Title: Rifleman ‘Mick’, RGJ
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Subject:Divis and the Falls.
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We were in North Howard Street Mill, in just under, company strength and our tasked areas were around there. I should point out that the mill was strategically placed about half a click from the Loyalist Shankhill and the Nationalist Falls and Divis areas and we were stationed there in a ‘buffer’ role. Foot patrols were the order of the day and we spent a lot of time in and around the Falls and Springfield Road and on the Divis.
The Divis flats – how could stacked shit stand up like that – were all postwar council housing and all the Catholics were jammed in there, whether by choice or because they liked safety in numbers I don’t know. There was the big 16 floor one where an off-duty lad had been killed earlier on and where several others were killed and a big, odd shaped complex which we called Zanussi for reasons I will explain later. These were 6 stories high and in zigzagged blocks of about 7 or 8 legs. The big block was a real bad arse building and we had a lot of trouble there with residents throwing things at us and spying on our movements and letting PIRA know what we were up to. Long, covered walkways with good sniper firing points and they were a real nuisance.
The Zanussi flats were so-called, because all manner of electrical goods products – TVs, fridges, washing machines etc – came flying out of the upper windows and the wreckage resembled an electrical goods showroom ! A lot of shit was happening around then and we weren’t liked and in turn we didn’t like them. It was strange because a lot of us came from around the East End [of London] and some of us were from south of the river and there were Oxford geezers in with us too. The carrot crunchers from the home counties with their country mansions hadn’t a clue about the poor housing we had come from and couldn’t understand that the enemy and their supporters came from like backgrounds. We had black geezers and Cockney wide boys and we were proud to be the ‘black mafia.’ Alright, there was prejudice against the blacks and all but these were ‘our’ blacks and if we had heard any racialist shouts from other badges, they would have got grief.
Apart from the big tower and Zanussi, there were lots of old back-to-backs and old terraced houses and Albert Street, the Rosses, St Peters Church, Servia St, Milford street were all fun places and we had lots of crap from the natives. I came from near the Mile End Road and I knew what being poor was all about and I remember the rows of terraced housing – the ones what Herman Goring missed – and the people and the community spirit but these people had none of this. All they had was hatred, for us, for the Prods and for the RUC. Could you blame them ? Perhaps not, but we were right in the middle.
A major Rupert wrote a book called ‘Pig in the Middle’ and he was right; that’s what we were. Around there was Leeson Street. Now there was a shithole. 3BN [RGJ’s 3rd Battalion] had a real arsehole of a time there and one of their lance jacks from ‘R’ company won the DCM in a major league firefight with the PIRA. Dirty brick terracing which, after some of the trouble, looked like a scene from ‘Band of Brothers’ when they was street fighting in Normandy.
One day on one of the Rosses, we had gone firm and I was crouching down by a house and something wet and slimy and pongy was poured over me running down my beret and down my smock. Honest to Christ, it reeked and I realised that it was piss. I looked up and saw a bedroom window being hurriedly closed and I went over to the front door and I was going to kick it in and take some bastard’s head off. The brick commander told me to forget it and I had to walk away. I stank all day because it was several hours before we were back at the Mill and nobody would come anywhere near me; b&*t&%*s !
They would spit at us and swear at us and tell us to fuck off home to England. They latched on to the fact that we was a London based regiment and called us cockney scum. One of the lads used to say that he’d heard worse from the Mrs.
One memory I have took place near the Zanussi and, I’m not proud of it, but it gave me a lot of satisfaction at the time. We were out on patrol on a cold day and we could see our breath in the air and we turned round a street and could see the zigzagged blocks. There was a bunch of youths, aged from about 14 to about 20 and they stood looking at us, looking daggers but they kept their traps shut and then one of them, about 16 years old started walking towards us where I was front man. I knew that trouble was looming because he kept looking back at his mates and smiling and they were like, egging him on. He got to within 2 feet of me and I could see his spots all red and shining. He just gobbed right in my bleeding face and stood there grinning. I was like, calm but he made the mistake of not running; just stood there and grinned, showing off to his mates. I had my SLR cradled in my right hand and just swung the butt upwards right under his jaw. You know the term ‘went down like a sack of spuds’ well he went down like that and didn’t move. The next thing all his mates legged it and we walked on. Within 10 minutes the word had spread and the Micks were out in strength and we had a riot on our hands.
No one ever asked me about it and none of the other geezers in
the brick said a wor . I was 21 at the time and couldn’t
really understand the hatred.
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