October 1968 Civil Rights, One Man One Vote. These were phrases to which we as children had no inkling as to their meaning, reasoning or indeed significance. My Mum would always be honest with us when we asked a question about something the was on the news and when we heard that there was a Civil Rights March in Derry on the 5th October we asked what it was for and could we go? Mum explained that there were some people in Northern Ireland who were not being treated fairly and that they were protesting against the Council to get housing and jobs. We were not told that this had a Catholic, Protestant or indeed any other religeous form but only that it was not the type of parade that we thought it was. On the day of the parade I remember our estate being very quiet and that none of our Catholic neighbours were out playing or even visible. At around 4.00 in the afternoon my Dad arrived in from work and immediately called us all into our living room and said that both he and Mum would have to go out for a while and that Donna was in charge and we had to do as she said. Dad then went into the kitchen and opened a can of Tomato soup for us and Ill never forget that soup. He made it as watery as any of us had ever seen and shared it between three of us and even to this day Donna still remembers that soup and not the events that happened later. If what happened then was to take place now, the Welfare would have put us three kids and hundreds of others in care for being left alone for 2 days. Both Mum and Dad were away for at least 48 hours helping the police in Waterloo Place as there had been severe rioting following the Civil Rights march. Again, this was the first time we had heard the word rioting and when it was explained to us by our Dad later we immediately asked them not to go to any more riots as we were scared that they would get hurt. Dad promised us that the rioting was over and that the reasons for the fighting had been sorted out but we somehow knew that this was not the complete truth and that he didnt even believe this himself. Both Mum and Dad were exhausted and later that evening when we all watched the news we finally saw the horror of the riots in which they had been helping the police for 48 hours non stop. Still, even though wed seen the rioting on TV, we did not know the change that the 5th October would have on our we province and it would be another 10 months before the troubles would once again touch our family.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 08:22:53 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015