The Blitz In Blythe Street

The first in a new mini-series dedicated to the history of the Sandy Row area in South Belfast. This mini-series is brought to you in collaboration with Belfast South Community Resources and also with the support of the South Belfast Urban Village Initiative. There will be 10 episodes in total covering various themes from Sandy Row orangeism, to the formation of Linfield Football Club, the infamous riots with The Pound in the 19th century, and a few more besides. The first release, however, remains in keeping with the current 80th anniversary of the Belfast Blitz covered of course more generally in the previous episode of the podcast. Blythe Street off Sandy Row took a direct hit from a high explosive mine during the Easter Raid of 1941. The destruction was terrible and the tales of loss are heart wrenching. This is the story of The Blitz in Blythe Street…

Thanks to Scott Edgar from www.WartimeNI.com

Reference for Hazel Collins testimony: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/42/a4508642.shtml 

Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 0:29

Hello and welcome to this latest episode of the Historical Belfast podcast. A very special episode in fact, as it marks one year since the podcast actually began. My thanks must go to all the listeners who have tuned in up to this point because without that growing audience I probably wouldn't have stuck with it. This episode is special though for another reason however, as it's the first in a new mini-series dedicated to the history of the Sandy Row area of South Belfast. This miniseries is brought to you in collaboration with Belfast South Community Resources and also with the support of the South Belfast Urban Village Initiative. There will be 10 episodes in total covering various themes from Sandy Row orangism to the formation of Linfield Football Club and the infamous riots with the pound in the 19th century. The first release, however, remains in keeping with the current 80th anniversary of the Belfast Blitz, covered, of course, more generally in the previous episode of this podcast. Blythe Street off Sandy Road took a direct hit from a high-explosive mine during the Easter Raid of 1941. The destruction was terrible and the tales of loss are heart-wrenching. This is the story of the Blitz in Blythe Street. When the UK declared war on Germany in September 1939, the Sandy Row area of Belfast began to prepare in earnest. Ariat's shelters were built in the side streets that ran off Sandy Row, and Murray's tobacco factory and the Belfast Corporation contributed to the war effort by opening their basements for use as underground shelters. Blackout precautions, including the painting of tram windows black, amplified the grave atmosphere of the situation. Despite this, the people of Sandy Row managed to maintain their sense of humour. Sandy Row woman Jean Irwin recalled how it was this sense of humour that kept people going through the darkest days of the Second World War. The war was hard on us, she said, but we got through it because we could still laugh and joke. When the sirens went off to warn us that the Germans were overhead, we scrambled with anything soft we could find to make our time in the air raid shelters more comfortable. We'd sing along with each other in the shelter and crack jokes till all was quiet and there was great sport among us. Air raid scares such as this caused the evacuation of children from the Sandy Row area to Carnloch during the war. On the 4th of July 1940, the Belfast Newsletter listed Linfield Senior School and the Blythe Street Public Elementary School as places from where unregistered children would be evacuated on Monday the 8th of July 1940 due to the threat of air raids. However, a combination of homesickness on the part of the children and pining mothers resulted in the early return of most of them to Sandy Row from the safe environs of the Northern Irish countryside. I've been chatting to Scott Edgar from the Wartime NI website and I asked him about Belfast's evacuation scheme before the Blitz in 1941.

