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THE IRISH CONCEPTION OF THE ENGLIS
I have already told the story of not being able to buy black market eggs because, with an English accent, I was thought to be the ‘Ministry Man’. An accentless, or near accentless speech was, in my experience generally the trigger for suspicion. I remember when I first joined the City Council and English reps came to the counter at our office, I was always sent to attend, with the postscript, ‘You talk to them, you speak their language.’ In other words, one might be with the Irish, but, with friends and relations excepted, no matter how long one has lived here, one is with the Irish, but not of them.
This was best illustrated during a political discussion, which had broken out in my office among the younger elements. I generally stayed clear of politics but on that occasion, because I felt things might get a bit heated, I put my oar in.
One of the young men, a more vociferous, belligerent and forthright participant, and one who had only just joined us and did not know me very well, listened to what I had to say for a few seconds and then interrupted.
‘What do you know about the Irish situation, you’re English.’ For a moment there was what is called, in novels, a pregnant silence, the others, like me, were taken aback with the virulence of the attack.
“How old would you say you were when you became politically aware?’ I asked. He thought for a second and then said twelve was about right. I was sceptical, but any figure would have done.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘That means you have been politically aware for twelve years, but you reckon you have a good grasp of Irish politics.’ I did not wait for his reply but ploughed on. I did notice a gleam of amusement in some of the eyes of the others present, they could see where I was leading.
I continued, ‘I have lived here as an adult for thirty-four years.’
I had made my point and although it was seen to be reasonable to some of those present, I am equally sure there were others, including the young man, front and centre, who instinctively believed that Irish politics came down through the generations, in their genes.

When one has been trapped in the home, either through weather conditions, injury, or both, one starts to wonder if there is not a solution to our weather problems. The media have been full of criticism of the various authorities responsible for transport and roads, and quoting their views on the Russian example. I was just such a one, until I looked closely into my own area and realised that the topographical details of Great Britain are probably unique with respect to the rest of the world. Let me enlarge.

The ice age in this country has been responsible for leaving behind, debris, such as clay and sand, which the glaciers carried with them, as a result of crushing rock formations, as the ice moved under gravity. I suggest that this phenomenon was greater in the UK than probably anywhere else, because we were on the edge of the ice sheet, and so when melting started, the main sheet of ice would remain stable elsewhere, and it would be on the periphery where the melting would start, with a reduction in the weight of glacier, enabling it to move, thus forming huge mounds of clay, called drumlins, and large areas of the very finest sand, referred to as eskers.

There are areas in Northern Ireland, and I’m sure elsewhere, where these features are in abundance, the drumlins in particular, making the country a series of small hills interconnected by small valleys. Speaking generally, conurbations very often start on level ground, but as elevation, giving greater perspective, is sought, roads will become steeper as the building continues, with the arrival of the situation we are in now.

The same logic can be applied to railways, where people fuss about the fact that leaves, blown onto the line in Autum, cause disruption in this country. The route of railways is consequently inevitably through small hills, and larger hills, and as it is cheaper to make a cutting supported by tree roots, rather than building retaining walls in these cuttings, the topography has mainly determined the situation. In the case of continents, such as Europe, if my theory is valid, and the ice did nor travel, and space is not an issue, as it is in the British isles, then flat routs for transport will be easier to determine, and the same applies to buildings and conurbations. Therefore, these areas will not like a switchback.

There is little doubt, that these statements is will not meet with everyone’s approval, I merely offer them for consideration as I believe in them.

