Listening to the news that the IRA are now defunct I was reminded of a time in the 1980’s when I had to go to Lurgan in Northern Ireland to install a textile machine. The whole town centre was decked out in Union Flag bunting and it was just a normal day, no particular celebration at all. Walking round town the protestant area was clearly identifiable by the curbstones which were all painted red, white and blue. The catholic area was also identifiable by the fact it was walled in with ‘all taigs are targets’ scrawled on it. A ‘taig’ being a catholic. Then I spotted a lone soldier walking down a side street, rifle at the ready. Oops, wrong, it was just a policeman. Wrong again, there was another one 50 yards behind. Scary or what? But just another day in the life of…….
I had to go into the managing directors office, and there on the wall behind him was an enormous portrait of Winston Churchhill. The pub I went in at dinnertime, next to the catholic area, was also decked out in bunting and full of Royal Irish Guards memorabilia. Boy was I glad to get home to the ‘mother country’ away from all that crap.
Next post on Saturday.
About Me
- Crazy Fitter
- I never wanted to be a fitter and I didn’t even know what a fitter was or did, until it was too late. The story of how I came to be one can be seen on my website: www.calvertonfitter.com After 45 years in industry working on such diverse things as aeroplanes and textile machinery I thought it would be a good idea to start a blog and to share some of the things that I've seen and done. Some of the posts are funny and some are sad. Some are political and some are about racism. Hopefully you will find them all interesting, and even entertaining!
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