SPEAKER_02: 4:45

Evacuation schemes across the UK actually went right back to 1st of September 1939, led by government initiatives at Westminster. Authorities at Stormont, obviously the seat of Northern Ireland's government, they chose not to follow the example set in London. For most school children across Northern Ireland, life remained basically unchanged throughout most of 1939 and 1940. The only main difference was that they carried gas masks to school and carried out occasional drills on how to use them. As early as June 1939, the authorities in Belfast and across Northern Ireland had begun to think about the evacuation of the city. They estimated there were around 70,000 schoolchildren living within the Greater Belfast area and attending schools there. By the outbreak of the Second World War, so on 3rd September 1939, they reckoned they only had accommodation available outside of Belfast for about a fifth of that number. Some larger schools in the city, they took matters into their own hands. Schools such as Richmond Lodge School for Girls, which was on the Malone Road, Victoria College off University Avenue, and Ashley House School which later became Hunter House. They set up remote branches outside of the Greater Belfast area. These would come into effect should evacuation of the city occur and would give the pupils of those schools somewhere to go. Campbell College in East Belfast was one forward-thinking example. The War Office had taken over use of their school buildings, in particular as a military hospital. So they had a rather aptly named Operation Sea Change, which saw many of their boarding pupils heading off up to the north coast, up to Portrush, where they stayed between 1940 and 46. John Clarke McDermott became the Minister of Public Security on the 25th of June, 1940. and he was one of the only members of John Miller Andrews cabinet that was quite forward thinking in terms of what do we need to do in the event of an aerial attack from the Luftwaffe and so from his very first cabinet meeting on the 1st of July 1940 he had suggested evacuating Belfast school children. He eventually got government backing for his scheme but there was very little support from people in the city. Of that estimated 70,000 school children only about about 17,000 had registered for the scheme. The evacuation day was set as the 7th of July, 1940, and this would have involved school children gathering at a series of schools across the city, for example, around the Shankill area and around kind of North Belfast, West Belfast. You had schools like Linfield Junior School, Montcollier Public Elementary, and just other schools around the city had all put themselves forward as departure points these children would meet on the 7th of July and from there they would be transported, I'm not sure, by a bus, train perhaps, outside of the city. Moya Woodside was a diarist writing as part of the government's mass observation scheme and on the 15th of August 1940 she had noted really just what a disaster the response to the evacuation had been. So she wrote in her diary The local press reports an improved response to the second Belfast evacuation scheme, the first having been a complete flop with less than 10% even registering. Six weeks after the first attempt at evacuation, a further 5,000 children had registered, but on the day they attempted a second evacuation scheme, again, only 1,700 children turned up. Words used by the authorities at the time included a flop, a fiasco, an absurdity, and an embarrassment. So there were several reasons for the scheme's failure. Those included the belief that Belfast wouldn't be a target for the Luftwaffe. Some parents were reluctant to send their children off to the countryside. At this time, we should remember that many working class families didn't travel beyond Belfast. For many children, a day trip to Bangor or even a trip up to North Belfast to the zoo at Bellevue would have been a big day out. Once those children got to the countryside, They find life tough away from their friends and away from their school, away from their families and the kind of inner city life that they were leading. Really, they find the countryside utterly boring. And many of those children just didn't adapt well and spent less than a few weeks in the countryside before eventually returning back to the city.

