Category: post WW2

I was employed once again and Sophie was teaching so we decided we would have a holiday on the Continent. We would fly to Paris and let the train take the strain to a place called Hendaye, in the Basque country, on the Spanish Border. Sophie was helped in her teaching by a French assistante who suggested that we should stay with someone she knew in Hendaye under a system known in France as ‘en famille’. The system was that Madame Ader who ran the place with Poppa Ader, supplied a room for the whole family, French style, although we chose not to share with the children and were singular in that we took two rooms. There were something like six families in the house, and each morning Madame would go to each table, and take orders for lunch and dinner, she would then instruct each family what ingredients they needed and they would do the shopping on their own behalf. Each had one of those old fashioned safes in a shaded part of the garden and this was where we kept the provisions. Madame would help herself as need be. So twice a day Madame was preparing different meals for six families. It was incredible how smoothly the system worked. Unlike the rest of the guests, we had no car so had to take the bus to the beach with the result it did not pay us to return to the house for a full midday meal and, in any case, our way of life was different, I don’t think we could have stood the pace if we had.

We were required to make the bed,s and as I have said, do the shopping, otherwise we were free. There were times when the beach was impossible due to heavy rain and as we were away for a month, the number of alternatives soon palled and we would sometimes go back to the house and play board games with the girls. In the next bedroom to them was a couple we would have referred to, and for that matter still do, as ‘deuxieme fois’, meaning that we suspected they were having it away. In this case they were hilarious in both senses. In the evenings and sometimes in the wet weather, they could be heard chasing one another round their bedroom and our girls brought to our attention that they could hear the slap of the hand on naked flesh. As Gilly was twelve years old and Noreen eight, this took some explaining, especially as the combatants were probably in their first flush of old age.

In Hendaye we met some charming French people including a family . The father was an hydraulics engineer and I soon discovered I could get into quite technical detail with him merely by using an English word, giving it a French pronunciation and a French ending. We became very friendly with them and kept up a relationship until ultimately they divorced which was a great pity. Perhaps it was an interest in the foreigner, perhaps the inability of strangers to communicate when they don’t speak the language, but we found that the French children very soon took the girls under their wing and they were playing French games, including snail races on the concrete coping to the garden steps. The girls for their part were there long enough to pick up enough French to enable them to go shopping on their own.

On the second trip to Hendaye, my younger daughter was not in favour of the fare and one day, in Hendaye, as she was going into the sea for a swim, I suddenly realised she was little more than a skeleton. This put the fear of God into us and we rushed off for the only remedy we knew, tube upon tube of sweetened condensed milk. Once again we made friends with a French family. Madame was a most beautiful woman both in looks and nature and Sophie and I could never understand why her husband was more in tune with his car than the beautiful Jaquis. Every day when we all went to the beach, he would stay at the house and clean the engine of his car until it was gleaming and then having got it to a state where it was immaculate he would start all over again.

Ultimately Madame found solace elsewhere and the effect on my elder daughter, when she heard they had become separated was as if they had died under tragic circumstances, which showed her fondness for them, her faith in the sanctity of the family and emphasises how uncommon divorce was in Ireland in the 50’s.

On the way home we visited Lourdes and there we experienced two main reactions, we were appalled at the commercialisation on the periphery. Secondly, the sight of so many very ill people, and the inherent reverence of the place caused everyone to remain totally silent for at least an hour and probably nearer two hours, as we resumed our journey. I have never forgotten the suffering I saw there.

