The chap standing on the right in this photo is my Dad in the Ex-Servicemen’s Club in the Ferry. The photo must have been taken not long before he died in 1965, because he has that hunted look on his face and his clothes are hanging on him. I remember round about that time a neighbour saying to him: “Christ, Derry, you’re like somebody just oot o’ Belsen.” Having helped to liberate that camp, the neighbour knew what he was talking about. I also remember Mum laughing about an earlier time in the Club when Dad went there with his best pal, Jock Bell. At the end of the night when the National Anthem was played and everyone was expected to stand, Dad and Jock decided to stage a two-man protest by keeping to their seats. They were barred from the Club for that sacrilege, of course, but, the Ferry being the Ferry, the ban didn’t last very long. Dad was such a gentle and easy-going man, I don’t know what would have got into him that night. A skinful of whisky, perhaps. And if the same incident were to occur today, I wonder how many others would join the protest. Saor Alba.
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