SPEAKER_00: 9:36

Two years of the war had passed and Northern Ireland had remained relatively unscathed in that period. Indeed, the Northern Ireland government did not appreciate until it was too late that an aerial attack was possible or even likely. Belfast's defences were hopelessly insufficient with too few anti-aircraft guns, a lack of searchlights, too few firemen and air raid wardens, as well as inadequate air raid shelters. Unlike other UK cities, the people of Belfast were physically and psychologically unprepared for an oncoming blitz. Nevertheless, on Easter Tuesday 1941, air raid sirens began to wail at 10.40pm. 203 metric tonnes of bombs and parachute mines, along with 800 firebomb canisters, were cast down by 180 German bombers who had taken off from northern France. For a more detailed account of the Easter Raid, you can listen back to episode 13 of the Historical Belfast podcast. In the course of the attack, a high-explosive bomb fell at the top of Blythe Street. It detonated outside the Harper family home at number 176. Firewatcher Louis Gilbert observed the destruction from the roof of Murray Sons& Co tobacco manufacturers on the Linfield Road. He would have seen the terraced housing on both sides of the street terribly damaged, many with their facades blown off. Indeed, the Blythe Street bomb destroyed at least 30 houses. In number 176, where the bomb landed, James and Margaret Harper lived with their eight children. Ernest Cooke His wife Mary Jane Cook and sons Ernest Victor Cook, John Cook and David McKee Cook lived at No. 184 Blythe Street. Following the Blitz, Ernest Cook gave evidence to the Coroner's Court. He and his immediate family had left their house to shelter with members of the extended family at No. 95 Blythe Street, the home of David McKee. His wife suggested that he should go back and light the fire in their own home, and Ernest's duty returned to do so. On his way back to Number 95, he witnessed the bomb fall, destroying Number 95 and killing all those inside, including his wife Mary Jane Cook and three sons, John, Ernest and young David, who was just two years old. Their home, at Number 184, had actually remained undamaged throughout the Easter Raid. A further five people died while sheltering at No. 95 Blythe Street. They were David McKee, Sarah Jane Thompson, Violet Todd, Ella Elizabeth Todd and Vera Todd who was just four years old. Jean Irwin recalled the same incident. In Blythe Street there was a family, she said, by the name of McKernan who was having a party that night. I think it was to celebrate an engagement in the family. I'd been keeping the young fella Ernie McKee, a relative of the McKernans, going earlier on because he'd been playing a harp and I told him he'd have to play it better than that before he met his maker. Little was I to know that that would be sooner rather than later. The poor lad was killed along with nine other members of his family in the bomb on Blythe Street. A fella home from the Navy who had also missed two torpedoes was killed also. End of quote from Gene Irwin. A little further down the street, at number 91, husband and wife Henry John Miller and Rebecca Miller died while sheltering in their home. At 61 years of age, Rebecca Miller was the oldest person to die in the Blythe Street attack. Next door at number 93, 36-year-old Robert Craig sustained serious injuries resulting in his death on the 18th of April 1941 at the Belfast City Hospital. A seven-year-old Rebecca Craig, listed as living in number 94, also died at the city hospital the day after the raid. Finally, Georgina McGarry died at number 87, taking the total number of fatalities on Blythe Street to 15. Another woman, Hazel Collins, remembered the incident very well. You weren't allowed to go into other people's houses during a raid, she said. You were supposed to stay in your own house because if your house got bombed then they knew how many in that house would be dead. But we never stayed in our own house. We always went into somebody else's which wasn't really the right thing to do. We were all sitting in Mrs Gore's house down the street one night during a raid and she had a big family as well. We were all sitting along a big settee, about four of us and then they got wee chairs and we all came round and sat in a circle. Then a massive bomb came down and it was terrible. It hit the top part of Blythe Street off Sandy Row in Belfast. Behind that again there was a railway and they probably thought it was the main railway they were going for but it wasn't the main railway at all. I remember whenever it came down the children who were sitting round me were actually blowing off their chairs onto the settee. No windows or anything came in though. I remember thinking that one must have been somewhere close by. We wanted to get out but of course the air raid wardens wouldn't let us out the door. Eventually we did get out and I remember running round the corner to look. I couldn't get over when I saw the houses in Blythe Street. It's what you would see on television. Maybe the whole front of the house was ordinary but the back of the house, the whole wall was down and you could see people's beds and furniture. The floors were at an angle with things coming down. It was awful. There were wee girls that went to school with me that lived in that area and the school was right beside it and I dare say the school got some of it too. It was just surprising how so many houses got it and how so many houses didn't get it. They started putting out massive water tanks and they had them on any bit of spur ground around in case there were a lot of fires caused by the bombs. They were massive big tanks. One wee boy was walking round the top of one and he fell in and drowned. I don't know who he was, but I remember at the time that happening. Another casualty of war. End of quote. The water tank incident referred to here didn't happen at the time of the Blitz, but in 1942. On Friday the 9th of October, young Raymond Milligan of 208 Blythe Street, who was just 8 years old, was found drowned in one of these static water tanks. The tragic discovery was made by young Raymond's father, David Milligan. at 9pm following a long search for the boy who had been missing since the afternoon. When David returned from work in the evening, his wife informed him that their son had not been seen since 4pm. Following a search of the district, David informed the police of his son's disappearance at the barracks on Donegal Pass. Eventually, he decided to climb up the side of the water tank and upon looking in, he saw the horrific sight of his son's cap floating in the water. At the coroner's inquest, David Milligan recalled, I took a notion to have a look into the static water tank in Bly Street. I shone my torch and saw his cap floating in the water and saw a body at the bottom of the tank. Raymond's body was eventually recovered from the bottom of the tank by a grappling iron. At the inquest, the police reported that they were continually chasing children from these tanks and that it would be necessary to have a man at each tank in order to prevent such tragedies from occurring in future, which, of course, was impossible. Consequently, this was a sad but all too common occurrence. In Londonderry, for example, young John Ferris, who was just 11 years old, suffered a similar fate after falling into one of these static water tanks. Indeed, across the UK, dozens of children drowned in this way during the war years. I asked Scott Edgar for some background on these water tanks.