Smoke Test No 1. Today inspection and testing has become remote, highly technical, and mostly computer driven. In my Dark Ages every thing was hands on, mucky and tediously prolonged. Pipes are now checked with robots and cameras. I have always found it strange that smoke really does issue from a sewer up through the earth and travels quite long distances through cracks in pipes and the ground. In those days this feature of smoke was used to assess whether a sewer pipe had been breached or was leaking. Theoretically every pipe leading to a sewer is trapped with a water trap, so there should be no risk of smoke entering a house. To carry out the test the operator closes one end of the pipe, or puts a temporary block at some point. At the other end he attaches a box, which is really only a source of smoke, and the bellows will force it through the pipe. He puts a rag, heavily impregnated with oil, inside the box, lights it, and then, using the bellows, pumps the smoke into the pipe until it is seen issuing out through a small hole in the block at the far end. If it issues from nowhere else it is assumed that the pipe is tight and has no leaks. This test took place on a Saturday morning when I was working for the contractor. The sewer we were laying was in running sand, a very unstable and dangerous material and we did not want the trench lying open over the weekend as the results of a possible slip could have been hazardous to the Public and expensive, added to which if a smoke test failed then we might have had to carry out a water test which can take hours. We were dealing with a very fussy Clerk of Works who liked his authority and enjoyed wielding it. He knew as well as we did that there was nothing wrong with the pipe, he had seen every joint made, he had nothing else to do, but the book said smoke test before passing the work, so smoke test we did. We set it up, put in the disk at the end of the pipe with the one-inch hole to show the smoke had gone the whole way through the pipe, and then tea was up. Well it was up for the Clerk of Works, it was up for the men, but not for the foreman and not for me. We had connected the crude smoke box with its bellows to the upstream end of the pipe, inserted an oily rag, lit it and were pumping the smoke for all we were worth and it was not reaching the other end. The Foreman said to me, “You go and join the Clerk of Works and I’ll have it fixed in the mean time, no sense both of us being here.” I followed his advice.

About ten minutes later he stuck his head into the hut and said all was ready for testing and when the Clerk of Works and I went to the other end, there, sure enough, was the smoke puffing out in spurts in time with the pumping of the man at the other end. Honour had been satisfied and come twelve o’clock we would all be going home. When I was out of earshot of the Clerk of Works I said to the foreman that I was surprised at the amount of smoke issuing. Considering the length of the pipe, usually there is dilution by the air within the pipe for some time, and it seemed to me the smoke was denser than I would have expected. He smiled. “I helped it on a bit,” he said. “I thought it could do with another smoking rag so I put it in the other end, I knew he’d never guess, he’s all talk and no experience.” This accounted for what I had seen. The foreman, unknown to me and the Clerk of Works had inserted a piece of burning rag at the other end of the pipe from the bellows and the air within the pipe was being pushed by the bellows to make the smoke from the second rag issue from the small hole. Instead of the pipe being full of smoke as it seemed, it was probably partly full of air. For all of ten seconds I wondered what to do, and then for another ten seconds I suppressed my conscience with the thought that I saw the Clerk of Works from time to time, I saw the foreman daily.

SMOKE TEST No 2 There had been a complaint of rats in the lower part of the Ormeau Road area in Belfast and it was laid squarely at the door of the Sewerage Section. Sam was sent to investigate and decided that he needed a smoke test. He had it set up with the smoke box in one manhole and the round timber block with the smoke hole in it at the next manhole In Sam’s case the usual results were amplified. In the first instance someone shouted that smoke was issuing from the lamp standards, and as these were gas lamps, panic ensued until he managed to explain what was happening. Next he heard screams coming from the back-yard of one of the houses. The sewer in question ran between the backs of two rows of houses and at that time, those houses only had outside toilets in the yard. Apparently a householder had been in one when she found smoke, firstly coming up round her feet, and then all round her; her plight was understandable. Finally he had to pacify the fire brigade who had been called with a 999 call from someone further afield who had found smoke coming up through the floor boards. The theory that the sewer was at fault, seemed to have been thoroughly confirmed.

PARIS, on the way south we had stayed for a couple of days in Paris. Sophie’s friend had told us of an hotel in the Rue Du Caire, the red-light district, which was closer to our budget than most. Being on a B&B basis we had to take our meals elsewhere. We tended to buy the food near the hotel, to leave the rest of the day free. Sophie would go into the shop and I would stand outside with the girls. One day Linda and I had been watching the Ladies plying their trade, they were standing row on row in tight satin dresses, disappearing with men from time to time into a small hotel opposite the shop. I was quietly timing them and being amazed at the through-put, when Linda, aged 12, hit me with a question I should have anticipated. ‘Daddy, why are all those ladies standing there?’ she asked innocently, staring with interest at the ladies in question. ‘Ah’, I said floundering, then I decided to give half the truth, she would learn the rest soon enough. I explained they were waiting for their men friends to take them into the hotel. Mercifully Sophie rejoined us and we went off sightseeing.

