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Threatened
Extract from a letter to my sister dated 22 Sept 1971.
The events described here, and the profound effect they had on me, are best understood
if read in conjunction with my poem 'Sanctuary' in 'Poems of Youth and Age'.
The events described here, and the profound effect they had on me, are best understood
if read in conjunction with my poem 'Sanctuary' in 'Poems of Youth and Age'.
I want to relate what happened to me during my holiday last month. We travelled to Belfast on Wednesday 4th August and on the Sunday we were visiting friends, returning home* at nearly 2 o’clock in the morning.
On the way back we passed a convoy of about ten army trucks, but I did not attach any particular importance to them; but on the morning news it was announced that internment powers** had been put into effect. On Monday evening I walked on the Shankill Road and my dominant impression was that of a tremendous release of tension***. But when I returned home I learned that a gang of hooligans had put a note of intimidation into a nearby sweet shop. The people were terrified, as the husband was in England. We arranged for the mother and daughter and the woman from the next door to sleep in the parlour. I sat talking to them until about 1 a.m. to try to calm them. The mother and daughter stayed again on the Tuesday night, and the experience of seeing what the situation was doing to them made a considerable impression on me; perhaps even more than I then realised. On the Wednesday the father came over from England and they all went away on a holiday, while we kept in touch to assure them that all was safe. * To my father's house. ** The army and police had rounded up suspected IRA members and they were interned without trial under emergency powers. *** The euphoria in such Protestant areas did not last, and the internment powers created more problems than they solved. |