In the Admiralty, people were trained as an Inspection Divers, capable of examining structures either old or under construction under water. I am believe the 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, where huge octopi were wont to cut off the air-line. We were put in decompression chambers and the pressure increased until our speech sounded like a squeaker in a woolly toy. We were put into great tanks of water to burn steel under water, with the warning that as the hands being cold, we were not allowed gloves, we could cut our own fingers off with the acetylene cutter .We were taught to signal with the air-line and lifeline, how to inflate the suit by reducing the escape of air from 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 , and if diving deeply we could risk getting the bends.
We were told that if the suit was damaged or the airline cut at depth, the pressure could push our body up into the helmet. I have a strongly developed visual imagination..
Later we were made to breath pure oxygen to see if we would develop oxygen sickness, then taught how to swim under water in a wet-suit with what is called ‘closed-circuit breathing’. This is the system Naval Commando frogmen use, breathing only oxygen, which is circulated through a cleansing system, hence there are no tell-tale bubbles rising to the surface as with Scuba diving. As we would never have done inspection work with oxygen, but we were now partially trained, we became a source of underwater demolition recruits, frogmen, should the need arise.
Chatham is at the mouth of the Medway an estuary as bad, as Belfast Lough for black impenetrable silt. We went out in a barge, with the air pumps and the rest on board. We dressed into the smelly suit, probably clean, but if you can’t scratch your nose when the helmet is on, and almost everyone unconsciously tries to and is then driven mad, the urge become obsessive, there are other problems. 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 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. The final examination was carried out in that darkness, of course. We were expected to locate a piece of iron the instructors had placed on the sea bed and by the use of the hands as measures, the knuckle of the thumb being an inch, the span of a hand being eight inches, and so on, to examine the piece, return to the boat, undress and draw a facsimile
Learning to be a diver was one of the most interesting things I have ever done and diving in clear water, let alone warm water, is like another world where time seems to mean nothing.
At the time of the Suez crisis, I was told it was likely I would be sent out there, but the war was over shortly after. I admit, while I was pleased the war was over, the chance had been exhilarating

MORE LESSONS I LEARNED
I learned never to say right when it could be misconstrued.
It was early morning and I needed to examine the surface water system of the old runway. The chainman and his sidekick had been struggling to get an old manhole cover off and once again I forgot what had been drilled into me in my Naval days, never volunteer. I was in a hurry so I went to help them. We managed to get the cover clear off the hole and then I thought I had done all that was required of me, so I said ‘Right!’ meaning I was letting go and they were in control. Of course, like all slapstick comedies, they let go too and this huge, cast iron disc weighing nearly a hundred weight and a half fell on my foot. Instead of severing the toe, it only broke it, I was wearing dispatch rider’s boots instead of the standard wellie.
I learned to keep my own council and not gripe except to the shaving mirror. I was fuming. I had been working almost all the hours God gave me just to keep up. Now second in command I was responsible for staff discipline, checking not only the work but the accuracy on site, forward planning, ordering materials, in fact every damn thing – you name it, I did it.
Why was I fuming? The boss was walking round with his hands in his pockets, looking out of windows, humming to himself, anything apparently but working. I was incensed.
One day he turned from looking out the window and addressed me.
“You think, because I walk round with my hands in my pocket I’m a lazy bugger who should be shot.” I was tempted to agree but waited.
“If I start getting too close to the job I won’t see the whole perspective and I won’t see the obvious, I’ll be too involved with the pettifogging problems.” I was sceptical but could see his point.
He was right, of course, as I found out years later when I too went round with my hands in my pockets picking holes which, from my perspective, seemed to be obvious, yet which seemed to those caught on the hop to be close to necromancy.
I learned of the problems of labour relations. We had to build up a big workforce and as we were a Government Department we were walking on eggs all the time. Politicians were looking over our collective shoulder and, to our complete amazement, asking questions in Westminster – no less, . In one case we had inadvertently taken on a Free State worker while there were men still on the dole in Northern Ireland. This was brought up on the Floor of the House with predictable consequences. Theory, it seems is more important than practice but our General Foreman had other ideas
It was our his practice to telephone the Labour Exchange to send us a batch of hopefuls – most were hopeful they wouldn’t suit – and then line them up in a hangar. He would address them along these lines; “This is pick and shovel, the hours are so and so, the pay is so much and those who don’t want to work step forward and we’ll sign the form.” The majority stepped forward, proving our point.
Signing the form was the easy way out for us, it said that at far as we were concerned the man was unfit for the work in question. The problem was that if we had played it by the book, signed all of them on, we would have had a mountain of paperwork within days with malingerers, wasters and the downright bloody minded who would then have to be sacked, with reasons given, and we would still be back to the handful who wanted to work.

