Saturday, March 23, 2019
My Mum, Dad, my self and brother and sister lived in the family house in Belfast in 1950, owned by my grandfather and grandmother just off Belfast's Limestone Road and Uncle Stan, together with his twin brother Derek were engineeering students at Queen's University Belfast - I think I was three or four at the time but the twins epitomised the fun-loving spirit of free-wheeling young men about town in a country emerging from the Second World War. So my first inspiration was 'I want to be like them'. Then suddenly they were off to Canada to seek their fortunes leaving behind stories of their exploits. One famous tale was of the night during the bombing blitz of 1941, their father(my grandfather) who was a volunteer fire-fighter who used his own car to tow a fire pump, returned exhausted after an all-night fire-fighting stint. Early next morning the 12 year-old twins carried into the house the 'souvenir bomb casing' their Dad had brought home - 'Dad, dad, this is smashing, where did you get it' they asked. My grandfather opened a weary eye and said he would just take it gently outside. He then brought the family inside the house and summoned the army to come and very carefully dispose of what he'd realised was an unexploded bome which had fallen through his soft-top car and rested on the back seat.
God bless Stan.