I suffered one culture shock at the Notre Dame. I might have been lethargic about religion to the point of rejection, but old teachings die hard and I had been taught to respect the worship of others. We visited the Cathedral on a Sunday, and found a stream of people going in and out. It was only when we were inside, in the middle of the noisy scrum consisting of excursions, sightseers, people leaving, assumedly having worshipped, people going in to worship, that we found a service in full swing. It left me with a recurrence of the vision of the inside of the Temple in Jerusalem as I had imagined it when as a child I had been told the story of Jesus and the usurers. I had expected the calm and hushed atmosphere of St Paul’s, augmented even, because it was Sunday.

Brush With The French Police In the 50’s we were on our way home. I had looked at the map and knew I was on the main road.. I drove along it, and passed another, angling from the right, giving a cursory glance because of ‘priorite a droite’ , when a Gendarme stepped into the road and made us go into a lay-by. It was cleary a regular occurrence – he had that practised air about his arm-waving. ‘Now remember,’ I said to the family, looking meaningfully at Soph, ‘we don’t understand French, and I’ll do the talking’.. The policeman told us we had breached the highway code and he was going to fine us some astronomical sum. I explained in pigeon French – what else? – that we were on a main road and showed him the map to make the case. No sale. The argument went on for ages as I had no intention of paying a fine and he was steadily getting more heated and Sophie was getting more worried, especially when he threatened to take us to the next town and impound the car. The fact that there was no ‘Halt’ or other sign obviously meant nothing to him, he was probably on a percentage. ‘Say nothing,’ I said to Soph, ‘Let him bloody well take us in, I’ll make an international ncident out of it.’ That went down like a lead brick, but just when a real decision was about to be made, along came another miscreant in a Deux Chevaux, who had to be stopped.

The copper was having a field day – that was until the car door opened and a shapely, long, silken clad leg issued, attached to a beautiful, blond dolly-bird – then it was he who had a decision to make. She had a mate who was even prettier if that were possible. Oh! La la! Poor Frog!! He remonstrated to them next, explained; they smiled and she moved the leg, he looked back at us, we looked innocent and, believe it or not, straight faced, he capitulated, we went on our way. The last we saw was him leaning on the roof of the car breathing garlic fumes into the little Deux Chevaux.

The Diving Course, taught by serving Petty and Chief Petty Officer Divers, was mostly practical, and had hairy moments. In fact they taught at such a rate one tended to forget all but the frightening bits. We were taught to signal with the air-line and lifeline, how to inflate the suit by reducing the escape of air from a valve on the side of the helmet, but warned that too much air would blow us up like a balloon and our arms would be so stiffly outstretched by the air pressure in the suit, we would then not be able to open the vent with the result we would be blown to the surface, which I proved. They also said if this happened when we were diving deeply we could risk getting the bends – nitrogen bubbling out of the blood – a possible killer. They then cheered us up by saying that if the suit was damaged or the airline cut at depth, the pressure could force our bodies up into the helmet. Next they put us into great tanks of water and taught how to burn steel under water, with the warning that as the hands would be cold, and since we were not allowed gloves, we could cut our own fingers off with the acetylene cutter if we were not careful. They made us practice decompression stops on the way up from the dive, to equalise the suit and blood pressure to the water pressure in stages. We weren’t deep enough for it to matter, but in the compression chambers and on a deeper dive it would have been essential to avoid the bends

Just prior to our final test they taught us to measure in total darkness, using our hands and arms as measures – the width of a hand, 3.5 inches, a span, 8 inches, the 1st joint on a thumb, 1inch, elbow to wrist, a foot – the old haberdasher’s measure of a yard, chin to outstretched fingers, and width of two outstretched arms 2 yards, What they do now Imperial Measure has gone by the board is anybody’s guess. Then they threw different pieces of metal into the ooze without us seeing. We had to find them, directed by signals on the air-hose and line, measure them and return and make drawings with all measurements, from memory. We were not allowed a telephone in the helmet.