SPEAKER_02: 18:12

Static water tanks, or emergency water supplies, were set up across the United Kingdom and in Belfast as well in the event of an air raid. Most of the ones in Belfast were not actually set up before the Belfast Blitz, so this was a little bit of an afterthought and possibly lessons learned from in particular the Easter Raid and the May Day Raid. One of the main targets of the Luftwaffe in Belfast had been the waterworks as a result of damage to the waterworks and other damage to water mains and pipes under the streets. Firefighters found that quite often the water pressure in the city was too low for them to adequately tackle the fires that had broken out. So these emergency water tanks, or static water tanks, emergency water supplies, were set up in different locations across the city. And as an idea of how quickly that was set about, by the 19th of April, so less than a week after the Easter Raid, there were tanks in five locations in the city centre. These were set up by the Ministry of Public Security, so the same government body who also oversaw the building of air raid shelters, ARP depots, first aid posts and things like that. They continued to be built throughout 1941 and 42. They were just brick constructions lined with concrete in most cases. I'm not sure about the exact construction of tanks in Belfast, but I know that in cities such as London, Liverpool, Plymouth, other cities that had suffered blitzes themselves, quite often they were built from the brick of houses that had been demolished and cleared away after the raids. By 1942 in Belfast, there were tanks placed such as the Classic Cinema, the Royal Victoria Hospital. There was a large one on Cromack Street down in the markets. and others near City Hall, the Albert Clock, and in various locations across the city centre. If you're actually in Belfast, even today, and you go down Montgomery Street to the junction where it meets May Street, so that's not far from the Garrick Bar for anyone who knows the city centre, you can actually still see a sort of imprint on the wall of painted letters that say EWS. So this would have been painted in large letters either in yellow or white and the EWS stood for Emergency Water Supply and would have had an arrow underneath it to direct ARP wardens or firefighters or whoever needed it towards the nearest water supply. By the spring of 1942 these water supplies had tended to become, they weren't viewed well in the communities. It had almost become clear that Belfast wasn't going to be targeted again by the lift off by this stage. and reports had come back from the UK that 36 children by this stage had died as a result of accidental drowning in these tanks. So in April 1942, freshly painted signs appeared on Belfast static water tanks, just with a very simple message, danger, deep water, keep clear, as well as the auxiliary fire service emphasising that the keep clear meant that children should keep clear of the tanks. there was an almost double meaning in that they wanted the tanks to be kept clear of rubbish because this was a big problem in Belfast where locals have been disposing of just bits of furniture, clothing, all sorts of things into these static water tanks. There's one case I saw reported in the newspaper where they actually had to drain a tank completely and carry out a search of it because they found a woman's clothing floating on top of the water. And the obvious implication there was that there may be a body in the tank, but it turned out to just be people throwing their old clothes in. So these tanks would have clogged up, been full of rubbish and obviously not being of any use for their intended purpose of fighting fires. There was also a fear that the dirty static water could become a breeding ground for mosquitoes, particularly over the summer months, which obviously local residents weren't too keen on either. Another aspect of the static water tanks was crime. There are several newspaper reports that suggest usually young boys, young men were involved in petty crime in the streets and these static water tanks and public air raid shelters were good hiding places for what the newspapers sometimes called their ill-gotten gains. So some of the court records from the time show a real change in attitude towards the crime and punishment over the last 80 years. There's a quote from Magistrate W.F. McCoy speaking to the Belfast Juvenile Court. And he says these words, which I don't stand by, but I'll quote from 1942. You poor boys need a proper good hiding. It's a pity nobody did catch you by the scruff of the neck, thrash you soundly and take you home to your mother's. So that was addressed to four young boys who had stolen a handbag and some pearls from a lady in the street and threw them into the nearest static water tank to get away from the authorities.

