大象传媒

This story has been transcribed and published by Mark Jeffers, with permission from the author.

I鈥檝e lived in Belfast all my life. I originally came from the Markets. I remember the Easter Tuesday bombing in 1941. I was there when a bomb went off and I was taken out of the district because there were bombs going off. I remember seeing one particular fellow who was just home on leave from Dunkirk. He was from the Ardoyne and he was leaning against a wall with a cigarette in his mouth, smoking it. A bomb went off about thirty yards away from him. He was still standing there but he was dead. The blast had killed him but his cigarette was still in his hand. It was weird because there wasn鈥檛 a mark on him.

We all had to run up the fields out of the way because all the mills were pinpointed so you had to get out. We went up Cave Hill mostly because if the enemy had come across and saw the mills they鈥檇 bomb them. They were after the rope works and the docks. The Newtownards Road got flattened; it got the worst of the lot. We were sent to Dublin for a while as Belfast was being bombed. We smuggled the likes of butter and things over the border. If you didn鈥檛 smuggle you may not have survived!
Everybody chipped in; when people needed things they traded things or gave things to each other.

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