We were made to breath pure oxygen to see if we would develop oxygen sickness and then taught how to swim under water in a wet-suit with what is called ‘closed-circuit breathing’. This is the system Naval Commandos used in WW2, breathing only oxygen, which is circulated through a cleansing system. In this way there are no tell-tale bubbles rising to the surface as with Scuba diving. I suspected that we would never have done inspection work with oxygen, but we were now partially trained and so a possible source of underwater demolition recruits, should the need arise, or pressed men if you prefer, – after all that was a good Naval tradition once. Inspection divers check old underwater structures for deterioration, the installation of new works and under water surveys prior to design.

Now the sickening story related cynically but factually by one of the tutors. The story concerned a diver in a port who contracted to recover the body of a young girl who had drowned in a car she had driven off the pier into deep water. In those times pickings for the diver had been poor and seemingly were getting poorer, which one must assume prompted his heartlessness. While he searched, the father of the girl sat in a cafe near the harbour and looked into space, just waiting. It transpired that the diver knew pretty well where the body was, through knowledge of sand bars, currents and outfalls, but avoided that spot assiduously and carefully quartered the harbour every day leaving that part until last. He wanted to make the most from his contract and also the vital knowledge of the harbour he had gained over many years of diving there.

My short brush with helmet and oxygen scuba diving was a highlight in a varied career.

Today professional diving is sophisticated and technical. My training by comparison is like that with halberds compared to AK47 assault rifles. From what I read, it would seem I am one of the very few left who have been a professional helmet diver. I thought the experience might be of interest. Part 2 deals with the course exams, closed circuit diving, and an unpleasant diving story.

In the early 50’s I worked for the Admiralty and one condition was that I qualified as a helmet diver for inspection work. The thought raised youthful visions embedded from my reading ‘The Adventure’ and general comics with a torch under the bed clothes.. Unsurprisingly it wasn’t a bit like that. . I am convinced the whole course at the Diving school at Chatham was intended to put the fear of God into us which it nearly did. We had to learn to dive in those old fashioned helmets and canvas and rubber suits which were so popular in the black and white films. Were put in decompression chambers with the pressures increased to simulate depths we would never reach – our speech sounded like Pinky and Perky.

Chatham is at the mouth of the Medway estuary. The water consists of black impenetrable silt. We went out in a barge, with hand operated air pumps and everything else we needed on board. We dressed into the smelly suit, which, I’m absolutely sure, was as clean as they could make it, but if you can’t scratch your nose when the helmet is on, and almost immediately everyone unconsciously tries to and is then driven mad, because the urge becomes obsessive, think how much more difficult it is if you are taken short – enough said. The belt was put on, the weights tied on the chest, the heavy brass boots were next, and then the helmet was bolted to the heavy collar.

When I staggered to my feet they threaded the lifeline and the air-line through the belt and then I had to climb slowly and ponderously over the side of the boat and stand on a ladder while the face piece, the glass, was screwed in place. With a tap on the helmet which sounded like thunder inside, and now breathing the fetid, oil and rubber, smelling air being pumped through the air-line, I slowly descended the last three steps on the ladder before launching into nothing but water and a steadily increasing darkness.

I never noticed when I reached the bottom, it rose round me as I sank into it. We had been told relatively little of what to expect. I think the idea was to give us a shock to start with and then anything later would be easy. I tried to move my feet and nothing happened, I was stuck. I tried to feel with my hands because any light there might have been had been obscured by the rising silt as my feet struggled in the mud. I did the only thing I could do, I stopped, I told myself not to panic and I just stood, slowly sinking, controlling myself and taking stock. It was then I remembered about shutting off the air release valve so I could rise. This I did and kicked my feet at the same time. The suit which had been grasping me like a cold second skin with the pressure of the water swelled away from me, and I was on my way up like a cork. As I rose the external pressure steadily decreased and correspondingly the internal pressure was increasing. Suddenly it happened, my arms were pulled inexorably out straight from my side and like a cruciform, I floated to the surface, there to lie like a dead sea-elephant, to be pulled ignominiously to the boat by the lifeline. It was only then they told me that in that type of ground-conditions the diver had to kick his legs out backwards and get on his face, propelling himself along by digging his arms into the mud. When one considered what might be lying on the bottom of an old harbour like Chatham, the prospect was not enticing, to say the least. I had other opportunities to practice my new found equanimity in the face of near panic, like the time, again in total darkness, I became entangled in the piles of a jetty

I write to draw attention to those men taken too much for granted., working underground, in risky and filthy conditions. I include a short story based upon one occasion when I really thought I might drown.

