Читать книгу Thatcher's Spy - Willie Carlin - Страница 10

CHAPTER 1

FROM HOLY ORDERS TO BATTLE ORDERS

Prior to my decision to follow my father’s footsteps into the British Army I had another calling, and this one was from God. Just before leaving primary school in Derry I went to see the biblical epic King of Kings at the Rialto Cinema on Market Street. Moved and mesmerised by Jeffrey Hunter’s portrayal of Jesus, my best friend Michael Stewart and I talked about becoming priests. Shortly after Easter, we spoke to our parents about the priesthood and later were sent to a religious retreat across the border in Donegal, which was part of a special weekend for boys in their mid-teens thinking of entering Holy Orders. Although impressed by the selfless frugality of the monks at the Doon Well and Ards Monastery, the desire to become a priest had wore off by my final year in ‘big school’. In contrast, Michael entered the seminary in his early twenties, and eventually served in Nottingham and Derry before tragically dying at a young age from an undetected brain tumour.

I often wonder where my life might have taken me if I had trodden the same path as Michael and ended up in some Derry parish, or even in an isolated mission in a far-flung place on the other side of the world. But by my late teens there was a calling towards another life in uniform – the colours of the Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars.

Although born into a devout Derry Catholic family, it was not unusual for a family like mine to have strong, historic connections to the British military. At the time of my birth on 30 July 1948, my father Tommy Carlin was working at the local Royal Navy base, HMS Sea Eagle, on the Waterside. During the Second World War, Derry was an important naval installation for the British and later the American navies during the Battle of the Atlantic. German U-boats were scuttled in the Foyle after the defeat of the Third Reich, and the city was filled with tales of the Yanks who were based in Derry during the 1940s. Our history classes in primary school were full of stories of bad Nazis and the bold Americans who were sent to save us. There was never any mention of the IRA, the English, or the Troubles of the 1920s, and I knew where an exotic place called Burma was because I would tell my classmates and my teachers that this was where my daddy had been stationed during the war.

Tommy Carlin spent the post-war years working with the Royal Navy, this time as a civilian worker at HMS Sea Eagle, where he also played in the Navy’s football team – the Sea Eagle Rovers. I remember one afternoon watching his team play on the big sports ground at Clooney Park West on Waterside. After their 1-0 defeat, he and the rest of the Rovers retired to a place overlooking the Foyle called Ebrington Barracks on their way back to Sea Eagle. It was the first time I walked through the gateway of the nineteenth-century barracks and little did I know that this place was going to play a key role in my later life as a secret agent.

I finally left school at the tender age of fifteen in the summer of 1962, and within 72 hours of being out in the big bad world of work I got my first job. The Birmingham Sound Reproducers (BSR) factory manufactured record players and was situated in what we called the ‘new road’ that backed onto Bligh’s lane. I was almost immediately sent to work in the paint shop section of the plant where I learnt how to spray paint amid the deafening noise of the machinery and the endless banter of the older men on the production line. Although I was earning about a half-crown per week I didn’t like the job and was a bit spooked (given my priestly leanings and continued devout faith) at the filthy language on the shop floor; sometimes even fights broke out between grown men on the line. In fact, the only time I saw peaceful unity in the paint shop was when the news broke more than a year later that President John F. Kennedy had been shot dead in Dallas. To Derry Catholics, Kennedy was a cult hero, given his religion and proud Irish ancestry, and in many Catholic homes in the city images of him hung beside portraits of the Sacred Heart and Our Lady. Two days after his assassination the whole BSR factory downed tools, including myself, and we marched to Derry’s Catholic Cathedral for a memorial mass in JFK’s honour.

By the summer of 1965, I had become disillusioned with working at BSR and spoke to my father about trying again for the priesthood. When I was dissuaded against it I returned heavy-hearted to the factory gates to find the entire plant was on strike. The stoppage was a result of Derry workers going on a fact-finding tour of BSR’s factory in Birmingham, where they heard a rumour that its mainly female workforce earned more than us. The bitterness over the strike resulted in poor industrial relations and led to a series of one-day strikes and walk-outs. Eventually, the owners closed the factory, moved out of Derry and left 1,500 men and boys on the dole.

During the summer I befriended Davy McMenamy, the first Protestant lad I ever knew. We had met at BSR the previous Christmas and hit it off straight away. We hung out in some of the city’s dance halls and even attended dances in the Memorial Hall on Derry’s Walls, the social club run by the staunchly loyalist Apprentice Boys. There was no open sectarianism on the dance floor, though. Back then the only fights in the Memorial Hall were usually between two boys fighting over a girl. I drank my first ever beer with Davy at Butlin’s holiday camp across the border in County Meath in the Irish Republic.