DIGGING FOR COAL Until some years ago, when a barrage was built across the River Lagan, just downstream from the Queen Elizabeth Bridge, the River brought down thousands of tons of alluvial silt which it deposited along its banks making it a black unsightly mess at low tide.
Because the River was always navigable at least as far as the wiers, it had to be dredged and the Harbour Commissioners, who were responsible, made use of the dredged material to reclaim land in the River Estuary, land on which the airfield had been built and expanded. On the east side of the River, just below the Bridge there used to be a length of quay called the Coal Quay, where coal boats, Kelly’s among them, used to tie up, where huge clam grabs would unload the coal, transporting it with great swinging sweeps through the air to form stockpiles behind timber walling at the back of the quay. As the crane men were probably on bonus, to ensure a fast turn-round for the ship, it was inevitable that speed was more important than the loss of a little coal and many a time I watched the grabs spilling coal all the way from the ship until they discharged it at the stockpiles. The coal on the ship and on the quay was recoverable, but that which fell in to the small gap made by the fenders between ship and shore was lost – or nearly so.
This silt brought down by the River is known locally as ‘Sleech’ and is the most damnable material to deal with in any construction work. Almost on a continuous basis a dredger and its attendant barges were working somewhere in the confines of the Belfast Harbour. The dredged material, the sleech, and everything else near the Coal Quay, was periodically dredged, taken by the barges and then pumped from the barges and distributed in the reclamation area through a large steel pipe. One could hear the rattle of the coal as it washed through the pipe and was deposited at the mouth. From time to time the pipe was moved to allow the material to settle evenly.
To give an idea of what this silt, or sleech was like, one day in summer, when the ground had dried out and the sleech had a hard crust I set out during the lunch hour to look at the site where we would be working next. When sleech dries out it forms horizontal plates, almost like loosely stacked grey cardboard, until the moisture is reached and the ground is soft – about 100 millimetres below where it has dried out. This knowledge is vital as the ground will only support about two tonnes a square metre, (sometimes only a hundredweight per square foot) certainly not the weight of a man.
This day I was more preoccupied with the job than the ground and suddenly I found my feet sinking. I knew better than to struggle, I just sat on my widest part, giving the minimal loading to the ground and waited for lunch time to end and to be rescued. There was one case while I was working there of a man stranded, sinking off the shore at Holywood, and people had to rescue him in the way one does with quicksand, with the weight spread over wood or sometimes metal ladders lying flat..
I explain the way the coal came to be embedded in the ooze because whenever I was working in the area, where the filling had taken place shortly before, there were people with Heath Robinson forms of transport of every kind from broken prams to the shopping-bag trolleys the elderly favour. These people were knee deep in the sludge, scrabbling for the coal which had been pumped ashore, their arms thick with the grey slime, their legs covered in it, and often this took place near dusk, after they had come home from work. In the twilight, with the mists coming up the Lough, and an occasional buoy-light winking in the distance, it was like a Dickensian scene from the cinema, rather than Belfast circa 1950. I just regret never having recorded it photographically.

