Story time

The troubles in NI were about as complicated as they get and my family are testiment to that. My dad served in the army over there during the troubles. He met my mum there. My grandad was commander of some group called the B Specials, he was a proddy farmer.

My family's land is on the border, in order to keep the peace he married one of my aunties off to the local IRA bigwig, my uncle. My dad spent much of his time in recon chasing this uncle about for "gun running". Hence why he met my mother. Uncle was never caught.

To keep the peace my grandad "ensured" that prod farmers employed only Catholic labourers and vice versa over the border. My best friend over there was the child of one of those labourers. He had a cottage on the opposite side of the valley on my grandads farm.

We used to play every summer I stayed there, until one day two Chinnock helicopters landed in the bog in the valley and soldiers took that family away, never seen them again.

We heard later that army found weapons cache in their cottage, God knows if true or not but back then it was all a bit wild.

Part of our "job" during winter as kids was to patrol the farm and look for footprints in the snow. It was a bit of a game for us at the time.

My grandads sons were also a bit wild and one stupidly with ignorant youth decided to join a paramilitary group which he ran from when they tried to get him to murder someone. They traced him back to my grandads farm not knowing who stayed there.

Revving their car engine at the door of the house till my grandad opened the door and they tried to drive away. The car didn't work that well after my grandad put a couple of shotgun slugs into its engine. They seemingly had a long walk home from middle of nowhere.

Another fun time was sneaking out of the farmhouse with my cousins in the middle of the night, to wind up the coos. Unfortunately one night the briar was filled with a group of squaddies who were sheltering from the weather, dunno who shat it the most. Us for suddenly having guns

pointed at us or them for the briar doors suddenly exploding open. We got the end of my grandads stick for leaving the house that night.

There are many more stories that I can't write on here. But what has changed from those days is that despite the hatred that existed back

then, NI has changed for the better since. Peace is fragile but with enough will those days of hate are in the past. It seems odd to me that the sectarian bullshit exists more in the West of Scotland than in NI. Must be easier to hate when u don't have to face the consequences.

My mum's generation of the family are still hardened Loyalists, though nothing like before. Even to the point that Brexit has made them seriously consider reunification. My cousins generation have moved on from that part of history. They value the peace that they can raise their

families in.

Anyway,im blabbering on. These drugs the docs have me on are making my head light.