Davy and I talked about what might happen once BSR shut up shop in Derry. My father had often told stories of his life in the army and he agreed to chat to us about the military. One night, Davy came over to our home and Dad regaled us with tales of drills and marches as if he was trying to put us off. However, he did suggest that a much better option for us would be an armoured regiment, where we would get to drive around in armoured cars and even tanks. My older brother Robert joined in the conversation and soon all three of us were hooked. Just after my seventeenth birthday, we visited the Army Recruitment Office on Derry’s Strand Road. There we met with Sergeant Derek Dunseith, the brother of the legendary Radio Ulster presenter, the late David Dunseith. After we had filled in our application forms my father signed the enlistment papers and off I went to England to join the Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars.

Within weeks of meeting Sergeant Dunseith at the recruiting office on the Strand Road, and after a medical examination in Omagh, Robert and I were on our way to the Royal Armoured Corps Training Headquarters at Catterick Camp in Yorkshire. The train left Derry at 5.40pm and my father chatted to us in the station as we waited to depart. It was one of those awkward Irish conversations between a father and his sons, peppered with banalities like ‘Don’t forget to phone’ and ‘Have you got your ferry ticket?’ Then he said what all Irish parents say to their sons who, deep down, they don’t really want to leave, and my father was no exception. He was very proud that Robert and I were following in his footsteps and joining the army, but at the same time he was very sad that we were leaving him. He kept saying, ‘Sure, it won’t be long before you’re back’. Soon, a whistle blew and we boarded the train. Within minutes we were waving goodbye to my father as the train pulled out of the station and we headed for Belfast.

That night I was so excited on the ferry that I couldn’t sleep. I’d never seen a big ship before, let alone been on one, and we spent hours wandering around in awe of this machine. There were people in the bar, experienced travellers, who knew of the turbulent crossing that lay ahead, and their way of coping with it was to get drunk and fall asleep where they sat. By 4am, as the ferry rocked from side to side in the storm, I was uncontrollably sick. As the ship arrived at Heysham ferry terminal the next morning, still pale and ill we caught the train to Richmond. On arrival at Catterick, Robert and I were met at the guardroom by a Corporal who was passing his Sunday doing the crossword. We were a day early and none of the new recruits were expected until the next day. He directed us to Headquarters, where we were met by a Corporal of the Household Cavalry who showed us to our room. There were twelve beds in the room and we could choose any two we liked. After unpacking, Robert and I decided to go for a walk around the camp. Apart from the odd person in civvies we never actually saw any soldiers. We found a phone box and, as arranged, rang home to Leenan Gardens in Creggan where my father and mother were waiting to take the call.

The next four weeks for intake 65-9 (the ninth intake of the year) was full of kit inspections, locker checks, marching, running, and doing punishment press-ups because someone had done something wrong. A typical evening was spent listening to the radio whilst shining boots, polishing buckles or ironing kit. We were woken every morning at half past five to prepare for room inspection. Each of us had jobs to do: cleaning the Blanco room, the washrooms, the showers, the ironing room, the stairs and landing and our own room, which had to be polished and bumpered every morning. If the morning inspection went well, we were straight on parade for a day’s training. If it didn’t, we were cleaning again until l0am. By the end of the first week, most of us had sussed out that all the shouting and roaring and throwing of kit around the room was obviously an exercise, by our instructors, to break us and make sure that only the best got through basic training. During this time I realised two things about myself: I was very fit – probably due to running from Creggan to the Long Tower school and back twice a day for ten years – and I didn’t like the English. There was something arrogant about them. Not just our instructors, but most of the lads in the intake were pushy and always thought they knew what they were talking about.

By mid-October, what was left of the intake was preparing to ‘pass out’ and looking forward to a weekend’s leave. The kit inspections didn’t happen as often, the block we lived in was immaculate, the locker inspections usually went well every day and we were a tight-knit group when it came to combat training or marching. Most of the lads in our intake had made it through because they were either determined or had the guts to sustain the daily attacks which were, in the main, well-meant and designed to change us from being civilians to soldiers.

After four weeks we had completed our GMT (General Military Training) and were rehearsing for the ‘passing out’ parade with the regimental band. The parade itself was a memorable experience; a day of celebration with most of the lads’ parents sitting watching us as we did our stuff on the parade ground. I was very proud as my name, 24056669 Trooper Carlin, was called out and I marched forward to receive the cap badge of my regiment: ‘The Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars’.

Just as we were preparing to go home after the parade, my brother Robert informed me that he had failed his physical and was to be back-squatted for two weeks on our return from leave. Everyone in the intake was given leave on Friday afternoon until eight o’clock Monday morning. All of them were home by Friday night, except for Robert and I. By the skin of our teeth we made it to Heysham and the Friday night sailing of the Belfast ferry, and after an overnight journey and a two-hour train journey to Derry we got home just after 11am. Sadly, because there were no sailings from Belfast to Heysham on a Sunday, we had to leave Derry again that same Saturday night at 5.40. This gave us just fourteen hours at home, with barely enough time to have a chat about our experience and get something to eat.

