Blood Sacrifice for Queen and Country: Paramilitarism and Political Manoeuvrings

Abstract

I was born in 1955 on the Shankill Road. I lived in the end house on Matchett Street, just off Tennent Street.¹ The house on Matchett Street was next to waste ground which was apparently created by the Blitz. There was some sort of shop there and it was blown up. In 1972 I moved to Jersey Street. When I was a young boy I remember playing football on the street corner and playing cricket in the summer, we painted the stumps on the wall and you bowled and all that sort of stuff but you could never knock the stumps off because it was painted on! I clearly remember that you were never allowed to call anybody’s parents by their first name — you always had to call them Mr and Mrs.