https://k8s-accounts-01.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/75137b7c3914e7f9fbf0901ec6fb213b.pdf ad72f642c4f64d409a90982bcaf5d530 PDF Text Text Interviewer: Where was it you worked in [inaudible]? Jim: Michelin, in Mallusk. Interviewer: So, did you have any bother getting travelling back and forth? Jim: Travelling from Andersonstown was the problem. When I started in Michelin, I was riding a motorbike at first and I got a car because there was an opportunity to give lads a lift from Andersonstown. Well, before the trouble began there was no bother, but then after that we were advised to take different routes; not to have stopped as a pattern*of going, say, we could have gone up Agnes Street, Northumberland Street, round to Millfield, over by Ardoyne; different routes. The only comical thing was, with the lads I was travelling, if you said you were going to cut across the Shankill, it was a no-no. [Laughter] They were very frightened of that. Interviewer: -the Shankill. Jim: I came from the Shankill; so it didn’t bother me, although I should have; I should have been conscious of that. There are a lot of other cases when we were very police roadblocks, bomb scares and so on; they were very annoying. I remember one of the tours took us two hours, going up different routes, being turned back, and ended up going along the Shore Road towards Carrick to work our way over towards... [Laughter] there was a wee man in the back complaining, “we’re never going to get there, we’re never going to get there” and then the older lads told him to stop complaining or they’d throw him out of the car. So that put him in his place, in a way. We would normally start at eight o clock and sometimes we would normally make it in for the tea-break. Interviewer: And what time would that be? Jim: Ten o’ clock. The other experience was, sometimes you were driving up the Antrim Road, if you hadn’t a full car, maybe you would have seen one of the lads out of work standing at a corner. If you’d have pulled in to give him a lift, he tipped his heels* off the street – he thought it was a scoop. You’d usually have to run after and shout, “David, come on, it’s us!” because at that time there was a lot of that went on; there was cars driving about and they would have attacked people – if they knew what side of the coin they were from, they would have attacked and so on. But everybody was tense and nervous about cars pulling in because at that time there were also lads being lifted off the streets by different cars just to be taken away, tortured and brutalised – you’ve heard about all that. There was always that sort of tenseness about it. But once we got into work in the squad I worked in, there was a mixture of Protestants and Catholics and they got on the best, no bother to working nightshifts and helping one another. On another occasion, coming home from work, it was one particular period when there were a lot of vigilantes; usually young lads with a scarf tied round their face about 12-14 stopping you, playing soldiers they were, you know, in certain areas. We would have got one of the Protestant lads would have came with us to get us through the roadblocks coming over towards the West Circular. When we got to the other side of West Circular he would have got out, but he would have been able to get us out of the roadblocks, ask questions, then we were okay* around the republican area of roadblocks. Similar situation with young lads with bats – they had a place to stop you and maybe a �hundred yards further down, if you didn’t stop, they were waiting with the stones and bricks to hammer your car with. I wouldn’t say it happened very often, but it was something you were always aware of and conscious of and it created that tension. The other amusing occasion I remember coming home from Michelin, we had finished at an eleven o clock shift and I had a full car that night but there had been two other lads left behind because their lift... somebody had phoned in and had to go on home and it was a terrible night; teeming out of the heavens, so we squeezed them in the back seat, so there was five in the back seat and two of us in the front. We had come down the Antrim Road and we were stopped by the UDR – the Ulster Defence Regiment and I got out of the car to speak to the lad and he gave me the biggest lashing about... he looked into the back of the car – what a dressing down I got about that [INAUDIBLE] good humour to explain where we were coming from, what had happened and so on. He then flicked up his visor which he was wearing – he says, “Alright, Stuartie, go on.” He was a lad I worked with down at the oil refinery and he said, “if you see if the police or the army stop you, don’t tell them we stopped you” [INAUDIBLE] Interviewer: He let you go on. Jim: Yeah, and the only other [INAUDIBLE] out there, there was a few farmers worked there, and I had picked up a load of manure, fresh* manure in the boot, and the army stopped me and went round to open the boot I said, “You picked a bad day to...” but sure enough when they opened the boot and smelt it, away they went. I thought afterwards that I could have had anything in that boot. So, can you remember any other that I mentioned? Interviewer: No, most of that is presumably early- to mid-seventies. Jim: Yeah, about that time. There were times when you didn’t know who... you had the UDR had taken over a lot of security and sometimes you had the police; I used to get very annoyed with the police because they used to have roadblocks – but they had the roadblocks half a mile up the road to where they could have had the roadblocks which meant that you were always having to go up, turn back and find another way through. That was always an annoyance. I also remember, that I used to give a lad a lift, and he refused to carry any identificationInterviewer: There were people like that. Jim: That was his contribution to the struggle; that he wasn’t going to cow down... which meant that when we were stopped, everyone was told to get out of the car as soon as he wouldn’t identify himself... we all carried identification, but everybody was told to get out of the car and it was searched just to hold you up*, because he wouldn’t cooperate. No matter how often we appealed to him, he wasn’t going to cow down to the forces of occupation. Interviewer: But you said that the relationships actually within Michelin were, by and large, good. Jim: Yeah, we were in the electrical and we were fairly well balanced in numbers because there were five sparks and two helpers in each shift and it was just a fair mixture each time. Before we were doing �something*, we went out socialising on occasions; we’d arranged a bit of a do if somebody was leaving or some event, we went up to one of the pubs close at hand and had a drink together. Interviewer: Presumably the pubs close at hand would have tended to be Protestant pubs. Jim: Yeah they would have been, out that direction past Glengormely. The Crown* and Shamrock was our favourite one and Chimney Corner was another place. Interviewer: Were you working there during the Ulster Worker’s Council strike in 1974? Jim: Yeah, I was lucky; I had damaged my finger, so I was off on the sick during most of that. I was off for about six weeks or so, so I was very lucky in a way. Interviewer: So you avoided that. That could well have been a difficult time. Jim: Yeah. I found that people just wanted to get to work and get on with their work and I’m quite sure there were some of them there that would have been active outside their working hours... but in work there was never any... I never experienced any hostility or any bother. Interviewer: So there was a kind of realisation that if you didn’t keep the workplace harmonious, everybody would kind of lose out*? Jim: I think there was a bit of good sense and thought put into that. Interviewer: Did the Union play any part in that? Jim: I think the union did have some restraining role, but I didn’t think they had a big enough active role in calming situations and encouraging harmony. I think it came from the men themselves, who realised they had to get to work and had to earn a living. I can’t remember influence, officially, from the unions. Interviewer: In what way do you think they could’ve done more? Jim: It’s really difficult because, you see, a lot of the unions were unbalanced in the membership. So, they had to be very careful too, they had to walk within lines... Interviewer: Can you not put your finger on one particular thing they might have done? Jim: Not really. I’m reflecting and thinking back; I can’t even remember the unions where we were working. But where we were working there was a fairly balanced workforce, which was unusual. I remember one occasion when we were called out to the Loyalist something grouping had called for a bit of a strike and a lot of our lads went out on strike and they were bantering; they just bantered us for not going out with them. We thought if we weren’t going to go out before when we were called by other sides, we weren’t going to go out because it was the UDA or whatever loyalist grouping, we weren’t going to support that. Some of them went down the street, but there was never any ill will or feeling; it was a bantering match, “Hey you eejits, what are you going out there for”, you know. But, as I say, we had that relationship at least among the squads where I worked in – I never had any worries or fears from those people about going to work. In fact, coming out on many a winter’s morning up on Mallusk �or the hills, if your car wouldn’t start, everybody pitched in to help everyone else to get their cars going.[INAUDIBLE] the worst of those times. The biggest problem getting to work and sometimes getting home was the... sometimes if you were finishing at eleven, the lads would come in and say, “Lads, you needn’t try to get through Belfast tonight” – completely * blocked with roadblocks. [Inaudible – 4:15] and there was a back road over the hills by a place near Dromore*... anyway, there was a village and a wee school; there was a particular route - the shortest way, we were told [INAUDIBLE] and you would have ended up right up way over the hill and down in the back of Randalstown* [...] You had to drive on down there and go drop the lads off [...] picked up way at the bottom of the Springfield Road, so it could be 1 o clock in the morning before you got home at night, because of the roadblocks because coming down there, I think, you had to go down the Antrim Road or down there onto the Shore Road [...] if they were blocked or if there were any hold-ups, you were told to try and not go through that way. Interviewer: That’s lovely. Thank you very much. Interviewer: If you could just start off with this interaction, ‘a foot in both camps’? Jim: Yeah, but you know I came from the Shankill and was married and living in the Falls, and then the Troubles put me in an awful awkward position. It was very good before the Troubles; everything was going quite well but when we got into these troubles I