The End of Innocence

The End of Innocence



Two young boys walked together in the park near their street in Belfast.  It was the summer of 1969, the famous “Summer of Love”.  The air was full of music and the long hot sunny days seemed to go on forever.  Life was good but dark clouds were forming on the horizon.  There had been reports on the news recently that the age-old rivalries in Ireland had raised their ugly heads.  People had been shot and even blown up in recent months for being one religion or another. 



Fergie and his friend “Dewdrop” understood none of these terrible things. The sun was on their backs and they were only children enjoying their childhood.  I should know – I’m “Dewdrop”.



The neighbourhood we grew up in was very poor.  The rows of tiny houses organised neatly into streets along main roads.  The little houses had been built for the thousands of workers employed in the thriving shipyard nearby a hundred years before we were born.



Times were tough, the people were tough but you looked after your own.  That’s the way it was.  Neighbours borrowed from each other, ingredients for the day’s dinner, milk for the baby’s bottle or some sugar for a cup of tea.  The women who made these homes kept them like little palaces.  They could often be seen scrubbing their front door steps until the paint on the concrete from which they were made gleamed in the summer sun.



Alfie Ferguson, or as us kids knew him, Fergie, was a wiry lad.  He was the skinny kid with spectacles with one eye patched over whom we all remember from our childhood.  One of three brothers and three sisters he had to grow up tough to survive the pecking order of the family.  What he lacked in size, he made up for in physical speed, stamina and a talent for leading people, usually me, into mischief.



I lived a few doors down from him and he was my best friend.  Fergie gave me the nickname “Dewdrop” because of the constant presence of a trickle emanating from one, other or both of my nostrils. Nobody’s perfect!  My mother preferred to call me Jim. I was slightly taller and broader than my friend, the youngest of five brothers and a sister. I can tell you, I was definitely a follower.



We had pockets full of the usual things that boys of twelve owned.  A penknife, a piece of string, a handful of well-seasoned horse chestnuts, a box of matches, a half smoked cigarette and the ever present catapult were typical contents on any given day.



“My Da is the trainer of the finest athlete ever born,” boasted Fergie.  “Who says so?”  I asked, already knowing the answer.  “My Da!”  A tall athletic greyhound stared up at us with large soft brown eyes. 

Coleman’s Black Moustache was Fergie’s loyal companion and a born racer. Those who knew the dog called him Tash.  They trusted each other as much as any boy and dog could ever trust each other.



Fergie was often tasked with exercising Tash and sometimes it was a pain, because we would have much rather been raiding peoples’ gardens round the big houses up the road where there could be found apples, blackberries and all sorts of plunder.  Most of the time the chore was a pleasure and more often than not I came along too.  I still remember those long balmy evenings after school and often find myself transported, with much pleasure, back to a time of a gloriously happy childhood.



Tash provided an abundant supply of ammunition for our catapults.  We would use his daily deposits to make “shibombs” with which we would gladly ambush other boys or even fire at the front doors and windows of the neighbourhood houses.  The impact always made a very satisfying “splat” noise as each “shibomb” hit its target.  We always managed to hide after an attack and laugh heartily as we watched irate neighbours wash their front door or window.  The ritual of washing the steps was often accompanied by the mantra; “You little bastards, I know who you are.”



We were often joined on our wanderings by some of the other kids who lived in our street.  Big Bobby Ferris was a gentle giant, a little older than the rest of the boys in our group of friends, he couldn’t make friends with kids his own age because they called him “slow”, and “stupid”.  We thought he was a very decent sort and handy for lifting heavy objects like the material needed to make gang huts. Brian Morgan could climb trees and steal apples quicker than anybody we knew.  He was useful addition to any group of boys.  Sidney White who described himself as a “theatrical impresario” though none of us knew what that was, was a very entertaining member of our happy little band.  He was an awkward boy with arms and legs too long for his body, teeth too big for his mouth and a huge mop of blond hair who enjoyed putting on shows for the neighbourhood youngsters.  Sidney and Brian were in the same class as us at school.  Bobby went to something called a Special School.



Tash was fitter than he’d ever been.  He was in training for the biggest race of his life, the Irish Greyhound Derby.  The dog had won nearly every race he was entered in and was one of the favourites to win the “big one”.  His exercise regime had been stepped up and Fergie and I were playing our full parts, taking Tash for walks every evening round the local park and beyond.  Fergie’s father took responsibility for the more intensive training. This involved attaching a dead rabbit to a bicycle by a long rope and having Tash chase after him.  “How that bloody man has never got himself or the dog killed is a mystery to me,” his wife would often tell anyone who was prepared to listen.



The evening before the race, Sidney White put on another one of his popular shows in Tash’s honour he said, although he kept all the takings.  Fergie’s dad had given us strict orders not to be too late out as the big race was the next day and anyway, that White boy was a little strange and God alone knows what sort of trouble he might get us into. 

Sidney’s shows were usually held in the “White House Theatre”, a disused garage at the bottom of our street. He charged three pence to be in the audience and kids came, from far and wide to see one of his shows.  Not because the performances were any good but because they were so bad and always ended up in some sort of calamity for poor Sidney. 