Under Ground Going up pipes, down manholes, through tunnels, into dark dank corners, beneath the sea, beneath roads and ground, deep or shallow, in compressed air or in sludge and sewage, is the lot of the inspection engineer, and those who worked there. I was paranoid of being faced by a cat-sized mother rat protecting her brood, but there was no alternative. Once I had to find out for myself whether an old pipe was still viable after ten years. Holes were opened to air the pipe, a trolley made so I could push my way up it. Off I set, tied to a safety line, in total darkness illuminated by a hand-torch, anticipating the red eyes of Mama Rat like the headlights of a car. There was no rat, I hadn’t really expected there would be, it didn’t make sense, there was no food. A Bricklayer I worked with was badly burned by steam in a sewer when the steam exhaust, from a reciprocating steam engine, was leaked by mistake into the sewer.

The Short Story. I, a bricklayer, have been instructed to examine the main drainage culvert beneath our sleeping city. All afternoon men have been erecting a temporary sluice gate, a stank, to hold back the waters of the whole city which will be collecting as I work. We work at night when the flows are generally low. The heavy timbers are in place, I put on my thigh boots and walk over to the others standing at the gaping manhole in the bright circle of the arc lights. A man steps aside to allow a late traveller to pass quietly by. The black round curves of the car reflecting the gentle activity, before being swallowed up in the mist. Natt steps forward with the lifeline, harness and lamp, and tells me that the sewer has been tested for gas, methane, the killer. Previously a man had passed out at the bottom of a manhole and his colleague, going down to rescue him had died with him. We were now being extra careful. The tightness of the harness gives me confidence, a warm comforting arm around my waist. With my hammer, chisel and lamp I descend the old, dirty and rusty, wrought-iron ladder to the bottom of the shaft. I know the tarry smell of sewers but I have never become accustomed to the loneliness and severance from those above. I stand on the concrete shelf and shine my torch at the almost still grey waters at my feet. A bubble of gas rises to the surface in the light of my lamp to form a grey sinister bulging eye in the viscous liquid and, after surveying sightlessly the round red brick tube garlanded at every projection with the bunting of refuse, bursts silently. I wade through the sticky silt towards the sluice that is holding in check tons of water, slowly rising, behind the timbers, like the shadow of evil. It must not rain!

I have been here some time. I’m tired through the effort of lifting my legs in the sludge of years. I stop and listen to the steady trickle of water through the joints in the temporary barrage. Has the noise increased? No! There are two noises. It must be a small pipe discharging as well. I stop and watch the level of water against the culvert wall with the bricks acting as a gauge, it is not rising. On I go again, tapping to see if the joints are sound, the steel beams are still strong, and trying to guess how long it will all last. Lifting each heavy leg from the clinging slime, easing my bent and aching back, surveying as I go, all the time keeping an ear attuned to the trickling water. I think I hear a creak. My pulse is beating. I must control my imagination. Is the gushing louder?. Before I can reassess the sound, a thunder clap reverberates along the tunnel like a charge along the barrel of a gun and as I stand dumbfounded, for a brief second I hear the torrential rushing of the angry waters freed from their imprisonment. The timbers have cracked. The sluice can no longer hold all the water in check. I turn and drop my tools in frantic flight. I tug the rope, all signals forgotten and feel the tension taken from above. I cannot run, I can barely walk. I can but flounder.. In my haste I splash but I care little if I mouth the water which is rising round my knees. I must take off my boots, but how? Is there time? Now in my haste I have fallen, my torch is lost. Dragged by the rope through the stinking blackness I lose my breath. I struggle once more but now the rushing waters carry me on as the rope never could and tiredness and exhaustion have seeped my will to fight. All is going black. Thank God!