In Third Year at Queen’s, Engineering Students were required to obtain a holiday job as training on a building site and, as I have said, I had managed to be taken on at a building site constructing houses to reduce the post-war housing shortage. I was involved in the supervision of the road and sewer contracts, under the guidance of the Clerk of Works, I had had the run in with over the Orangemen. It was on this contract I learned to work in the most appalling weather conditions and the most important lesson of all, the probability that disrespect would be shown to those in authority who displayed what the men considered, whether rightly or wrongly, to be weakness in any form. I also saw how experience is worth a ton of theory.
The site was squarely on the Malone Esker, the tail end of what had once been a glacier in the Ice Age and now consists of fine sand ground by the ice from the rocks over which it passed. The sewer was not merely being constructed in sand, it was in a feared ground condition known as running sand, sand, which has no stability and without warning can collapse burying men working in it, unless suitably supported.
Digging sewers in running sand is both hazardous and costly on account of the precautions which have to be taken. Some contractors tend to take a chance, cut corners, in the hope all will be well and they will get away with it. Such was the case on this site but suddenly the wall of the trench, improperly supported, with a man in the bottom laying a pipe, collapsed without warning and started to build up round the man like sand in an hour glass. Without a second’s thought the foreman, standing on the side of the trench, lifted a shovel and projected it like a javelin at the man’s head, or so it seemed. Certainly, if the man had nodded he would have been cleaved. The shovel stabbed into the sand in front of the pipe-layer’s face and as the sand built round him it formed an airspace in front of his face and, for the time it took to rescue him, he was able to breath. Experience, not theory had saved that man’s life.
The next lesson had its funny side, but where I was concerned it taught me that the men on the site, watch everything, particularly where it concerns authority, and it can be every bit as cruel as some of the men I had encountered in the Navy. The engineer in charge of the contractors, whom I shall call Jones, was a strange fellow. I have never found his equal since. I’m convinced he was divorced from reality and if the site staff, the junior engineers and the foremen had not been so efficient, he would have foundered long before I came across him. Building sites are as class-ridden as any segment of British society and the privileges are jealously guarded. At the bottom of the heap are the tea boys, errand boys who are learning to be labourers and then hoping to graduate to tradesmen. It is their duty to go for cigarettes, go to the bookies on behalf of the men, buy food, make tea and work on the site, in that order of priority. They are cheeky, full of fun and more than tolerated by the men on the site.
The engineer, Jones, would come on to the site, no matter what the conditions were like underfoot, dressed in light trousers, fine shoes, a smart suit and colourful tie and then proceed to pick his way from dry patch to dry patch as he continued down the site, like someone doing the balancing act on precarious stepping stones in a fast flowing river. It was both predictable and inevitable that the tea boys would not only see him as he progressed, they would come out from the various corners in which they had been concealed and would then follow him down the site in a line, imitating his every move and gesture and then, like Grandmother’s footsteps, they would stop and appear nonchalant should he turn. This performance was more than a bit of fun, it was an expression of what all the men felt about Jones. I believe the tea boys would not have had the temerity to ridicule the man unless they had heard comments by the men during meal breaks, it was then they knew they were on a winner.
There was one slightly vulgar story concerning Jones which was going the rounds. Apparently he was doing his site inspection when he came across a man in the bottom of the trench digging. Each time he shovelled up a load of earth and threw it on the side of the trench he grunted. Jones stood watching him for quite some time and when he could resist it no longer he accosted the man.
“I say,” he said in superior tones. “Is it necessary to grunt every time you use your shovel?” The foreman and the ganger were aghast, what the man did while digging was of no consequence, how much he dug and how well, was all that mattered. The man stood up slowly, stabbed his shovel into the loose earth, slowly turned and looked up at the engineer. He was well aware who he was, no one on the site was otherwise.
“Wha’ ja say?” Jones had to repeat himself.
The man looked at him for a moment as if he was examining something new to his experience and then said, “If you was digging this, every time you lifted the shovel you’d shit yourself, when I lifts it I grunts.” With that he turned and went on digging.
“I want this man sacked.” Jones told the foreman, but the man was not sacked. Ask a silly question, you are likely to get a silly answer.

Is it self-service that we really wish
I was talking to a young woman trying to make her way as a florist. >From what I’ve seen of her work, it has been of the highest standard, but not only she is worried about the future, but the wholesalers, selling the flowers and specialities to the florists. It appears that Marks & Spencer’s, who currently have a good reputation for their floral displays, are now proposing to move fully into the supply of ordered Floral arrangements, for all occasions, which will then put a high proportion of the florists out of business. Not long ago I wrote about the problems of being a florist in that there were only few occasions in the year, such as Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, in which they can sell enough to balance out the rest of the year. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to realise that a company with representation in every town and city in the country, able to purchase the best of flowers, in such large quantities, thus getting advantageous prices, will inevitably price everyone else out of the market.