“Sidney White in Death by a Thousand Cuts” started quite well.  Sidney’s warm-up man, Freddie did an appallingly bad ventriloquist act that kept the audience in fits of laughter the whole length of his performance with his tight lips and ‘gottle of gear’ routine. He had fiery red hair down to his shoulder in a hippy style.  His skin was so pale that it was almost transparent and he had more freckles than there are stars in the galaxy.  His wide blue eyes rarely moved in their sockets.  Freddie looked almost exactly like his doll.  A thin puny kid, Freddie feared no one or nothing and had proved it in many a scrap.  He had earned his nickname ‘Fearless Fred’



The main act was Sidney, dressed as a girl, being tied to an old piece of telegraph pole by an ‘assistant’ wearing a toy Native American style war bonnet and armed with a bread knife, borrowed from his mother’s kitchen. His war paint was bright pink lipstick and soot, both sourced, no doubt from the same unwittingly generous mother. The pole had been acquired elsewhere by Big Bobby Ferris, especially for the performance.



The music started on a little cassette player carefully placed in the corner by Sidney himself.  It was his mother’s machine and his sister’s cassette and he couldn’t afford anything to happen to either item.  The song “Running Bear” blaring out from the machine accompanied a war dance by the kid in the war bonnet while he waved the bread knife in the air, occasionally making whooping noises and cutting motions towards Sidney who was screaming the highest pitched scream many of us had ever heard.  This bizarre dance excited the audience of Sidney’s peers almost to a fever pitch.  The dancer made to deliver the first of the thousand cuts when the garage door opened suddenly to reveal Sidney’s mother, red faced with a mixture of anger and fast running.  Her daughter who had seen catastrophe coming had alerted Mrs White to the situation. The audience scattered, the ‘assistant’ screamed, dropped the knife and ran for his life, leaving poor Sidney, still tied to the telegraph pole at the mercy of his very irate parent.  Some suspected that Mrs White’s timely arrival was not entirely unexpected by her son, the showman.

Whatever the truth was, not one member of Sidney’s audiences ever asked for a refund, as they were never disappointed at one of his shows.



This was the sort of nonsense that entertained us kids when Fergie and I were growing up.  We lived in our own little world of about ten or twenty streets.  We ran around in gangs.  Not the gangs of today.  Our gangs met at some traditional “battleground” and threw sticks and stones at each other.  There were rarely any injuries but when there was one, both sides stopped to help each other get the “casualty” home.  Both gangs were equally afraid of the wrath of the injured boy’s mother.  We were still untouched by the more pernicious type of warfare that was soon to engulf our lives and steal from us, our childhoods forever.



We had a huge black and white television that had a tiny screen.  My father who was somewhat of a scoundrel had managed to acquire it in the course of his work.  Dad was a bin-man, a refuse collector but he had a quick wit and could readily spot a useful bit of gear.  That’s what he told us.  My mother always wore a pained expression when dad brought his work home.  She knew her man.



“What’s for tea, Ma?” My brother yelled as he came through the front door.  “Stewed bugs and onions”, was her stock reply.  This day was different. She hushed him with that sound mothers make when they demand quiet.  Ma was listening to the news on television.  The Newsreader said that Protestant gunmen had attacked a group of Catholic workmen.  One of the men had died and three more were seriously injured.  My two oldest brothers shrugged with indifference.  “At least it was ours doing theirs”, one of them said.  My mother, not a religious woman, punched his arm, began to cry and pray silently as if she knew deep within her soul that darker days were upon us.



Finally, the big race day came and the smart money was on Tash.  The Tranmore Greyhound Stadium that was within walking distance of our street was packed with punters hoping to make some fast cash on Tash!.  We were in the crowd, so excited that we could hardly speak.  “There’s your Da” I said pointing to the tall man in a black suit with his big black greyhound at the starting traps. “Aye all dressed up like a Christmas turkey”, replied Fergie with no small amount of pride in his voice.



With excitement building, the Derby runners were placed inside the starting traps. The Handlers left the track and suddenly the race started.  Tash took a slight lead straight away but there were several dogs in hot pursuit.  The runners rounded the final bend before the finish line when Fergie, in his excitement, yelled “Tash” who immediately heard the shout above the roar of the crowd and recognising the voice of his friend, broke away from the race, jumped the wooden hoarding that separated the track from the crowd, jumped up on Fergie and licked his face.



“Holy Shit, Dewdrop, let’s get out of here.”  We ran as fast as we could and headed anywhere but home with Tash matching us stride for stride.  We kept running because we knew that Fergie had cost his dad the potential of making a tidy sum that day and that when we got home as surely we would go home when we got hungry – there’d be merry hell to pay.



We eventually plucked up the courage to make the long trip and as we turned the corner into our street, we saw two police officers coming out of Fergie’s house with one of his brothers.  “We’re done for now, boy”, I said.  Just as we were about to run for it again, Fergie’s brother saw us and called us.  It was not the harsh scolding call that usually heralded our imminent captures but a soft loving call of a brother with bad news.  “You run along home, Jimmy – Ma wants to talk to Alfie”.  I ran home as fast as I could, pausing only briefly to see my friend and his dog disappear into the house.



I ran in to our house, to find my parents transfixed to the television which, was broadcasting a story about an explosion occurring at Tranmore Greyhound Stadium shortly after the Irish Greyhound Derby, killing fourteen people.  Alfred Ferguson Senior died that day and along with him and thirteen others, so did our innocence.