We must have been the only soldiers in the British Army ever to take our kit home to show our parents how well polished it all was. During that day, the topic of Robert having to stay back came up. My father spoke to me in the kitchen, ‘Wullie, would you mind very much if I got in touch with the Colonel at Catterick and asked if you could stay behind with Robert? I could put it to him that both of you want to go to Germany together because the truth is, Wullie, I don’t think Robert will make it through on his own.’ I was shocked because I was looking forward to joining the regiment as soon as possible. That evening, as we waited by the train in the Waterside station, my father asked me again. I was still divided between what he was asking and going to Germany. In the end I agreed to stay with Robert.

The next few weeks in Catterick were really the making of me. I was in a new squad that was learning some of the things Robert and I already knew. When it came to marching or kit inspections we were models for the other lads in the room. Suddenly, the English weren’t so cocky. Often they would ask me for help, which I gladly gave. In the end, the time passed quickly enough and Robert and I made it through. We were now qualified drivers of Saladin armoured cars and Ferret Scout cars – the same military vehicles that would become commonplace on the streets of our own home town a few years later as the Troubles erupted.

After a week’s leave in Derry we flew from Manchester to Hanover on a BOAC jet. This again was a new experience; I’d never been on an aeroplane before. Indeed, I’d never been to an airport before. I’ll never forget the feeling in my stomach as the plane hurtled down the runway and took off. I was scared shitless as my stomach came up to the back of my throat but I just sat there smiling, as most people do, during the experience. Later that evening we arrived in Wolfenbuttle, just east of Hanover, by minibus and entered the world of the Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars.

***

Life in the regiment was totally different from training. There were no kit inspections, civilian cleaners cleaned the washrooms and toilets, there were no more than three people to a room, there was no shouting or roaring at the men, and most of the soldiers had forgotten how to march. The weeks went from Monday to Friday, preparing vehicles, servicing them, going for short drives around Wolfenbuttle and back again. No one worked after 5pm and Wednesday afternoons were reserved for Egyptian PT (lying in bed). I didn’t enjoy Egyptian PT at all; instead I went for a run every Wednesday with Bob Kelly, a Lance Corporal from Dublin. He was the regiment’s top cross-country runner and he soon told the captain of the team how good I was.

In 1966, telephone communication – or indeed any communication – was radically different from today. To speak to my parents from Germany I would first have to write a letter to them giving details of the exact time I would be ringing the call box in Leenan Gardens. Then three days before the call was to be made it had to be booked through the WVS (Women’s Voluntary Service). The day before the call I would be notified of the time of the call (usually the time requested), and on the night of the call the WVS would phone London for a connection to Belfast, who would then connect to Derry. When the operator in Derry came on the line, the number of the telephone box in Leenan Gardens would be given and when my father answered he would be told to stand by for an international call from Germany. Once the connection was made, I was sent to the phone booth along the corridor to pick up the receiver. Calls were not allowed to last any longer than fifteen minutes and the time seemed to fly by before the operator from London would inform me that my time was up.

By 1967, I had been promoted to Lance Corporal and had settled in well. We had been on several exercises and won troop competitions against other regiments. The big main exercise each year was known as the FTX (Field Training eXercise) – a NATO operation which involved four weeks in the field. This was great if you were keen, enthusiastic and single, as I was, but not so good if you were experienced, married and enjoyed the social life that being a soldier in West Germany brought. During one of the exercises, I was involved in what was called an international Cold War incident. Third troop, ‘A’ Squadron, led by Lieutenant Sutcliffe, were scrambled and called out for a reconnaissance patrol along the River Elbe, which straddled the border between West Germany and East Germany. An East German survey ship had tied up on the west side of the river – on our side of the border – and the crew had mutinied and taken the captain and the other officers captive. They were now threatening to blow up the ship if their demands were not met, and as I sat in the driver’s seat of the scout car, peering through the periscope, activity on the ship heightened and gunfire was heard.

I was shaking and tried to stay calm as I watched from the edge of a wood just a few hundred yards from the riverbank and the ship. Just then, a helicopter appeared overhead with a spotlight directed at the vessel. By now my knees were trembling and I put my right hand down to steady them. I could feel the sweat running down my neck and my hands were clammy as I gripped the metal steering wheel inside the cab. I had visions of being blown up or shot in the opening salvo of the Third World War as it spread along the Iron Curtain. Corporal Frankie Shivers, my commander, was advised over the radio to load up the Browning machine gun with live rounds. I heard him say, ‘If we open fire on this ship we could start World War Three.’ There were a further four hours of intense activity over the radio network; things were getting worse and I just sat there, frozen to the seat. All I could think of was to say a decade of the Rosary and pray that we could get out of this wood, away from the river and back to the safety of our camp.

At the other end of the woods sat another scout car manned by a commander and driven by another young Irishman just like me. Trooper Hughie McCabe was married, a Catholic from Belfast who was also not enjoying defending our gracious Queen and the German border. He and I passed the hours away chatting on the internal network about all sorts of things, we even sang songs over the net, much to the amusement of our commanders. Watching the ship we saw people come and go from the cabins until eventually things seemed to quieten down. Just before daybreak, Corporal Shivers and Lieutenant Sutcliffe were ordered to stand down. We were later told that the East German sailors had been overpowered and the ship returned to its captain. Back in the squad room we were hailed as heroes and the Colonel himself came from headquarters to congratulate us personally.