The same thing is happening with various forms of insurance, and other necessities, where chemists, stationary merchants, hardware merchants, clothing merchants and many others are steadily being pushed to the wall, because they haven’t the turnover that attracts discounts that make all the difference. The government is worried about unemployment, and this form of encroachment is doing nothing to reduce that condition. It is clear that these big supermarkets are in competition, and when one achieves a new outlet, the others by the very nature of things will be forced to follow.

You only have to go into the shops and you realise that it is purely self-service, where the purchaser has only got the choice offered by the shop, and no other alternatives as the smaller traders no longer exist. The ratio of personal service to customers in a small shop, is infinitely greater than that in a supermarket, by the very nature of the service. I have previously given the case of the person who went to a decorators outlet to purchase wallpaper, and was offered a tremendous variety to choose from. She then discovered that the multiple shop had her choice at a lower price. This principle, means that specialist shops are rapidly disappearing from our high streets, because their advantage lay in the fact that they were specialists, offering a special service. Go to a supermarket and it is a case of serve yourself, from a limited selection. In the long run we are the losers.

For the sake of those who are interested in engineering, and those who know nothing about civil engineering, I will write a short description of how the system works, and the variety of work that it covers. Civil engineers, per se, are generally people who have had university training followed by three to four years of on-site training, in the building of everything from a small manhole to a dam. The quality of the product be it under water, underground or aboveground is determined firstly by the design, and secondly by the quality of the supervision and the work of those other members of staff, like General Foreman, Foreman, Tradesmen and Labourers.

It can be a hazardous occupation, depending upon the degree with which the security of the various aspects of the job are managed to save accident. The great advantage of it is that it is not always repetitive, so that one’s interest year on year, is maintained. There is no doubt about it, it’s a tough job, in all weather conditions, and physical conditions. Then there is the responsibility of handling large sums of money, being responsible for large quantities of materials, and producing the product on time and within the budget. I think you’ll find that the pieces that I will post, emphasise these factors.

The most salutary lesson, though, was to come on the ‘Glorious Twelfth’ of July 1949. By this time I had learned that it was referred to as the Glorious Twelfth. An aunt living in Bangor who had borrowed a camera from our next-door neighbour, had unfortunately been rushed to hospital. The neighbours were going on holiday that evening with the result, the camera had to be collected and returned that day. We had a council of war and it was decided that I should cycle to Bangor and fetch it. The reason for the bicycle was that public transport would be packed and it might be quicker by cycle.
As I passed the ‘Field’ at Ballyrobert, which bordered the main Belfast to Bangor road, I saw the Orangemen lying about on the grass enjoying the glorious sunshine, it was indeed a Glorious Twelfth. With much to-ing and fro-ing I collected the camera and headed back to Belfast and all went well until I was on the outskirts of Holywood, a seaside town about five miles from Belfast. These days the road is a wide dual carriageway with at least six lanes and a hard shoulder. In those days it wound picturesquely between overhanging trees and was about wide enough for two cars just to pass in opposite directions, comfortably. Whether it even had footpaths I forget.
I came across the Orangemen on their return journey some half a mile from Holywood and they were marching between cheering crowds to the extent that there was no room to pass on either side. I could hear the strains of the band and way up ahead was a man striding out in his bowler hat, his dark suit and his white gloves, sword to the ready.
The problem was to get the camera to our friends PDQ and as there was no way round, the solution seemed to be to go through. After all I assumed as I was riding on the Queen’s highway I had the right of way. No sooner had the idea presented itself than I acted, but I had hardly advanced more than a couple of ranks before I was being stabbed from behind with a sort of pike, it was a long stained pole topped by a brass emblem like a fleur de lys, which I then recognised as a Deacon Pole, taken from a church pew. This prodding only hurried me on through the ranks and I suspect that as I was the first since the days of King William to have had such gall, I took them all by surprise and got away with it. As I cycled on my way I looked back to discover that the man with the sword had forgotten to put his collar and tie back on since lying in the grass in the hot, hot sun, at the ‘Field’
At the time, I was a student and had a summer job on a building site as part of my training. I was under the supervision of a Clerk of Works (COW) on a sewer contract. The COW was also a Worthy Master of a very influential Orange Lodge and many a time I was asked to leave the office while someone was seeking an audience with the COW and many of the someones were often to be seen in photographs on the front page of our local newspapers, standing importantly in front of some official building. I believe the COW was a person to be deferred to and whose political career was even more extensive than his job.
When I had successfully returned the camera on the Twelfth and was having my evening meal I related the happenings of the day with great amusement and it was greeted by the family in the same vein, not so the COW. Oh dear no!
When I related it to him, smiling as I spoke, slowly his face turned to thunder and he wasn’t kidding either. When I finished he said one sentence with such venom, any thought of him being humorous was out of the question and then he stumped out of the hut and off down the site.
He said,” Prod you with a Deacon pole? Prod you? I’d have stuck the f…..g thing into you so far I’d ‘ve had to put my boot on you to pull it out”.

