WOMEN (3)
Alive and well and living in Belfast
Jean Gardner
I suppose the word Belfast in England is synonymous with gun-fire, blazing buildings shattered by bombs. It must be if your only view of it is on television screens where the camera is focused on outrage and disaster. But the population of Belfast is over 600,000 and the vast majority of us are leading normal lives in a very abnormal situation. Children go to school every morning, businessmen go out to work on time, milk, mail and refuse collectors arrive on time. My sister still drives regularly with her meals on wheels.
My children arrived in Ulster four months ago from the depths of the Sussex countryside. We needed my family who could have lived in the Outer Hebrides or Timbuctoo — it just happened to be Belfast. We drove through the Ardoyne from the airport — you have to. That's the last I've seen of the ominous sounding trouble spots: the Falls, the Shankill, Ballymurphy. My brother-in-law drives through them every day without a second thought. So does everyone else who has to. There's a lot of normal living going on. Children, this autumn like any other, have been collecting conkers, having birthday parties, going to swimming pools and Sunday school. We'd be dull material for the documentary maker.
Of course things are not as quiet as Sanderstead. One is very conscious of the Army's presence. This morning going to the Post Office I met a foot patrol of four soldiers coming round the corner from the main road — guns at the ready. It wouldn't happen in Weybridge. I think it's the utter incongruity of seeing soldiers in battle readiness in these very urban conditions that strikes one as so odd. They are dressed in brown and green paratroop uniforms — I thought they only wore those in the jungle. You see them lying down aiming guns in trim gardens and armoured cars reversing out of staid avenues lined with gardens full of late blooming roses and the odd gnome. You want to rub your eyes. War was never like this. I have not heard a shot fired yet but then I am never near anywhere shooting is likely to break out. I had to be taught what the sound of an explosion was like. When I came here first I missed them — a dull squashy boom. Now I recognise them all right.
The soldiers are so young. I see dozens of them every day coming in in their armoured cars from the camps outside the city. Some of them can't be shaving. They stand up one facing forward, one backward, their heads swivelling like Wimbledon spectators as they travel down the main road and stop at the traffic lights amid the Ford Cortinas and Zodiacs.
Outside the Courthouse, I saw WI° soldiers bend, smiling, over a baby in pram. What a shot that would have made I had a camera and been in PR.
They smoke furiously, they look wall' they're polite when they search your car. They're not monsters. I'm glad they're here. What is a newcomer to make of it? rve, known Belfast from childhood and loveo its red brick Victorian solidity. Being a political animal I must have something ta vote for, so I joined the Alliance partY few weeks after I got here. I'd never 'hear° of this party in England but it seems to rne to give hope for the future, the immediate future. People say: "In a generation or two." Why can't it be sooner? Certain things, of course, make living ja this city unique. It is often compared t° London in the Blitz — but with this difference. Londoners knew damn well who their enemy was in 1940 — the German bomber up in the sky. The streets of London were filled with friends everyone was your neighbour. Not so here, it's easy to place a bomb ja a hut, a hotel, any public building and ruAll away. Precautions are stringent, I've Nu my handbag searched on entering government building armed only with an appointment — and had the doorraell expose only old bus tickets and used tIP ilipsticks. I've had my teeth filled While the army de-fused bombs in two hotels around, the corner. Everyone takes it for grant0 that they will carry on normally unleSs there's actually a bomb in the hall, There a sort of dogged bravery about the sb°1/ assistants who go without fail into the City centre to serve people like me.
A woman touched my arm in the street. "Don't go down to the bottom, love, there's a bomb scare." I told my sister Whi°1 was getting into the car. "Oh that's 8" right, we're going in the opposite direction," she said as we shot off.
I don't know what's going on in Lo.fif Kesh, although we live quite near it. "", saw the helicopters all that Sunde.,,,) morning the men were moved there fr49': jail. The children and other grown-q: were picking blackberries for jam in t°'t fields nearby. We had to wait until we g° home to see on the news what all the flying to and fro was about. People's private lives have been curtail here, of course. This, the high season the ' function ' or yearly night for fir°15,. and offices has been postponed. The PO', old Grand Central shut for ever a fes;. weeks ago. The coffee morning has had renaissance as so few go out at night. , I think the Belfast people are wonderftl': Stout-hearted and valiant in their tribulad tion they have made time to see me all, my children through a most harroWal° personal experience. One thing I knot' they will not be bombed, blasted or bre,* beaten into doing anything they doll' want to do. One thing I miss from the old days arde the flower sellers who used to stani cutside the City Hall. They have gone.‘ suppose it's not a time for selling floWer'f. When they come bamk to stand in front °,11 their buckets of roses and daffodils we know things are back to normal.
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