After the exercise was over, life in the camp returned to normal with lots of dos in the mess, and, for me, baby-sitting various NCOs. Tony Bamford, who had joined the army in 1966, was posted to our regiment and had become a frequent visitor to my room. As time passed we became friends, often going to the cinema or to the mess together. Tony was going on leave for the whole of August; he and his girlfriend, Mary, were to be engaged. I had also planned to be on leave for the last two weeks in August and the first two weeks in September.

Tony and I arranged to meet up when I got to Derry, and I invited him to a party at my aunt Vera’s. Tony had been writing to Mary on and off for over a year and had dated her while he was on leave. He also phoned her regularly. I spoke with her one night as Tony introduced me over the phone. She sounded like a nice girl and I was pleased for him. At this time, my brother Robert was in ‘B’ Squadron and drove three-ton trucks, so I rarely saw him. He had gained in confidence and had friends of his own, so for the first time I travelled to Derry on leave on my own. My mother didn’t know that I was coming and Tony brought her the message that I would be phoning her at the phone box in Leenan Gardens at 7pm that night. I arrived in Derry at lunchtime and was picked up by my uncle George, then spending the afternoon at Vera’s. Just before 7pm, as my mother and father waited for the phone to ring, I walked up behind them and put my arms round my mother. ‘Hello Mammy,’ I said giving her a hug. My father had seen me coming, but stayed silent. There were tears and lots more hugs. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like a soldier any more, I just felt like a wee boy who had come home. Life was boring in Creggan; most of the people that I knew were busy working or mixing with new friends and I spent most of the days helping my mother around the house.

Before my return to Germany from leave I met up with Tony and Mary. We spent the afternoon sitting in the Waterside park, listening to Tony Blackburn on Mary’s transistor radio. She was a lovely girl, full of fun and energy, and she said she would write to me too as I didn’t have a girlfriend or a pen friend. A few months later, back in Paderborn, Germany, Tony told me that he and Mary had sort of drifted apart and they didn’t communicate anymore, which probably explained why she had never written to me. However, that Christmas Day a backlog of Christmas mail was brought into my room. There were some letters from my mother and father, cards from my brothers Tommy and Dickie and my sister Doreen, together with other cards from various aunts and uncles. There was one particular card that simply said, ‘Season’s Greetings’ and underneath was written ‘Remember me, Mary McGonagle’, and her address. At the bottom in brackets, Mary had added, ‘Please write to me’. I spent the rest of Christmas Day writing to Mary, and by the time I had finished had used nearly a full writing pad. I posted my letter on the first available delivery, hoping she would receive it by the New Year. Within weeks, I had received a letter back from Mary and had spoken to her on the phone. We continued to write over the spring of 1968, and I went home again on leave in June.

***

The regiment was posted to Bovington in Dorset, where the Royal Armoured Corps had its headquarters. At the time the centre was mainly staffed by civilians, but a recent change in emphasis by the Ministry of Defence meant that a regiment would now be in charge. The Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars were the first armoured corps regiment to run Bovington and we were all to be in place by September 1968. Of course, living in the UK meant being able to get home easier, and Mary and I had talked about my coming to Derry more often and how she might be able to travel to England and visit me. It was during one such leave that Mary and I made love for the first time. I was a virgin, and I discovered that Mary was too. It was one of those fumbling love sessions that you read about, except that I was twenty and she was nineteen – the products of a good Catholic upbringing.

After I returned to Bovington, I settled down into a new way of life. I was now a Lcpl (Lance Corporal) clerk in the orderly room and was on a camp with men and women – the women being from the WRAC. During a phone call to Mary one evening, I asked her if we could get engaged. She said yes, and within weeks we were engaged to be married. The ring (from H Samuels in Ferryquay Street) was £10.17.06 and we celebrated by having two suppers in a nearby chip shop as we discussed how to tell our parents. We decided upon a ceremony on 19 July the following year and spent the next nine months saving to get married, since we had decided that we should pay for everything ourselves. Mary and I phoned each other nearly every night.

By May 1969, Mary was telling me of marches in the Creggan and Bogside and she had joined an organisation called ‘The Civil Rights Association’. Ivan Cooper, one of her bosses at Kelly’s Factory, was one of the leaders, together with a young man called John Hume. She told me about being charged and batoned by the ‘B’ Specials, who I had never heard of, and started to send me copies of the Derry Journal so I could read about it for myself.

On 1 July 1969 I asked the Colonel for permission to marry. As a soldier in the British Army, his permission was needed and a document had to be provided to give to the priest. Put simply, I was a number, a soldier, whose life belonged to the Ministry of Defence and, being under twenty-one, they had to be sure that I knew what I was doing and had thought things through. After a little grilling on both sides, permission was granted and I travelled home with my brother Robert and Nelson Bennett. Nelson was a Protestant and the Colonel’s staff-car driver. He and I had become friendly as he waited around the orderly room to pick up the Colonel. I had asked him, as he was going on leave as well, if he fancied coming to Derry and being my groomsman. He agreed and all three of us set off for Derry, equipped with our ceremonial uniforms.

