odd.
âAye, I go to BRA, so I do,â I replied.
âAre you a ... Prod?â he pressed. Patrick seemed to have difficulty saying the word âProdâ, and there was that lip curl again. He seemed to be upset at me being what I was.
âAye,â I replied.
âYouâre rich!â he then squeaked, accusingly.
This was front-page news to me. I was once again con-fused. At BRA I was poor, but now at the School of Music, just like in the Upper Shankill, I was rich again. And now there was a need for yet another secret. We only met once a week at the School of Music, so I had thought that I wouldnât need to keep any secrets â but now I realised that I would have to keep quiet about being a Shankill paperboy here too.
Patrick however knew the truth, and so he would regularly educate me on a Saturday morning. He said that his father worked at Queenâs University, and knew all about being oppressed by the Brits for hundreds of years. He said that I was an Orangeman and that as such I would be handed all the best jobs on a plate. I knew I wasnât an Orangeman because my father kept the Sash his father wore up in the roof space, but Patrick did seem to have a point about all the best jobs, as delivering the papers for Oulâ Mac was one of the best jobs around.
One seriously savage afternoon, when all the buses were off and I was definitely going to be late for my papers, our headmaster asked an English teacher from Templepatrick (where the doctors lived) to transport a handful of us safely from the bosom of BRA to the Ballygomartin Road.
âWhereâs the Ballygomartin Road?â asked the English teacher, to my astonishment. Okay, so it wasnât Shakespeare, but it was only two miles up the road.
âItâs an extension of the Shankill Road,â replied the headmaster. It stung to hear my humble origins exposed with such authority. The English teacherâs face turned the same colour as his chalky fingers. This surprised me. I couldnât think of a single episode of the Troubles which involved English teachers from Templepatrick being regarded as legitimate targets on the Shankill Road. In Belfast, legitimate targets were more likely to be taxi drivers and milkmen.
The English teacher looked edgy as we crammed into his spotless hatchback, which had Jane Austen on the back seat and a Radio 4 play on the radio. I definitely smelled sweat as he drove us up the Road. He was never this twitchy when teaching us about the war poets, but he put me in mind of those lines from Wilfred Owen when I noticed his âhanging face, like a devilâs, sick of sinâ. He was only driving us up the Shankill Road: he wasnât being gassed in the trenches! As the teacher in question transported us silently, I imagined the paperboy from his area, sitting snugly on a brand-new Chopper bike, and presenting him with a pristine copy of The Times . I was sure that his kids in Templepatrick would be getting Eleven Plus practice papers instead of the Whizzer and Chips.
The entrance to our estate was up a dark muddy lane. The mothers had been campaigning for a proper road on UTV, but it was still just a mucky path. On one side of the lane was the Girlsâ Secondary School and on the other side was the Boysâ Secondary School. Most of the Shankill went there at eleven years old when they failed the Eleven Plus. Neither school was renowned for academic achievement. My mother always said it was a good thing I hadnât failed my Eleven Plus, because I would have been âeaten alive in thereâ. My English teacher must have had similar concerns of being cannibalised as he drove up that dirty dark lane, sandwiched between two staunch secondary schools, for he proceeded with extreme caution. It was like the Doctor leaving the TARDIS for the first time, having just materialised on a strange alien planet.
As he drove along the lane slowly, the teacher at last cut the
âAye, I go to BRA, so I do,â I replied.
âAre you a ... Prod?â he pressed. Patrick seemed to have difficulty saying the word âProdâ, and there was that lip curl again. He seemed to be upset at me being what I was.
âAye,â I replied.
âYouâre rich!â he then squeaked, accusingly.
This was front-page news to me. I was once again con-fused. At BRA I was poor, but now at the School of Music, just like in the Upper Shankill, I was rich again. And now there was a need for yet another secret. We only met once a week at the School of Music, so I had thought that I wouldnât need to keep any secrets â but now I realised that I would have to keep quiet about being a Shankill paperboy here too.
Patrick however knew the truth, and so he would regularly educate me on a Saturday morning. He said that his father worked at Queenâs University, and knew all about being oppressed by the Brits for hundreds of years. He said that I was an Orangeman and that as such I would be handed all the best jobs on a plate. I knew I wasnât an Orangeman because my father kept the Sash his father wore up in the roof space, but Patrick did seem to have a point about all the best jobs, as delivering the papers for Oulâ Mac was one of the best jobs around.
One seriously savage afternoon, when all the buses were off and I was definitely going to be late for my papers, our headmaster asked an English teacher from Templepatrick (where the doctors lived) to transport a handful of us safely from the bosom of BRA to the Ballygomartin Road.
âWhereâs the Ballygomartin Road?â asked the English teacher, to my astonishment. Okay, so it wasnât Shakespeare, but it was only two miles up the road.
âItâs an extension of the Shankill Road,â replied the headmaster. It stung to hear my humble origins exposed with such authority. The English teacherâs face turned the same colour as his chalky fingers. This surprised me. I couldnât think of a single episode of the Troubles which involved English teachers from Templepatrick being regarded as legitimate targets on the Shankill Road. In Belfast, legitimate targets were more likely to be taxi drivers and milkmen.
The English teacher looked edgy as we crammed into his spotless hatchback, which had Jane Austen on the back seat and a Radio 4 play on the radio. I definitely smelled sweat as he drove us up the Road. He was never this twitchy when teaching us about the war poets, but he put me in mind of those lines from Wilfred Owen when I noticed his âhanging face, like a devilâs, sick of sinâ. He was only driving us up the Shankill Road: he wasnât being gassed in the trenches! As the teacher in question transported us silently, I imagined the paperboy from his area, sitting snugly on a brand-new Chopper bike, and presenting him with a pristine copy of The Times . I was sure that his kids in Templepatrick would be getting Eleven Plus practice papers instead of the Whizzer and Chips.
The entrance to our estate was up a dark muddy lane. The mothers had been campaigning for a proper road on UTV, but it was still just a mucky path. On one side of the lane was the Girlsâ Secondary School and on the other side was the Boysâ Secondary School. Most of the Shankill went there at eleven years old when they failed the Eleven Plus. Neither school was renowned for academic achievement. My mother always said it was a good thing I hadnât failed my Eleven Plus, because I would have been âeaten alive in thereâ. My English teacher must have had similar concerns of being cannibalised as he drove up that dirty dark lane, sandwiched between two staunch secondary schools, for he proceeded with extreme caution. It was like the Doctor leaving the TARDIS for the first time, having just materialised on a strange alien planet.
As he drove along the lane slowly, the teacher at last cut the
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