If you lived in County Down in the 70s...

[Minimalme]

I'm looking for context about life in County Down (or Belfast) in the 70s.

My English parents moved me and my sister to Bangor in 1975 when I was two. We left 3 years later.

We lived in Weatherby - my Dad worked in retail and had a good job. Something happened and he took a job as a manager in Stewarts Supermarket in NI. I suspect he was fired and because they were desperate for retail managers, they took him without a reference.

Both my parents were abusive with a complete disregard for our safety. But even for them, it seems a hugely risky move.

My Dad was of Catholic descent but didn't practise, while my Mum was a practicing Catholic. We had a Irish surname which was associated with a Catholic area.

We were English, living in a Protestant area as Catholics. I remember starting (a Protestant) school and my Mum explaining that some of the children might not speak to me.

I have just watched 'Peace Babies' on BBC1 and it made me think about some of the things I would have experienced as a young child.

I am no contact with my entire family so no one to ask. My only memories were our lovely garden and my first (and best) school teacher. It was the best time in my childhood.

Did my parents take a risk moving there - I'd just like to understand a bit more about it.

Many thanks if anyone can help.

Edited by MNHQ to remove identifying information

I'm from the Republic so not much help. You might get more traffic on AIBU or some other page? There's a couple of posters from co Down - going by user names. But they might not use Craicnet.

Hi Op, I completely get you wanting more background to your childhood but in case your thread does take off, I'd ask MNHQ to delete your teacher's name as it's very identifiable. Good luck getting the info you need.

My understanding is that those who lived in more affluent areas like Bangor had a very different experience to those who lived in poorer inner city areas. So you may have had a relatively safe upbringing when you were there, and not affected much by the Troubles, albeit with some difficulties due to tribalism if your family were perceived to be different to most in that area.

I don't know if I'm reading this wrong but your post reads like you're looking for more things to blame your parents for. You'll already have a lot if you're NC, I'd imagine. If you don't remember any trauma/bad things from this time I wouldn't go looking for people to tell you folk in Down ate liver every night and kept coal in the bath (also they almost certainly didn't).

As a Catholic who lived in County Down my experience was it was a well to-do place where people put class above money but occasionally you came across quite a few flag-wavers (nowhere near as many as in Belfast) and the odd twat who walked off as soon as you opened your mouth and they heard you were "English" (i.e. had an English accent). Sectarianism was usually seen as a bit common in Holywood though and generally we didn't talk about it. The Catholic church we attended was very welcoming and liked to distance itself from the Troubles. IME it was more like Co. Donegal in that it wasn't nearly as segregated or polarised as other parts of Ulster.

A friend was up in Bangor last week so I asked him about the place.

Mostly quite middle class net curtain suburbia. Town centre a bit run down - but aren't they all ?

There's a huge estate , Kilcooley , which is traditionally a UDA stronghold. But surely your parents didn't live there? Especially if your mum was a practicing Catholic.

Probably not a bad spot all round. There are odd pockets of bigotry in the Ards Peninsula. I had a friend whose family were the token Catholics in a village down there. I told her I'd like to live there after hearing about the hills and beaches etc.

' You wouldn't be let ' was her reply

Bangor sounds a bit more cosmopolitan though. Yes OP....Best to delete your lovely teachers name .

Thanks for the replies - I remember loving the place so I'm definitely not looking to stoke a fire of anger against my parents.

It was after watching the BBC programme I realised that I knew nothing about that part of my life.

I knew my parents had chosen a nice area but the stuff my Mum told me, for example, soldiers with guns frisking young children, I have no idea if it happened. My Mum is a liar and a fantasist, so most of the things she said had an element of untruth about them.

It sounds like a legitimate (if unusual at the time) move made to Bangor.

I am curious as to what prompted it though, but know I'll never find out. All he would say is he 'got boxed in a job' and needed a 'sideways' move.

