Wharton - Torn apart: fifty years of the Troubles, 1969-2019

A Long Long War (Helion and Company, 2010)

Bullets, Bombs and Cups of Tea (Helion and Company, 2012)

Wasted Years, Wasted Lives Volume 1 (Helion and Company, 2013)

Wasted Years, Wasted Lives Volume 2 (Helion and Company, 2014)

Sir, Theyre Taking the Kids Indoors (Helion and Company 2015)

An Agony Continued (Helion and Company, 2015)

Another Bloody Chapter in an Endless Civil War Volume 1 (Helion and Company, 2016)

Another Bloody Chapter in an Endless Civil War Volume 2 (Helion and Company, 2017)

The Bloodiest Year 1972 (The History Press, 2017)

Bloody Belfast (The History Press, 2018)

Blood and Broken Glass (Helion and Company, 2019)

I sometimes wish that I was back in Belfast during the Troubles, just so that I could wish I was home again.

Unknown former soldier

All images including front cover The Belfast Telegraph
except for those marked as Authors collection

First published in 2019

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Ken Wharton, 2019

The right of Ken Wharton to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9111 7

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

To every man and woman who served in Northern Ireland, irrespective of your corps or regiment, irrespective of your roles; you are my comrades and the honour of knowing you is all mine.

To the innocent civilians on both sides of the sectarian divide who only wanted to lead a peaceful life, my empathy and my respect, especially Michelle Williamson, Elaine Hasellhoff and Tanya Austin.

To the late Ken B and Colour Sergeant Ken Ambrose, Tim Marsh, Rob McGough and Dave Parkinson, your passing has left a void in all our lives.

To the 1,300 plus who never returned to their loved ones.

To Steven McLaughlin, Darren Ware, Dave Hallam, Ken Pettengale, Gren Wilson, Dave Judge, Dave Pomfret, John Corr, Len Chappell, Les Welling, John Hollis: to the Royal Green Jackets, Celer et Audax.

To Mike Sangster, Tim Francis, John and Bernie Swaine, Mick Potter, Royal Artillery, Ubique.

To Mike Day; for your inspiration and tireless help. Mark Denton for your tireless enthusiasm.

To Mick Benny Hill, Steve Foxy Norman, Andy Thomas, Royal Anglians. Dougie Durrant, ADU.

To Mark C James Henderson, B.R., Haydn Williams, Glen Espie, Michael and Emma Forde, Mary Gilbride, Elle Mac, Maureen Herron and the men and Greenfinches of the Ulster Defence Regiment.

To Mark and Allison Overson, who started me on a long road.

To Kenny Donaldson and the staff at SEFF. Lee McDowell at the Ely Centre, Enniskillen.

To JB, ATO.

To Kenneth Anderson, Kev Wright, Tommy Clarke, Nick Sword, Royal Corps of Transport.

To Dave Slops Langston, Army Catering Corps.

To Eddie Atkinson and Mick Brooks, Green Howards.

My cousin John Leighton, a Royal Artillery TA soldier.

To the children and loved ones of our fallen: Tammy Card, Ann Travers, Tracey Abraham, Stevie Karen Rumble, Carol Richards, Eddie Haughey, Stephen Gault, Anita and Martin Haughey, Craig Agar, Rita Martin, Ruth Forrest, Brian Johnston, Kate Carroll, Donna Munro, Mark Olphert and Carol McGough.

To my children: Anne-Marie, Anna-Martina, Jonathan, Jenny, Robbie, Alex and Nathan; love you all, and always will.

To my grandchildren: Sherriden, Kelsy, William, Sammy, Layla-Mae, Megan, Clara and Lydia; and to Ezra and to my adopted and much loved grandchildren: Morgan Addy, Charlie and Ralf Pearson.

Finally, to Adam Griffiths, Narelle Pearson, Andy Thomas, Fiona Addy, Alice Binbay and Dean Holmes: ever patient, ever persevering partners of my children. And to Lily and Layla in Queensland.

To my Canadian friend, Sandie Blair; to my Bonnyrigg friend, Elaine Hall.

As a young soldier, Ken Wharton deployed to Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. He would not return again for thirty-five years, when he made an emotional pilgrimage to revisit the scenes of the war he left behind. In commemorating his fallen comrades, he consoled himself with the determination to understand the people of Northern Ireland and their Troubles. In this he has succeeded, writing eight best-selling books on one of the most destructive conflicts in modern European history.

Kens books adorn the shelves not only of those who witnessed these events unfold at first hand but also those of us who grew up in the shadow of the worst years of the Troubles.

Having researched and written about the Troubles for more than twenty years, I have found no better introduction to the military dimension of the conflict than Kens work.

I have frequently commended him in public for his exceptional service in highlighting the experiences of some of those 250,000 holders of the Northern Ireland campaign medal who served during Operation Banner, the British Armys longest ever continuous deployment in modern times.

We must never forget the sacrifice and dedication of those members of the security forces who played such a pivotal role in stabilising the security situation in the Province. Although it is unfashionable to say it in certain quarters, we owe these men and women an enormous debt of gratitude. Without their stand against terrorism, it is doubtful whether we would have had the resulting peace process.

In his latest book, Ken Wharton gives us a hard-hitting, ethically minded analysis of the Troubles, half a century after their outbreak.

Ken is well aware that untangling the past is a messy business. It is littered with broken lives and traumatised people, many of whom rarely find a voice in the historical record. Ken Wharton reintroduces us to these forgotten people. He gives them a voice.

We see the terrible times they lived through from multiple eyewitness perspectives from a soldier arriving on the scene of the Abercorn Restaurant bombing to the son of an RUC officer seeing his father grievously injured by a Provisional IRA under-car booby trap bomb, and beyond to a civilian who was blown up in a UVF no-warning bomb in the New Lodge area. Among a catalogue of atrocities, Ken recounts the IRA attack on construction workers whose van was blown up at the Teebane crossroads in County Tyrone on 17 January 1992. While Republicans were busy justifying their slaughter of seven Protestant civilians, I was stood in a school assembly observing a solemn two minutes silence in remembrance of the father of one of my school friends who had been killed a working-class man murdered for no other reason than he was out earning a crust for his family. As ever in Kens work, we hear from those directly affected. Ken cites the sister of one of the victims. I was praying that David would be alive, no matter how serious his injuries were, she recalled. How selfish of me. At exactly 9 p.m., my sister Heather phoned; her exact words were, Ruth, its all over, David is dead. These are the stories rarely told in the history books.