In Derry things were quite tense, but I visited Mary every night as we prepared for our wedding. Although we had saved enough money, there were still things that we made ourselves – like flowers for the guests. We had real flowers for our parents, our immediate family and the bridesmaids but for the rest of the guests we made paper flowers, which was quite common in Derry in the 60s. We would spend an hour or so each night making paper flowers using two toilet rolls, white for the men and pink for the ladies. Four pieces of toilet roll were folded into eight, bound around a pipe-cleaner, opened up layer by layer and then pared off with scissors to form the shape of a flower. A piece of real fern was attached to the rear, and silver paper was wrapped around the pipe-cleaner. The flower itself was sprayed with perfume.

On the morning of Saturday 19 July, Robert, Nelson and I, fully dressed in our ‘blues’ with lanyards, chainmail and spurs, posed for photographs at the back of our house in Creggan. All of the neighbours wished us well as we boarded the wedding car and headed off, down through the city centre and over to St Columb’s Chapel on the Waterside. I remember travelling through the Guildhall Square and seeing all the RUC Land Rovers and a large crowd shouting at them. Soon I was waiting at the altar with Mary, her bridesmaid Ria and her flower girls, Linda and Elaine, by my side. Father Jimmy Doherty, a trendy young priest, performed the marriage ceremony.

Our wedding reception was held in the Woodleigh Hotel on the Derry side. As we celebrated at our reception, only a few hundred yards away the RUC and the ‘B’ Specials were attacking a small civil rights march. There were rumours amongst our guests that the army might have to be brought in to save the Catholics from the bigoted and sectarian ‘B’ Specials. Mary and I left the reception for our honeymoon just before 4pm. Her cousin Anthony, who had a car, drove us to Butlins in Mosney, County Meath. One night during the honeymoon there was a report on the news that a rioter had been shot dead by the RUC in Belfast. It was being said that he was possibly a terrorist because he had been aiming a rifle at an RUC patrol near a block of flats. Sadly, this turned out not to be the case; the victim was none other than Trooper Hughie McCabe, the young soldier who had defended the German border with me on the banks of the River Elbe. He was mistaken for a gunman whilst home on leave and had been shot by an RUC man who said he was on the roof of a block of flats brandishing a rifle. Sometime later, the Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars held an internal board of inquiry which found that Trooper McCabe had been mistaken for a gunman and his death was possibly an ‘error of judgement’ at the height of intense rioting. His family was later paid compensation for the mistake, but the RUC man who killed Hughie was never cautioned, admonished or punished for his ‘error of judgement’.

After our honeymoon I returned to Bovington, where a Colonel Biddy advised me of a house that I could have for £2.10s a week. It was twenty minutes from the camp in a town called Wareham in Dorset, and by September Mary and I had moved into our first new home at Tarrant’s Lodge in Wareham. It was one of the nicest places we had ever seen; the neighbours were kind, there was a supermarket on the corner, and the mini-bus picked me up at the door every morning. The problem was, it arrived at 6.30am and I didn’t get home again until 7.30 each night. Thinking back, it must have been terrible for Mary. She usually had the housework completed by 10am and must have been terribly bored for the rest of the day. We spent only a short time in Wareham, and by the end of October Mary and I had moved to a married quarters in Dorchester. By the spring, Mary was heavily pregnant and was booked into a private clinic in Dorchester – all paid for by the army. To show how naive we both were, our local GP, Doctor Burns, visited us one evening with diagrams on how the baby would be born; Mary didn’t know and I had no idea either. He was amazed at our innocence and was very sympathetic. Towards the end of March he called in to see Mary nearly every other day. The regiment broke up for Easter leave on Holy Thursday, and I had sensibly booked two weeks’ leave because our baby was due any day. On 28 March 1970, at 5.40pm on Easter Saturday, our son, Mark William Carlin, was born weighing 8 lb 7 oz.

By September 1971, the regiment had served its time in Bovington and we were posted to the city of Paderborn. Mary and I were allocated a married quarters on Von Stauffenberg Strasse near Elsen, about five miles from the camp. It was during this posting that the Troubles in Northern Ireland was becoming clear in our minds. By now the situation in Derry was getting very, very serious. The IRA was becoming active and youths were being beaten and shot at by the British Army. Gunmen were on the streets and law and order was breaking down. It was at this time that we learned the very sad news that 14-year-old Annette McGavigan, a distant cousin of mine who we had met back home a few weeks earlier, had been shot dead by the British Army.

