THIS week we’ve been remembering the Belfast Blitz. It’s hard to believe that 60 years have passed since Hitler dedicated the Luftwaffe’s finest planes, men, time and money to the task of flattening Belfast.
If the Fuhrer had known anything at all about the character of Belfast people he would have stood down the bombers right away and directed them elsewhere.
This week, I have had the rare opportunity of talking to people on the radio about that terrible time. All kinds of people.
I talked to a German lady who’s been living in Northern Ireland since 1952. It was a rare opportunity to turn the subject on its head. She’d been in Berlin in 1945 when our boys returned the compliment and did their best to flatten that city.
As we have yet to learn in Northern Ireland, it’s sometimes instructive to hear another’s point of view. She described the terror of 1,000 pound bombs raining ceaselessly down from the sky. It wasn’t easy for the Germans either. She wistfully described her father, a German soldier, coming home after spending time as a prisoner of war in Italy. She couldn’t take her eyes off his brand new leather britches.
I talked to a lady from Belfast who remembered running for her life during a German bombing raid. Her sister was right behind her. Suddenly the sister stopped in her tracks and clasped a hand to her mouth.
“I have to go back to the house,” she said.
“Don’t be stupid,” said the other. “You’ll be killed. What do you want to back there for?” “I forgot my false teeth,” was the reply.
“For God’s sake,” screamed the sister. “Hitler’s dropping bombs, not sandwiches.”
People with spirit like that shouldn’t have bombs cropped on them. The more I talked to these people, the more I realised what special people they were and are. They’re getting on a bit now but they’re different from you and me. We tend to buzz about the place worrying about mortgage rates, career advancement, global warming, the fate of the whale and the lack of modern leisure facilities for our children. When you’ve been strafed by a Stuka you tend not to worry too much about the levels of flouride in your drinking water. You learn to relax and enjoy life.
These people are more in touch with each other than we are, and all done without the benefit of mobile phones. They were aware of and celebrated their particular individuality. We tend to use numbers.
Recently, I came across a lengthy poem anonymously penned by a man who, in the 1940’s had taken the trouble to record in rhyme the nicknames of people then living in Derry/Londonderry. Reading it I couldn’t help but wonder whatever became of the brothers Banty, Toddler and Slusher Gallagher. What did fate have in store for Nyiff-Nyaff, Tuppenny Dan, Johnny the Pot, Barum Belly, Sour Guts, Scroofentail McDermot, Charlie Duck-egg and Mickey No Arse? Where the descendants of Biscuit Hips, Fart McDaid, Ankles McGonagle, Spoon McShane, Biddy the Bee, John the Narrowman, Chinese Ornament, Fat Neck and Fazook? But still there was confusion concerning identity: “Further down the street lived Maggie Jane and Ned McGurk, His name it was McDaid but he was called McGurk at work.”
What German bomb could put the wind up Blood Doherty, Chesty Crossan, Paddy the Hard, Packets McGilloway, the Daddler, Warpie, Ducksie or Titsie? And who was the man known as, simply the Sock? I’ve only scratched the surface here. There are hundreds more. There may not have been much money about during the war and there may not have been much privacy, but you certainly got to know your neighbour. I’m sure Belfast was no different. As Joe Time Enough might have said, Hitler was wasting his time.
Originally published in The Belfast Telegraph