I assume there are as many characters today as there were in the 40’s, but the streets seem more crowded and they don’t stand out like they used to. There was a man with a military style to him, I used to see in front of the Belfast City Hall. Smartly dressed, wearing a trilby and carrying a walking stick, he would suddenly raise his stick like a sword, holler ‘Charge!’ and then obey his own instruction by careering down the pavement , brandishing the sword. As quickly as he started, he would resume his walk as an ordinary passer by. He was a shell-shock victim twenty or so years on. The older trams in Belfast were fitted with bench seats running the full length of the tram, downstairs. Many a night, late on, I was entertained by a small, vigorous 60 – 70 year old who would get on close to Town, and leave near Belfast Castle. When the tram started on the straight stretch, and he would be secure on his feet, he would rise, start singing and then dance up and down the aisle. The trams were almost empty, the passengers were content, so the conductors left him to his routine.

MAC In an office I was in, he was a character of the ‘Old School’ who was very clever but had lost his way some years earlier and now sought solace from a bottle. His natural politeness insisted that whatever he was taking, he could do no less than offer share. When he laced his mid-morning cup of tea he invariably offered a snifter to anyone standing near him when he opened his drawer for the miniature of Irish. This pick-me-up was to tide him over until mid-day when he would go for a serious tipple in the bar nearby. Later in the morning, the temporary shot having run its course, he would hold out a handful of phenol-barbitone, offered like a child would, with dolly-mixtures, for me to take one, yet I never saw him incapable or affected in any way, and he could always be relied upon for the mot juste or a quotation from the classics.

FREDDIE Mac had a friend who also worked with us who was an even greater character, if that were possible. Freddie was also a single man, as many of the Council staff seemed to be, which I put down to the low wages they were paid when they were of marrying age, that and the fun they were having at the time, so, by the time they were financially capable of supporting a family the choice was probably very limited and perhaps they were also more circumspect. Freddie lived with his mother who I suspect still thought of him as a boy, because she would lock him out if he were late home. He was between forty and fifty at this time. He owned a greyhound he referred to in the local vernacular as The Groo. On one occasion he returned home, found himself locked out, so for the night he shared the kennel in the yard with The Groo. On another, he came home the worse for wear, he was partial to Guinness. He looked for something to cure his hangover and when nothing seemed to be to hand he used Bob Martin’s Dog Powders, which apparently did the trick – if he was to be believed. Freddie worked beside a window overlooking Donegal Square. In summer, at lunch time, office workers would come to sit on the grass and sunbathe. Freddie had a mate called Sam and the two of them were talent watchers. One day I joined them. When I saw the age of their choice I couldn’t resist mildly pointing out that my daughter was about that age and there was no way she would look at two old reprobates like them. They aged on the spot. I was unfair, it was a harmless bit of reflection on their part, but life is unfair.

The Odd Day Out. In the early days, skint but happy, our holidays consisted of several rides on Public Transport, to and from some local beach, with a swim and picnic between On one occasion a relative, Jim, accompanied us. He was a tall, ascetic, aesthetic, high church vicar, with an academic view of life in general. His lofty, six foot four inch viewpoint, may have been physical, but it was also part of his psyche, his unconscious conviction that he was part of a breed which should be cherished by all with whom he came in contact – he was definitely odd. It was the twelfth of July, a public holiday when everyone who was not watching the Orange Lodges parading was rushing for the seaside and as the weather was extraordinarily Mediterranean, the beaches were crowded. It was time to go home after a wonderful day. Everyone in Helen’s Bay seemed, to have come to the same conclusion. The station platform was stacked to the wall and a very diminutive Station Master strutted back and forth in front of Jim shouting ‘Keep back from the rails’. Jim was not fond of children generally and certainly not en masse, as we were now experiencing. It was all more than he could bear and he took his frustration out on the poor official. After about a dozen exhortations to ‘Keep back’ Jim lost his cool, looked down upon the bumptious little man from his great height and said in a thin crisp tone, which carried quite some distance. ‘Cease, Pimple!’ Surprisingly, Pimple did, I think he was dumbfounded, he had never experienced anyone before like our Jim, nor any one so rude.

