I can remember that after one of these recruiting drives four or five young men from the village of Macosquin had joined the forces. Later on there were lots of training exercises carried out in the countryside and this often included our land and outhouses. On at least one occasion our dining room was taken over by the Officers as an operations centre and there were crowds of soldiers allover the barn and hayshed. On one occasion I persuaded a soldier to let me ride on a truck which was laying down a few miles of telephone wire and at one point he swerved quickly and I nearly fell out. I'm sure it was very much against the rules to let me on board, but it certainly gave me a bit of a fright. On the whole these army visits did not leave behind much damage and they were certainly welcomed by me as an interesting diversion.

Later when American soldiers arrived they seemed to take over more buildings and crowded out the dance halls. They also were able to attract the girls with gifts of cigarettes and nylon stockings.

There was less work to do in the fields at Christmas and Easter, but as we got into teenage years there was established a busy round of Christmas parties in houses of cousins or friends. The entertainment would vary from singing e,g. "I met her in the garden where the praties grow", recitations
such as "I'm livin' in Drumlister" or playing simple games such as "the farmer wants a wife", "Paddy from Cork has never been ' 'Hiding the thimble' or 'Coffee pot'.

There were a few "magic" games. One person would go out of the room and his accomplice would arrange three similar objects in a row and ask one of the group to touch one. The person outside would be invited in and was always able to identify the correct object because he was summoned by a variety of casual calls namely come on, come in, or come here.

Dancing took place either in the house or out in a barn. One of the most ; memorable party locations was Taylor's in Letterloan beside myoId school. r Mrs Taylor always had the greatest range of home made cakes that I have , ever seen. The Taylors were older than me and most of their cousins and neighbours were older than them so they all seemed rather sophisticated and grown up to me. One of their cousins did chilling recitations by Robert Service such as 'The Shooting of Dan McGrew', and another one called 'The green eye of the little yellow god' by Milton Hayes. About forty years later I met this man in the house of his niece who was then teaching in Belfast Royal Academy and he agreed to my special request to repeat one of these recitations.

The Easter holidays were probably the least enjoyable because there was no work out in the fields and no parties and the weather was often very cold. When I was thirteen my eldest cousin David Henry got married and there was a party at his house when he came back from a short honeymoon. When the party was in full swing someone spotted that a large hay pike was on fire. This had been set alight by neighbours either as a prank or because they were not invited. It caused some consternation until we were assured it would not spread.

At the end of the summer when all the crops
had been harvested there was held the Harvest Home Supper. This was just a special tea given originally as a thank-you gesture to neighbours and servants who had helped with the harvest. In our day it was really only family and Robert Hunter but it was associated with a great feeling of achievement and satisfaction.

Another important item in the social activity was the annual Church Concert or 'Soiree' This took the form of a big tea with sandwiches, and a selection of buns including Paris buns, 'sore heads' and rock buns. Fruit loaf was such a standard item that it was known then as 'Soiree Bread'. This was followed by two hours of musical items. There were solos and duets either from singers or instrumentalists. A very popular and frequent performer called Willie Kane both sang and played the piano.

There was sometimes a comedian or a few stories from a minister. Rev RJ Mcllmoyle, a Reformed Presbyterian minister, was well known for his story telling and for his enthusiasm for breeding pedigree sheep.

During the war when the black out was on these concerts were arranged according to the phases of the moon as during full moon it was much easier to see to get home in the country.

My third year at school started well. There was the prospect of the Junior Certificate examination at the end of the year and a place on the Medallion rugby team to look forward to. 1 soon established a regular place on the team. 1 can remember one Saturday working in a potato field all morning, then cycling to Coleraine and getting a bus to Portrush to play against Campbell College who were based there during the war. Our coach was Mr Moore McAuley and he also taught rnaths. He was very serious about both but he was also great fun and his nickname was Banjo. He was full of enthusiasm at practice and in very bad weather he expounded rugby theory in a classroom and illustrated clever moves on the blackboard and made us feel important. We started off the season with three wins out of three but were brought down to earth with a bump when we went to play Ballymena. We were warned to watch out for their good players like McKane and Sloan but in the event a slightly built outside centre got the ball three times and scored three times. His name was Joe Gaston and he went on to play for Ireland.

In the Medallion Shield competition we were drawn against R.B.A.I. away. They were a much bigger team than us. They had five big men to our one big man, George Tanner, but we held on until the last quarter and then gave away two scores. It was very disappointing as C.A.I. were the holders but the Chief came into the dressing room and said how pleased he was with our efforts and how well we had upheld the honour of the school.

On 8th May that year we had V.E. day. Although the war had been going our way for some time there was still a wonderful feeling of relief. It was such a change from 1941 when Europe had been overrun, English cities were being heavily bombed, the German Army in North Africa had almost reached I Cairo and there were heavy shipping losses in the Atlantic. In June we had I the Junior Cert. Examinations which I do not remember much about. In July ! when we were cutting grass seed I can remember results coming through of

a surprise landslide victory for the Labour Party in the general election. It was almost unbelievable to us that Churchill who had led and inspired us to victory with his unforgettable speeches in the war could have been rejected by the country in favour of Clement Atlee. The leader of the Labour Party was described by Churchill as a 'modest little man' who had plenty to be modest about but he was an efficient and capable Prime Minister and his Government presided over massive changes in education and health and social services.

In August came the end of the war in Asia after two atom bombs had been dropped on Japan. This was a great relief at the time but we had no idea how much uncontrolled damage these bombs did then and for years afterwards and we never stopped to think about the ethics of such action.

I worked every day of the holidays as an extra farmhand and it was agreed t that in the last week of the holidays I would go to Belfast for 2-3 days to stay with the elderly and devout relatives. It was not the most exciting prospect for a 15 year old but it was a change and as we never got any pocket money it was a sort of reward. I was due to go on a Monday and on the previous Saturday when helping a neighbour to thresh grass seed I became very sick and went home to bed.

Next day I felt no better but forced myself to get up out of bed so that I would he allowed to go away the next day. The following day I was much worse and Dr Shannon was sent for and diagnosed "acute gangrenous appendicitis with extensive peritonitis". There was a delay of at least 24 hours in calling the doctor. I was taken into Ratheane Cottage Hospital immediately and operated on by him that evening. I can still remember the claustrophobic and suffocating effect of the chloroform mask over my face. I woke up in agony. I could not believe that an appendicitis operation could be so painful and did not realise how ill I was. I remained very uncomfortable for the next few days and in the mornings when my parents phoned after a night of distress and wakefulness I could overhear the night sister saying "he has had a comfortable night". My discomfort was added to by a patient in a bed opposite me who had been in hospital for five weeks with a broken leg. He often caused me absolute agony because he had been there long enough to get to know the nurses well enough to be rude to them and kept saying and doing things that made me laugh.

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