I don't think soldiers frisking children would've been all that common in North Down at any point during the Troubles.

Republican areas in Belfast and Londonderry would be far more likely. Especially as adults were known to incite minors to throw various types of missiles at the security forces as well as use them to move guns out of the area. PIRA were known to use children as "soldiers".

YoU say you lived in Bangor, so I'd say the above didn't happen and your parents didn't take that much of a risk moving there. Moving to places like the Ardoyne and Creggan would certainly have been risky.

Thanks, I know it probably is a banal post but I have no photos or reference to my childhood.

I met my best friend when we moved back to England so I have someone to talk about the rest of my childhood and she has photos of us.

I sometimes feel that my childhood got erased because I don't have anyone to share memories with or any special objects/photos.

I would estimate around 99% of what my Mum ever told me was total bollocks. And my Dad was too pissed to care either way so I can be pretty confident I know FA about anything.

If you're on Facebook, there's a group called Holywood Past, Present & Future you might be interested in. Its similar to Bangor so it might help fill in blanks.

Occasionally, photos come up. Some long lost photos of some of my relatives were posted last year!

Worth a shot.

I think there's a Bangor one too - let me have a look

www.facebook.com/livinginBangor

There's also The City Of Bangor Past, Present & Future on FB

I have very fond memories growing up in that area, during those times. I grew up on a farm, religion a huge part of our lives, went to boarding school in England, but was home during the longer holidays. We were aware of the terrorist threats, but where we lived was a very peaceful bubble. The first catholics I ever met were in England! I can't imagine being searched, it never happened to me personally, the police/army were very closely aligned with the community (my uncle served there, at two different times). They knew us, we knew them. Of course there were specific security alerts, and a visibile presence.

I'd lived back home for the last 5 years (moved on again just recently), and loved it there. You should go back and visit!!

Of course as a child you are very unaware of a lot of things. The paramilitary presence (a group of well known families), and sectarian hatred, is still very much alive and well there, closely tied in with drugs these days, you don't need to look far. It's part of the "culture". It's a minority, but a significant and impactful one. Must be awful for the reasonable members of the community. So much needs to done in those areas with respect to better education, job opportunties, etc.

This might be wrong but my father said over the decades County Down (Newry in terms of his grandfather's Catholic family there in the countryside) avoided much of the trouble for some reason. Their family they think was ulster scots back before or in the 1700s, but always Catholic as far as we know (as am I)

Were you middle class?

There wouldn't have been frisking of children by soldiers in Bangor, maybe a quick pat down going into shops. I remember the woman in Woolco spinning me around.
A lot of police would have lived in Bangor, it was seen as a safe area, quite middle class in areas.

As others have said, Bangor and many parts of Down are very peaceful, prosperous, integrated places with odd pockets of dastardly types who can kick off and be quite dastardly indeed but in sort of contained places.

Like there's been quite a lot of drama in Ards recently, I was just in the town centre today and it was its usual pleasant, non-chain store, market-townish self.

Bangor has outstanding Catholic primary schools and a top-ranking Catholic secondary (which I believe has quite a mixed body of protestant / catholic students but correct me if I'm wrong) so it obviously has a strong Catholic community.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/dec/07/lets-move-to-bangor-county-down

You should visit if you think it will help you make sense of your past.

NI is hard because the troubles were so awful and so serious that they shouldn't be downplayed, but at the same time it can be frustrating to hear people be vultures about it (i read a piece about belfast by a much older esteemed war reporter who clearly did amazing work reporting from here but also clearly couldn't get past the fact that it wasn't the late seventies anymore... which is an insult to the brave, funny, resilient people of Belfast who have on a practical day to day basis poured forty years of energy into emerging from that time.)