SPEAKER_00: 23:46

Hazel Collins' testimony gives us some indication of the destruction caused in the Blythe Street area. Reporters for the local newspapers toured the affected areas and wrote about what they saw. Specific areas, though, were often prevented from being mentioned due to censorship. I asked Scott Edgar to tell us what sort of sights would have greeted someone walking around Belfast in the wake of the Belfast Blitz.

SPEAKER_02: 24:12

The scene in the immediate aftermath of an event like the Belfast Blitz, particularly the Easter Raid, is really hard for us to comprehend. And the added difficulty in that is that the scenes of devastation that people would have seen in and around Blythe Street, for instance, would not be witnessed by other people, even in Belfast and different parts of the city. The full course of the 15th of April raid really concentrated on the docks, the north and the west of the city, as well as parts of the city centre. ARP wardens such as Jimmy Dougherty in North Belfast spoke of the horrors that he had seen in and around North Belfast, where he saw friends and neighbors dead or injured, lying in the streets, homes and businesses burning, reduced to rubble. For many people in the north of the city, their entire landscape was almost unrecognisable. A local lad called Arthur Jackson in Hogarth Street recalled seeing the bodies of his friends and neighbours laid out in the street covered by blankets before they were moved into the basement of Mount Collier School. Other streets nearby, like Bourke Street, were completely wiped out, removed from the map. Almost nothing remaining of these rows of red brick terraces. Some streets across the city were so badly hit that the public were not allowed in at all. Stephen Dowd's book, Belfast Blitz, The People's Story, has a quote from a young man called Norman Kennedy. He said, I went down Albert Bridge Road this morning and you were tripping over fire hoses. You weren't allowed down Thorndike Street, for example, where they had very, very heavy casualties. Other people making... Diaries at the time, such as Moya Woodside, talked of the destruction on the streets, debris, rubble, craters, unexploded devices, other obstacles that made getting around the city extremely difficult. She actually tells a story about journeying through the chaos by bicycle. She says, Road most of the way was inches deep in subsoil, mud thrown up from the craters, and at one point I skidded and fell flat on my face with the bike on top. A kindly policeman picked me up and led me into a bombed house where he found some water and wiped the mud off with a handkerchief. It was a peculiar experience to stand in someone else's scullery in the gathering darkness, surrounded by debris, and have a policeman direct the removal of mud from one's face. The mirrors, of course, were all shattered. She continues that with, I continued my ride somewhat shaken through more mud and past fresh fires and crashing slates. I found two weary eyed friends at home and we opened some wine rather than let Hitler have it and we drank a bottle before collapsing into bed. So amidst all this carnage, others were looking around and observing an eerie silence almost over the city and taking in the beauty of nature, talking about blue skies and how good the weather was, noticing the white blossom on the trees and referring to these things that Hitler and the Luftwaffe couldn't take away from them. One further anecdote from the immediate aftermath came from Emma Duffin, who was commandant at Stranwellis Military Hospital. She made a note in her journal The smell of burning was in the air, the grass strewn with papers. There was a sheet from a child's essay book. On the top page I read, The End of the World. It seemed appropriate. This was the end of the world as we knew it.