When deciding to live in Ireland I should have done my homework. It is surprising how completely ignorant I was of the traditions of this country, even though I had lived and worked here for fifteen months. During the war local differences did not seem of the same proportion, dwarfed by the greater disunity. In fact, today, with all the publicity the Troubles have received, the average school child in England probably knows ten times what I did then, so I was unaware of how easy it was to give offence, especially in regions of political correctness. During the war, there had been little time and no real enthusiasm for the panoply of sectarian display and so I had never seen an Orange Procession until 1946. To write about Orangism or Hibernianism has taken others tomes to compile and they are still at it. This outline of my progress in my own education on the subject would appal the Worthy Master of any Orange Lodge.
The members of the immediate family I had married into were not Orangemen and women, they were Unionists and that was all. They had been brought up in those traditions and so every Twelfth of July, known cryptically as the Twelfth, it was imperative they went to the City Centre to watch the Orangemen march off to what is termed the ‘Field’ where they have a rest, a few noggins and an harangue from their leaders, before marching back. What this family of mine did not tell me was the long list of do’s and don’ts surrounding the Order.
For example, in my ignorance I looked upon them in the light of my experiences with the Scouts and the Salvation Army, a group of like minded people, dressed in uniform because it made them feel more like a unit and marching behind a band because it helped to keep them in step. I could not have been more wrong. I looked upon them as flamboyant curiosities, especially when I saw some of the Mace-Bearers cavorting like banshees at the head of the column – wrong again. I equated them to some extent to the Trades Unions when I heard their rhetoric. Wrongggg! I therefore made a number of mistakes from which others told me I could have died and it was a wonder I had got away unscathed.
The processions really are unique for the colour, the sheer numbers taking part, the disparate dress each lodge chooses, from the black bowler hat, black double breasted suit and black shoes, white shirt, white gloves and rolled umbrella, with the leaders carrying an unsheathed sword at the address, down to those in bright blue peaked caps with bright blue pullovers and trousers and tennis shoes. Most lodges carry incredibly beautiful banners on two poles, with staying strings of woven coloured rope held by small children. They often depict King William the Third on a white horse at the battle of the Boyne. This latter specification was mistake number one. In our family, because King W. was at the Boyne, quite naturally therefore he was called Billy the Boyne in our family.
On the day of the first Twelfth I was to see, we all went down to the centre of Town, to Donegal Place, and watched as band after band, banner after banner, passed; the music from one band momentarily mingling with the next. I always wondered at what point in the procession it was impossible to keep in step because of the cacophony from both bands. But I digress.
Linda, now a little over a year old was seated in a pram at the kerb with Sophie behind her, while I was at the back of the crowd because I was tall enough to see over most people and it would have been churlish to have stayed at the front. Suddenly, before I thought of what I was saying, I saw the most beautiful banner of King William on his white horse, and you’ve guessed it, I shouted to Linda to look at ‘Billy-The-Boyne and his white horse. For a second nothing happened and then with one accord most of the people within earshot turned to look at this creature who was blaspheming from the back of the crowd and they were like Queen Victoria, they were not amused. The following year I learned to my cost that one does not cross through the procession even if it does take over an hour to pass one spot, a large pogo-stick is needed, that or a helicopter.