We didn’t have a TV in the flat because it was all in German, though we did have BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Service) radio, and it was reported that Annette had been rioting. I was shocked and outraged at first, then very confused when my brother phoned to say Annette had been deliberately shot whilst collecting pebbles for a montage she was putting together as part of a school project. I thought that the army had been sent to Northern Ireland to bring about law and order. Most of us assumed this meant sorting out the ‘B’ Specials and bringing them to book for some of their atrocities. There were now fights in the camp between the Irish and the English, but these were mostly drunken rows and never really amounted to anything.

***

On arriving home one evening, Mary informed me that she was pregnant again. We had been trying for another baby for a while and we celebrated with a party on the Saturday night. In the early 1970s, parties in Germany were a way of releasing energy as most of the exercises were by now fairly low-key and we weren’t away from home as often. The estate we lived in had been built for the army by the West German government, almost to order, and had been taken over, equipped and furnished by the quartermaster’s office. It was a mini ‘land of plenty’ in those days; a married soldier was given everything from the bed and bedding, all furniture, fixtures and fittings, right down to an egg timer.

At the end of January 1972, the reality of the events back home shook us to the core. It was reported on the BFBS network that some rioters and several gunmen had been shot dead by the army in Derry. I didn’t know what to think until I learned more about what was increasingly becoming known as Bloody Sunday, when British soldiers shot twenty-eight unarmed civilians during a protest march against internment by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA). Thirteen people were killed on the day and another man died four months later as a result of his injuries. Many were shot while running from the soldiers and some while trying to help the wounded. Later, in the summer of 1972, on 8 June to be precise, Mary gave birth to our daughter Sharon at the British Military Hospital in Rinteln.

Two weeks later, Mary, Mark, Sharon and I left Germany for the last time. I had volunteered and applied for a posting at Bovington Camp in Dorset. That meant a Sergeant’s pay with the acting rank of Sergeant, only this time to the Junior Leader’s Regiment Royal Armoured Corps. Though the posting didn’t commence until September, I had to take six weeks’ leave prior to it – something I wasn’t prepared to give up. Of course, Mary was delighted and she looked forward to going home with Sharon and Mark; because in those days Germany felt like the other side of the world. After a two-day drive all the way from Germany, we arrived in Derry. Mary’s mum and dad now lived on Violet Street, having sold their house on Riverview Terrace. Sharon was the apple of everyone’s eye, and a photograph was quickly arranged with Mary’s granny, her mother, Mary and Sharon showing four generations in the family. We hardly saw Sharon, such was the queue to look after her.

I was warned that to visit the Derry side was dangerous and we were definitely not to take our car. Shortly after 8pm one summer evening, Mary and I walked across the bridge, up Carlisle Road, through Ferryquay Gate, heading for my brother Dickie’s flat in Pump Street. We were suddenly confronted by hundreds of youths, men and women running towards us. Bottles were being thrown and shots fired; we had walked straight into a riot. I grabbed Mary and pushed her into a doorway in front of Woolworth’s and we both got on our knees and crouched down as young men and women ran past us, some of them charging towards the Derry Walls, some up Pump Street, while others ran straight down Carlisle Road. Some of the youths wore masks and turned to engage the army with stones and bottles; others threw petrol bombs. Mary and I were right in the firing line and I decided that we should probably make a run for it, towards the soldiers, and identify ourselves so as not to be confused as rioters. Another couple who had sought safety beside us in the doorway also ran towards the soldiers, trying to explain to one soldier that they were simply trying to make their way home. Instead, the soldier in question beat both of them to the ground. Outraged, I ran out and was almost hit by a petrol bomb that exploded at my feet. I managed to jump over it and pulled Mary by the hand towards two soldiers who were standing on the corner near ‘The Diamond’, the shopping centre in the commercial heart of the city.

I shouted at the Corporal and complained about his colleague’s abuse of the young couple, who now lay bloody and battered outside Austin’s Store. He told me to ‘fuck off!’ and when I produced my MOD90 (military identity card) and ordered him to give me his name and number his colleague drew a baton and smashed me over the head with it and I fell to the ground; a ‘Brit’ was beating a fellow Brit because he assumed I was a republican rioter! The next thing I remember was Mary dragging me to the doorway of Austin’s. We eventually made our way back to the Waterside, where Mary’s father took me to the hospital. I received six stitches to my head and was told I was very lucky. Even after all these years I still bear the mark of that baton. The RUC, who were at the hospital most of the night taking the names and addresses of anyone admitted in order to connect them with the rioting, took my name and address, and before I knew it, I was to be charged with rioting.

I couldn’t phone anyone at the regiment, as they were all on leave, but went to the RUC station on Spencer Road the next day to make a statement. I met with an inspector who, despite expressing sympathy, told me I shouldn’t have been in the area and that being a soldier made it all the more serious. I was to be reported to the military police at Ebrington Barracks, who would pass on their report to my commanding officer at Bovington. I spent the next two weeks reading and hearing all about the British Army in Derry, the RUC, the thirteen people that had been murdered on Bloody Sunday, the IRA, a guy called Martin McGuinness, and Sinn Féin.