realised it was an awkward because, as I say, I had a foot in both camps but it became that I had a place in neither because the troubles brought about this idea you had to be identified with one side or the other, otherwise you were a traitor to your own kind. So that left out on a sort of a limp*in a way. Although, to be quite honest I didn’t sense it at the time it was just occasions when you would have a group of people and have joined a company, you sensed that their conversation changed because you were not one of them – you hadn’t had a loyalist/protestant soccer background or Gaelic hurling background. This is another thing I remember – I remember one time whenever I was talking about playing for the boys’ brigade, lads would stand around saying, “there’s a lad from Andersonstown playing for the boys’ brigade – how does that* come?” So that’s when I learned just to watch what I said. In [...] company. [...] The lads would appreciate it if you’re working with them, helping one another out. They didn’t care who you were or what you were but there were situations when you had to be very careful who you were going to identified with and that made it a bit awkward. Interviewer: I’m just interested in the dynamic of that, that you had to be careful. Do you think you learned to protect your skill set? Jim: Yeah, you always had to [...] how to avoid being identified if you were identified, if you were chatting about something – how do you avoid being identified with one side or the other? Because [...] what school you came from, what football team you played for... even the dances that you went to. The whole society was so split – sport, work, religiously, etc; it’s unbelievable how they ever lived together and yet they were able to live together during the troubles to some extent fairly harmoniously. Interviewer: So it was with the onset of the troubles that you felt you had to be more careful about that? In terms of actually living in Andersonstown... �Jim: Well, this is another aspect... see Andersonstown actually had some mixture, but Andersonstown came along [...]* as mainly catholic, I’ll not say republican area, but you know, but the political side of the thing [...] so when you’re in Andersonstown you had* no worries. It’s when I went to my own family’s side; I had to be careful there [...] because they didn’t like the idea of me being a confronter* [turn goat in?] they didn’t like it being... you know, you had to be careful... Interviewer: And you didn’t want to put them in an awkward situation. Jim: That’s correct. Interviewer: That’s the only thing I’d be interested in there; the fact that it’s not just you, it’s not just your decision. Jim: Well, you can handle your own situation, but if you’re out in [...] well, you get the point, company. Interviewer: You didn’t want to put the spotlight on them. Jim: Yeah, well they could have had some criticism if one of their family had let the side down Interviewer: It could have reflected badly on them. Thank you very much Jim. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 5 Decades Project (<em>collection</em>) Description An account of the resource "<strong>Forthspring</strong> has worked since 1997 to build relationships between neighbouring Protestant and Catholic communities in West Belfast. The <strong>5 Decades Project</strong> grew out of a desire to examine these communities' very different experience of living through the 'Troubles', with the goal of developing a shared, but not agreed, account of the conflict and its impact.<br /> Experiences and memories were gathered through storytelling in small groups from the same community background, roughly structured around the 5 decades beginning with the 1960s. There were also opportunities to share and hear stories from other communities. Over 150 people have taken part." <br /> Forthspring 5 Decades Project. (2014). 'Talking About The Troubles'. (Rear cover) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Forthspring Inter Community Group Stories Collected Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project. 20+ interviews (leading to 80 stories in the published book) Stories Deposited Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict. 6 Collection Permission Form Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned. Yes (signed 12 November 2014) Delayed Access Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access. No Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Publication A book, article, monograph etc. Author Author of the publication Jim Date Type Publication, Submission, Completion date etc. 2014 Publication Title Full title of publication, as it appears on item. Transcript of audio interview. Publication Status Published, in Press, Unpublished, etc. Unpublished Number of Pages 5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Untitled Story</em><span>, by JIm (</span><em>story transcript</em><span>)</span> Description An account of the resource Transcript (PDF) of the audio recording of interview with Jim which was recorded as part of the 5 Decades Project. The project was conducted by Forthspring Inter Community Group. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Forthspring Inter Community Group Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF version of transcript Language A language of the resource English Availability Online Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain) deposited Catalogue ID Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry 2229 5 Decades Forthspring