We would be Downpatrick. I'm a bit young too, OP, but based on memories from the 80s and lots of chats with family, I'd certainly say there would have been no frisking! I remember we used to factor in things like checkpoints for journeys, and I remember low flying helicopters (very low) observing us playing, but nothing much. I think everyone was very segregated, and those were affluent areas. We didn't go to the 'dodgy' places- or the Protestant areas. But we had Protestant friends. If people were nice we chatted to them- just not about politics. They would have had the same attitude too though. It would have been 'guarded' friendships.

We definitely thought carefully about travelling somewhere- so Belfast would have been considered a big journey. And Newcastle, which is about 20 minutes away now, always felt like it would take an hour, because there were always checkpoints with the soldiers getting us out of the car and stuff. But I don't think they'd normally bother with the kids.

We stayed at home on key days though.

I reckon you're alright with Bangor, OP. It was a decent area.

OP, I noticed I did not answer your question, in summary: Did my parents take a risk moving there - I'd just like to understand a bit more about it. ... based on my subjective for me it would be a very clear NO RISK. They brought you to a nice place, that was generally very safe. You really should go back visit.

@Lightninginabox the Ards stuff is nothing new, same old, some old :( Those well known issues in that community have never been properly addressed.

You can see from the statistics on numbers of those who died that County Down didn't escape the Troubles as much as you might think.

See attached.

But it would definitely depend on whereabouts you were living at the time - shame there's no breakdown by towns. I lived in Holywood in the 1980s onwards and never saw a thing other than squaddies on patrol given its home to Palace Barracks.

Not sure, but Newry probably wasn't as quiet as you might expect. Border areas and towns saw a fair amount.

Obviously, the two cities of Belfast and Derry was where the vast majority occurred. Much of Northern Ireland, in comparison, was quieter than those.

I'm also from a Catholic family - not Nationalist or Republican though. If you have Ulster-Scots ancestors in your tree, those people likely converted to Catholicism which a couple of mine did too (day before marriage).

Forgot the attachment.

DownN, thank you. That is interesting. It was only oral family tradition that suggested ulster scots. The only confirmed ancestor with records, grave stone etc was born in 1785 in Hilltown and there is still family out there various relatives have visited from England and what they jokingly call the "homestead" (very small farm). We have a direct ancestor on a flax growers list of 1796 and attempts to acquire the rented property in about 1811. This is going back quite a bit so probably not interesting to people on the thread (sorry). My fathers record says they avoided a lot of the problems in that area but I thikn he means more the problems in the 1800s and early 1900s rather than more recently.

I watched a lovely documentary about a Catholic nun this week but she was from Derry

@Minimalme I think you mighy enjoy this book. Thunder and Lightning: A Memoir of Life on the Tough Cul-de-Sacs of Bangor https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thunder-Lightning-Memoir-Cul-Sacs/dp/1785374354

As others have said, so close to the Troubles, but yet so far away (mostly). Bangor would have been a lovely place to grow up in the 80s. It badly needs some investment, a face lift, but a lovely area to visit.

@Lightninginabox, it's much more than "drama", sectarianism and UDA/UVF is deeply integrated in this area, now closely coupled with drugs. The events of the past months have been very very scary. These people are out of control.

I was brought up in Bangor in the 70s OP, and in general you'd have been pretty safe. If your dad was a manager in Stewarts, you'd likely have lived in the suburbs like Bangor West, and although they would have been majority Protestant, you'd not have had any bother - we had several Catholic families on our street and nobody cared, we all played out together and were in and out of each others houses. Did you go to school there at all, or did you move back before you started school?

The frisking comment may have been in reference to shopping - there did used to be security guard at the entrance to shops that checked your handbag etc, and the main shopping area of Belfast had gates and security checkpoints on the roads leading in, but that applied to everyone, Catholic or Protestant.

You should definitely come and visit sometime!

@DonnaHadDee ( love your username )
"...the Ards stuff is nothing new, same old same old...... those well known issues........ have never been properly addressed."

What are "the Ards stuff" and the "well know issues".

I'm just a curious southerner.