SPEAKER_00: 27:49

A plaque erected by Belfast City Council states that 13 lives were lost in Blythe Street off Sandy Row. The plaque is situated on St Aidan's Parish Church where locals are said to have sheltered during the raid. However, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists 15 casualties in connection with Blythe Street. Two of them died at the Belfast City Hospital, and this is perhaps the reason for their omission from the commemorative plaque. The Blythe Street bomb was not only devastating for the street on which it fell, but devastating for the people of Sandy Row. Many families were left homeless as a result of the damage to houses. Of those who stayed in Belfast, 40,000 people had to be put up in rest centres, while 70,000 had to be fed in emergency feeding centres. Linfield Street School in Sandy Row acted as one of Belfast's food centres for those who had been bombed out of their homes. On the same day that the unidentified victims of the Easter Raid were buried in a mass funeral, Belfast received a surprise royal visit from the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, who wished to see for themselves the damage inflicted by the German Our Raid and to personally express their sympathy with the victims. The visit had been a well-kept secret. The soldiers and civilians who were clearing away debris and the residents of the affected areas had quite a pleasant surprise when they realised that they had royal spectators. Working class areas which had borne the brunt of the air raid were part of the itinerary and the Duke and Duchess heard many first-hand stories of the grim experiences, including stories from Blythe Street which they visited. For three hours, the Duke and Duchess toured the stricken areas of the city, led by the Deputy ARP Officer Haslett who acted as their guide. Before they reached each of the areas on their tour, their arrival was announced by a loud speaker which prompted crowds of mostly women, it has to be said, to gather. It was reported that despite the misery inflicted upon these areas, that the morale of the people remained intact. This was symbolised by Union jacks that fluttered in the breeze upon piles of rubble which were once homes. Elsewhere, one woman grabbed Her Royal Highness's hand and said to him, We're not scared. We only hope that our own airmen will give it back to them. On Saturday the 14th of June, the city's coroner, Herbert Lowe, issued a public notice in which he advised his intention to hold an inquiry into the presumed deaths of a specific list of individuals. These were people who were still considered to be missing since the raid, presumably killed but their bodies unidentifiable in the aftermath. Among the list were David Cook, John Cook, David McKee, Sarah Thompson, Elizabeth Todd, Vera Todd, Violet Todd, all from Blythe Street. The coroner requested that any information on these presumed deaths should be forwarded to him or alternatively those with information could attend the inquest at Belfast City Hall at 11am on Thursday the 19th of June. At the inquest all those present stood for a moment's silence as a mark of respect to the victims. What followed were harrowing eyewitness accounts of the events which had unfolded at the various devastation sites including Blythe Street. Herbert Lowe described these testimonies as the worst he had ever heard. It was recorded that eight people from four families were killed in one property at No. 95 Blythe Street. Giving evidence, Ernest Cook from 184 Blythe Street said that he and his wife and their two children went to No. 95 to stay with his sister-in-law. At about 3.30, Ernest's wife suggested that he should go and light the fire in their own house. He did this and was returning to his sister-in-law's when the bomb fell. One person who was not recorded as having died at number 95 by the coroner's inquest, but has been subsequently identified on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's website's list of fatalities, was Ernest Victor Cook, aged just 16. Seemingly, however, Ernest Victor Cook was identified at the time of the incident as having died and was buried at Belfast City Cemetery. At another coroner's inquest on Wednesday the 23rd of July, the presumed death of Georgina McGarry was confirmed. She lived at 87 Blythe Street. For the remaining years of the war, Sandy Rowe tried to pick up the pieces and struggle on. In spite of unbelievable hardship and hunger, the spirit of the people saw them through to VE Day and the end of the war. Sandy Rowe woman Jean Irwin recalled, I remember hearing the news in the Albion factory, she said, that the war was over. People were hugging and kissing each other and jumping up and down with joy and relief. We had managed to survive an awful time and we knew how to celebrate the end. People set up street parties, pubs were packed and the City Hall was the place for all the people of Belfast to yell their delight at the war's end. I'll remember that day for the rest of my life, said Jean. The VE Day party got underway a day early on the 7th of May. Sandy Row was festooned with bunting, streamers, flags and ferry lights. Lamp posts were wrapped in red, white and blue tinsel with photos of popular war leaders placed at the top. And whereas four years previously flames had illuminated the area as a result of the Blitz, for VE Day it was reported that Sandy Row glowed bright with bonfires in almost every street. Flames of joy rather than the previous flames of devastation. Air raid shelters were painted red, white and blue with bands of youth parading the streets to the beat of the drum. VE Day on Sandy Row had a 12th of July atmosphere about it, or as the Northern Whig newspaper described it, that victory was proclaimed in an unmistakably ulster fashion. Indeed, as early as the previous Friday, the 4th of May, a group of women were observed in procession, headed by a lamb-beg drum and touring the locality of Sandy Row. At their rear marched a respectable woman, it was said, wearing an orange sash. This and the enthusiasm shown across the VE Day celebrations, it was said, boded well for the upcoming 12th of July, when, quote, I asked Scott Edgar to tell me more about how VE Day played out in Belfast.