The words ‘Hoke, hoker or hoaker’ do not appear in Chambers Dictionary, but are common in Ulster for the act of or the person acting, in digging with the fingers, hands or a tool in small areas ranging from a rotten tooth to the Town Tip. In ‘Digging For Coal’ the construction of the berms of the airfield extension has been described. When a test hole on one of the berms was dug, it was discovered that there was everything from oil drums, rotting fruit to large slabs of brick and concrete. Further testing using a rock borer, a tool similar to a road drill, to penetrate the berm as a probe, elucidated that all the berms were the same and unsuitable as a foundation for the runway extension. They would have to be excavated totally to 8 to 12 feet deep (2.5-3.5m) and replaced with stone. In those days excavators were less flexible than today, and were based on a single design with different jib and bucket attachments. The one most often chosen to excavate the berms was a ‘Face Shovel’ which dug upwards from the ground with a gouging action along the base of the excavation, thus creating a sort of cliff ahead of itself. This in turn produced overhangs which the operator knocked down, or which fell down unpredictably.

The berm contained waste from the Shipyard, machine and electrical works of every type which meant that the excavated material had a high metal content, including copper, all of which in ’51 was attracting a high scrap value. Hokers, mainly men, arrived, up to ten at a time, to scrabble through the loosened material for the metal, using a home-made raking device and they did their raking as soon as the Digger bucket was just off the ground and swinging to fill a lorry standing near. To anyone responsible, this was heart-stoppingly serious – an imminent accident. No amount of shouting, pleading or swearing had any effect, and the work had to proceed. One of the men on the site was a professional boxer of some local renown. He was approached and it was suggested he should ‘chin. a couple of the hokers to make a point that might have less consequences than the accident about to happen. While he liked the idea, he refused, explaining that his fists were legally categorised as Lethal Weapons, and if used outside the Ring, would more than likely put him in jail. We were then faced with the expense and inconvenience of temporary fencing.

A few weeks later, though, men from the site were playing a scratch, lunch-break football match with the Hanger-men from the airfield when the boxer took exception to one of the opposition, chinned him, and broke his jaw. He lost his job because, although it was on his own time, it was also on the site. I never heard the police were involved, but, clearly, his weapons were lethal.

George Best, Belfast City Airport in 1951,was merely Sydenham Airport, occupied by the Royal Naval Fleet Air Arm, and Short Bros & Harlands as a landing place for planes needing repairs and also testing new aircraft. During WW2 it was the test-bed and the home of the Sunderland Sea Recognisance Plane. It was about 1950 the ill-fated De Havilland Comet, the then new commercial aircraft, was being promoted, and the 05-23 runway at Sydenham selected for strengthening and lengthening to permit it to land. The work had strange and sometimes ridiculous anomalies, such as the Coal Diggers, and The Hokers and The Lethal Weapons,

The Coal Diggers Belfast, along the River Lagan and down the margins of Belfast Lough, is built on alluvial silt from the River, a soft mud known locally as Sleech. For decades, the Harbour Authority, by necessity, dredged the river along the quays and used the dredged material, pumped ashore, to fill areas encased by berms or dykes, which had tide controlled drainage through sluices to the sea. The original airfield was built in this way, and beyond it on the south shoreline, more dykes were built during and especially after the war with tipped material from factories, the Shipyard, some fly-tipping and the remains of the brick and reinforced concrete air raid shelters, which had been built on the corners of some Belfast streets and were removed in the post war years.

In particular, then, coal for the Belfast area was shipped in coasters, up the Lagan to the Coal Quay, beside The Queen’s Bridge ,and there unloaded with clam-shell excavators to the stock-piles. Speed in turn-round being the governing factor, much coal fell between ship and wharf from the clam-buckets, as they swung away from the ship, the coal to be dredged later. In the dyke areas were long lengths of very large steel piping through which the dredged material, in liquid form, was pumped to the dykes, filling the areas during the dredging periods. When the pumps were sending the sleech ashore, one could hear the rattle of the coal in the pipes as it too was being pumped. So, the filled area was rich in coal of a size suitable for the grate. I have always regretted not having a camera on those dark, winter evenings, with the sun setting and dark clouds looming, when the Dykes were like a Dickensian scene. Men, women, and children, were standing knee-deep in the slime, black to the elbows, rummaging for coal, filling sacks and wheeling their booty away in decrepit prams.