ABSTRACT
I grew up in the working-class, heavy industrialized Protestant area of east Belfast until the age of 10. My family lived in a red brick, terraced house without hot running water, an indoor toilet or bathroom. I had a supportive family and my upbringing was not obviously any different to that of my neighbourhood friends or school chums. Poverty was an everyday fact. I can still recall my first job with some humour. By the age of 7, I would go along the street on Monday mornings collecting women’s wedding rings and their husbands’ good suits. I’d take them to the pawn-brokers and return with the cash to the owners. On the Friday of the same week when the men came home with their shipyard wages, I would go back to the pawn-shop, cash and ticket in hand, to reimburse the belongings so that the families could go properly dressed to church on Sunday. I was aware at this young age that life was not always good to every child. I recollect being appalled at seeing photographs in a Barnardo’s shop window of children hurt by their parents and knew that ‘the Cruelty’ would call on households where something sinister was happening to children. At the age of 10, I moved with my family from east Belfast to new housing in leafier, greener suburbs and a bit more affluence for my parents. It was a new school with new friends but a relatively uneventful life.
