the purefinder - archives - Sat, 2004-09-18
« an pwned machine | Main | I'm not the person I was. »September 18, 2004
We didn't notice the photographer.
We didn't notice the photographer.
The night before, a Saturday very shortly before Christmas 1977, a farmer from outside the village had answered a knock at his door and found armed men - probably masked, who had told him that he was going to drive a bomb into the village where I lived and leave it at the police 'barracks'. He, and everyone else who was similarly instructed, did as he was told. At some point subsequently my parents would have shaken us from our sleep or lifted us from our beds, told us to dress, or dressed us, and taken us downstairs to our living room - crowded with our sleepy and worried neighbours.
When our house had been built, around 250 years earlier, it had been set back slightly from the street and enclosed with railings - presumably to lessen the chances of a beast leaping through the window at one of the frequent, and huge, cattle markets that were held in the street outside. This trivial historical detail meant that when the bombs came to our village our house was normally left less damaged than those of our neighbours; when the bombs exploded and the blast went whooshing up, or down, the street we did lose windows and slates and ceilings but we didn't lose our home. Others often did.
I can't remember this particular bomb exploding. I can remember a few others as individual identifiable events, but generally I can just remember generically what it was like; whiskey would be drunk, we would sit chattering too much, or silently, waiting.
12:30 am seemed to be the time that our bombs were normally set to explode and as my father's many clocks ticked and tocked their way towards this time, and others that were spread about it, the tension would increase. If it got to 12:30, on the most advanced clock, and nothing had yet happened people would express their hope that perhaps it wouldn't go off and that 'they' (the army) might try to defuse it. Normally, however, the lights would dim, or go out, and around a second later an enormous tumbling and rumbling blast would race past the house. You could normally hear the whistle of shrapnel, from the car that had carried the bomb, tearing through the air and subsequently we would hear the rain of fragments of the car and our village fall back to earth. The glass that fell from windows seemed to take a second or two before it clinked and smashed down onto the pavement. Outside, soldiers and police would shout to each other.
Once it seemed probable that the bomb had gone off properly, and entirely, the process of recreating normality would begin. The man who owned the hardware shop next door would soon arrive and issue nails and hardboard to help board up windows. People would sweep the glass into piles with stiff bristled yard brushes - swishing and tinkling. Men would go into their damaged houses to retrieve what they needed, if that was not possible, they would retrieve what they could.
We would go back to bed and back to sleep.
I do have some specific memories of the morning that followed and I have some general memories of my life and our family from that time. I can remember the sheepskin bomber jacket with a hood that my brother, who was seven years younger than me, seemed to wear for most of his early childhood. I can specifically remember how difficult it was to put it on him and remove it from him and my habitual, and regrettable, impatience at having to do so. I can remember expressing surprise, and disbelief, that the paper shop was open, but I was assured that this was known with certainty. My sister and I were instructed to take my brother down to get the papers and we were exhorted to ensure that he didn't damage himself on broken glass. We didn't get any specific instructions about avoiding potentially collapsing buildings
I don't remember walking down the street. I don't actually even really specifically remember what the aftermath of this bomb looked like - other than what I can see in the photograph. The photograph, with the police barracks/station just out of the frame to the right, suggests that it can't have been one of the larger examples that our village had inflicted upon it.
I can remember being in the paper shop; it was dark and chaotic, its windows were boarded up and there was no electricity yet. Everything was dusty and deranged. A narrow passage had been cleared in the chaos and the shop keeper sat amidst piles of the Sunday papers, smoking, dealing with customers and accepting sympathy.
It seems that I tucked the papers under my left arm as I left the shop - that is where they appear to be in the photograph.
I suspect that the police wanted to comb through the rubble nearest where the bomb had exploded to search for details of the bomb's construction - you can see that the street elsewhere has been swept clean. We were ushered round the jumble of slates and glass by a policeman.
Shortly afterwards, when we had got about fifteen metres further up the street, the photographer took the photo.
It's exceptionally well composed, initially we see the chaos and destruction in the foreground, then the diagonals of the kerbs and the houses lead the viewer's attention to myself, my sister and my brother. Ahead of us is the village's Christmas tree. A little bit beyond that, set back slightly from the street, is our house.
A couple of days later the posters and leaflets appeared. "A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FOR CLOGHER", they shouted. "THE PROVOS WISH THE PEOPLE OF CLOGHER, CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT, MEN AND WOMEN, CHILDREN AND PENSIONERS, WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION, SHATTERED HOMES AND THE MEMORY OF A CAR BOMB LEFT WITHOUT WARNING." It was, it said, "ISSUED BY THE SECURITY FORCES".
It was a little embarrassing; we were from the 'Nationalist community', and co-operation with the police and THE SECURITY FORCES was frowned upon and dangerous. We told everyone that we hadn't given our permission for the photograph or even known that it was being taken.
There were many more bombs in our village.
I left Northern Ireland as soon as I could - seven years later in 1984. Our accidental appearance in a poster campaign was one of the stories I would tell people, when they, infrequently, asked me what it had been like growing up during the Troubles.
An aunt found a copy of the poster in her loft a few years ago and issued us with copies of it. I found it to be a tremendously powerful image in its own right and a poignant personal reminder of the imperfect environment of my childhood.
Posted by padraig at September 18, 2004 03:10 PM