It was at this time that I discovered that Jim Wray, my classmate and friend, had been one of those murdered by the Parachute Regiment on Bloody Sunday. I felt sick for days, but worse still was when I found out that Seamus Cusack, my friend from Melmore, had also been shot dead in 1971. People were quite adamant that he had not been armed, was not a member of any organisation and had in fact been murdered. It all seemed insane to me; Derry had gone mad. I couldn’t wait to get out of the city and away to my new posting.

Back at Bovington, just before the intake returned for autumn 1972, a letter arrived from the military police at Ebrington Barracks addressed to the commanding officer. The chief clerk in the base called me to his office, closed the door and smiled, ‘Look what I got.’ As chief clerk it was his duty to open all mail addressed to the colonel. I pulled my chair closer to his desk as he opened the envelope. He read the letter, which had two documents attached to it, put it down and stared at me looking pensive. ‘I think you’re in trouble,’ he said. It was the report of my alleged rioting in Derry.

I explained to him what had actually happened and he went off to have a word with the colonel. This wasn’t a very good start to my new job, particularly as I hadn’t even met the colonel yet. As it happened, Colonel Green from the Royal Tank Regiment turned out to be very understanding and told me to forget about it and that he would have a word. In the time I served there it was Colonel Green who took me under his wing, mentored me and taught me how to respond to the trials and tribulations of being his assistant.

***

Mary was a great manager of our finances, and she was able to save enough for us to go back to Derry for Christmas. In early December we did some seasonal shopping and bought a large truck with bricks in it for Mark and a fluffy little teddy bear for Sharon. She was a little young for Christmas, but we promised one another that next year when she better understood the festival she would have a bigger present. Sharon was a lovely, happy baby, and had both of us wrapped around her little finger. Indeed, one night when she was a little restless Mary asked me to fetch the teddy bear to settle her down. But I refused, saying that ‘it will only spoil Christmas Day for her’.

On the morning of 16 December 1972, the day we were due to set off for Derry, tragedy struck our family. We had packed our cases and loaded the car the night before, ready for an early start. It was frosty that night but the house was warm and we all slept well. I rose first and went down to make Sharon a bottle while Mary got Mark and Sharon out of bed and dressed. I was standing by the cooker when I heard an almighty scream from upstairs. I dropped the kettle and ran to see what had happened. As I reached the doorway of Sharon’s little room, Mary was screaming at the top of her voice and shaking uncontrollably. I grabbed her by the waist to stop her. ‘Mary, for God’s sake what’s wrong?’ She turned and, with tears streaming down her face, pointed towards Sharon’s cot. I stepped past her and walked over to where my baby lay. I touched Sharon’s cold face and lifted her into my arms. She wasn’t breathing, so I laid her on the floor, tilted her head back and began giving her mouth to mouth resuscitation. Mary knelt beside me, rubbing the back of Sharon’s small, cold hand and whispering encouraging words, ‘That’s it, Willie! She’s moving! Keep going!’ After five minutes or so I knew in my heart what Mary didn’t want to believe. Sharon was dead. I lifted her tubby little body and carried her down the stairs.

‘Mary,’ I said, ‘run down the lane to John Sawyer’s house and ask them to phone a doctor’. Mary ran out of the front door and I could hear her screaming, ‘Please, somebody help us. Please help us.’ After a minute I checked Sharon’s pulse again but there was no sign of life. I lifted her onto the sofa and covered her with a baby blanket. She looked as though she was asleep. I burst into tears, dropped to my knees beside her, and, holding her tiny limp hand, began shouting at the Sacred Heart picture that hung above the fireplace, ‘No! Please God. No!’ Mary arrived back with Margaret Sawyer, John’s wife, who was a nurse at the local hospital. She pushed past me, went straight over to the sofa and checked Sharon for any signs of life. After checking the lifeless body, Margaret came over and put her arms around us saying, ‘I’m so sorry.’ Mary burst into tears and dropped to her knees shouting, ‘Oh God, no! Please don’t do this to me!’

A few minutes later the doctor arrived and began examining Sharon. With a big sigh he stood up. ‘I’m afraid the baby is dead,’ he said. Mary collapsed onto the floor again, in a near faint, and when she came around she began screaming. The doctor asked me to hold her while he gave her an injection to sedate her, and after a few minutes Mary was fast asleep.

‘Daddy, are we nearly ready?’ said Mark, tugging at my sleeve. Poor Mark, with all that was happening I had forgotten all about him. I lifted him onto my lap and tried to explain what had happened, but at two years of age he just didn’t understand. He walked over to the sofa, where he was used to seeing Sharon lie, bent down and kissed her saying, ‘There now, there now.’ I burst into tears.

