A turning point BY RICHARD McAULEY Why is it that the older we get the drier and hotter were the summers of our youth as they replay in our memories. The summer of 1969 is like that. I was 16. Along with my brother Seany, who was 15, and a bunch of our friends, our social life centred around St Teresa’s Youth club on the Glen Road in Andersonstown. We hung out there almost every night. Our interest was in girls and music, and girls, and occasionally table tennis, and girls. The music was great. We held a disco every Thursday evening. Tamla Motown was big. I still love ‘My Cherie Amour’ by Stevie Wonder. The Stones ‘Honky Tonk Women’, Presley’s ‘In the Ghetto’, ‘Break Away’ by the Beach Boys, and John Lennon’s anti-Vietnam War song ‘Give Peace a Chance’ and many more were all part of the acoustic for that summer. In July, eight of us crowded into the Lavery family home in Corby Way to sit up all night and watch the Moon landing. The pictures of Armstrong stepping onto the moon were awful but we were all caught up in the exhilaration of his “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. Three weeks later and reality came crashing into our lives. On the Thursday night, August 14th, our disco was crammed with bodies dancing to the latest hits. Someone banged on one of the doors of the
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Parochial Hall. One of my friends went to ask what the problem was. When he returned he told us that there were men and women at the door looking the keys to the school. They said they had been forced to leave their homes down the road and needed somewhere to go for
Classrooms which we had occupied as children only a few years earlier were now home to terrified families, some with all of their meagre possessions in a few bags, others with bits of furniture that a van or lorry had managed to take away the night. My friend sent them to Fr Mc (McNamara) the local Parish priest. We went back to enjoying our disco. The next day was the Feast of the Assumption – a holy day of obligation. We met up to go to mass. When we arrived at the Glen Road we saw cars, vans and some lorries outside the main doors of the Primary School. We walked over to see what was happening. The
ISSUE NUMBER 3 – 2019 - UIMHIR EISIÚNA 3 anphoblacht