SPEAKER_02: 34:19

VE Day, or Victory in Europe Day, was a huge event in Belfast on the 8th of May 1945. It was something that people had been anticipating for quite a long time. As early as November 1944, the Belfast Corporation, who were runners to the City Council, had been putting plans together for how they would celebrate this moment when it came. A newspaper at the time described the scenes in Belfast as a city without strangers. Belfast Newsletter actually gives a great idea of the events that took place at City Hall. It says, people from all parts gathered in a festive mood along Donegal Place and Royal Avenue, long lines of revellers joined in a snake-like formation, dancing in and out among rows of tram cars and mobilised by the crowds. Songs were in the air everywhere. They ranged from Tipperary and the Favourites of 1918 to a completely new number that had been composed for the occasion, which began, Hitler thought he had us with a yeah, yeah, yeah. Across the city, Bunting hung from streets, flags flew from poles, locals had painted the air raid shelters, and residents just really took advantage of surprisingly good weather and congregated outside in their localities. They got together, made a noise, sang songs, banged drums and bin lids, and men in local communities would have lit bonfires. At three o'clock in the afternoon on the 8th of May 1945, Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed the nation, and following that, in Belfast, a cacophony of noise just rang out across the city, coming from church bells, ship horns, and the sirens of factories across the city. No sirens actually marked the beginning then of two days off for everyone. Not everyone, but for most people in Belfast. Landmarks like Stormont, Belfast City Hall, the Albert Clock were all lit up by floodlights. And this was a huge event because for the last six years, people have been living in blackout conditions. So even just to see streets lit up was a novelty for people. In working class products and neighborhoods, there were large street parties, union flag flew from houses and businesses. But VE Day was not just a religious or political event, and reports suggest that in places like the Short Strand, flags flew from houses too, although these were mainly American star-spangled banners, the French tricolour and the hammer and sickle of the USSR. While most people in Belfast were in the mood for partying on VE Day, there was also a more sombre side to the day. services of remembrance and thanksgiving took place at churches, crowds gathered there to pray for those who wouldn't be returning home. There was also a fear that the end of the Second World War would once again return the world to economic hardships which had followed after the Great War, but for most people these negative thoughts were put on hold for 48 hours Most people have the days off work. The beers were flowing in local pubs and singing and jubilant scenes of parties went on in Belfast and other provincial towns across Ulster well into the wee small hours of the next day.

SPEAKER_00: 37:45

The ending of the war, however, did not bring an end to the adversity. Food rationing continued, and food was even more scarce in some cases than it had been before. Military servicemen were returning from the war, some of whom were disabled and unfit for work. Those who could work found the search for employment difficult, as jobs were scarce while unemployment figures were sky high. It took many years for Sandy Row to recover from the effects of the conflict, during which families were often torn apart by poverty and the pressures of readjustment. People were scraping a living well into the 1950s, relying on pawn shops and rag and bone men, who'd give delft for scrap to make ends meet. They were expected to manage their households on a pittance and fear of not having food on the table. Fear too of admitting their worries to less than understanding husbands, which led to money being borrowed in secret. Sadie Kerr recalls one woman who borrowed in this way and found herself in a terrible predicament when the moneylender called for payment. She said, The woman was wild with worry. Appleman, the moneylender, had called to the door and her husband had opened it. When your man asked for the money he was owed, the husband went mad. swearing that he owed nobody no money and apple, pear or even orange man he could take himself off. The poor woman got away with it that time but heaven help her if the husband hadn't taken her lies on board. The woman in Sadie's story was fortunate however there were plenty of other women who were not so lucky and some of them took their own lives due to the unbearable pressure of mounting debts. This was the harsh reality of post-war life in Sandy Row and it would take over a decade before something resembling normality was restored.