Sometime later two police officers from Dorchester arrived and immediately started asking questions. Who discovered the baby’s body? Where was I at the time? When was the last time I saw her alive? When was she last fed? Who fed her? Have you still got the bottle? Where is the box with the baby food? On and on they went. I was cracking up and by this time Mary was awake and sobbing. Just then Sergeant Crabb, the local bobby, arrived and beckoned his two colleagues to the door. He had a quiet word with them and that was the last that we ever saw of them, although Sergeant Crabb walked us through the same questions, just for the record. Before he left, we asked Sergeant Crabb if he could contact the local police in Derry to deliver the sad news to Mary’s parents. The undertakers in High Street arrived later in a black Ford van and prepared Sharon’s body in the kitchen. Within minutes the undertakers were gone and we three were alone again. Mark had tears in his eyes and I held him. He was too young to say very much but he knew it was bad. I burst into tears, I just wanted to die. I felt so useless. How could God do this to us? I struggled through the rest of the day and managed to get Mary down to the phone box to call her mum. It was one of the most heart-breaking calls I’ve ever witnessed.

Mary was unable to go to the funeral and couldn’t bear the thought of seeing Sharon being buried in the cold December ground. At the funeral parlour, the clerk gave me some wreaths, one from Colonel Green and his wife, another from Del Wennel, one from Jock and Steph, and one from Sergeant Crabb. Sharon’s small white coffin was lifted into the back of a black car normally used for weddings. I sat beside the coffin and we drove the short distance to the cemetery, just outside Dorchester. It was a very cold frosty morning, and it was at times like this that I realised the value of having your family and friends around you. Instead, here I was in England in a graveyard in the middle of nowhere, standing over a muddy hole in the ground. Beside me stood the old gravedigger and the local priest, Irishman Father Flynn, who was also padre to the local prison. The three of us gathered to celebrate the short life of Sharon Carlin. I felt so ashamed, she deserved better than this. I held back tears as the priest began his oration, white smoke from his breath rising into the frosty morning air as he prayed. The old gravedigger stood beside him, leaning on a shovel with his head bowed and his cap in his hand. The sound of crows echoed around the cemetery. ‘There always seems to be bloody crows at funerals,’ I thought. Within minutes the ceremony was nearing its end and we began lowering Sharon’s small white coffin into the ground. After a few more prayers the priest shook my hand and hobbled off to his car.

I stood there, staring down at the silver cross on the coffin lid. When the first lump of muddy earth hit the casket I fell to my knees, sobbing like a baby. Until then I had been fairly strong, but the sound and sight of the earth on the coffin’s lid was just too much. The gravedigger helped me to my feet, my knees covered in mud, and I knew he wanted me to leave. I picked a tiny red rose from one of the wreaths and dropped it into the grave, then I turned, still sobbing, and walked back towards the black car where the driver was waiting.

By lunchtime, Mary, Mark and I were in the car heading home to Ireland. Back in Derry, we were supported through our trauma with the help of Mary’s mum and dad. The neighbours were just brilliant, as Derry people normally are at times of bereavement. We decided that Mary should stay with her family for a few weeks, as it was obvious she could never go back to the house in Winfrith. I had phoned Colonel Green, who understood our situation and was arranging for us to be allocated a married quarters in the camp itself, where we would be less isolated. I travelled alone back to England, signed for the new house and drove to the old house in Winfrith.

Everything was how we had left it. Sharon’s pram sat in the hallway and the airing cupboard was full of her baby-grows and pink dresses. Upstairs, her cot sat as it was left that awful morning, though the blanket she used to cling to whilst going to sleep lay on the floor, where it had fallen in the panic. Her frilly pillow lay on the cot mattress and I was overcome with emotion as I picked it up and held it to my face. I could smell Sharon’s aroma and I started to cry as I breathed in her baby smell. As I stood over her chest of drawers I was overcome with emotion at the sight of the small golden teddy bear, the very same present Mary had wanted to give her all those weeks ago. I had insisted she shouldn’t get it until Christmas Day and I slid down the wall sobbing my heart out. Had I listened to Mary we could have seen the joy on her little face; I felt so guilty.

In between tears I managed to pack everything and move our bits and pieces to the new married quarters. Before leaving Dorchester I drove to the cemetery and placed the teddy bear on Sharon’s grave, which still had the wreaths on it. I bent down and took the cards off the flowers, put them in my pocket and stood there talking to Sharon for a few minutes. I said a little prayer and promised her that I would come back soon. I didn’t know then that it would be twenty-three years before I would see her again. The next day I picked up the formal death certificate. I sat and looked at the line that read: ‘Cause of Death INFANCY SYNDROME’. I didn’t know what it meant, though nowadays most parents know that ‘Sudden Infancy Syndrome’ means cot death.

Thinking back, I realise that Mary and I were blessed with friends like Margaret Sawyer and Sergeant Bob Crabb. By late 1973, Mary, Mark and I were settled in our new quarters on Gaza Road. Mary had friends and neighbours from the regiment, and everyone advised us to have another baby as soon as we could. By August that year Mary received the good news that she was pregnant again. The baby was due in April 1974 and she was delighted. Of course, we were hoping for a little girl. Even though things were getting better with our new house, our new friends and a better quality of life, Mary was yearning for home and just wanted us to go back to Derry so that she could be with her family.

***

One night around New Year, Mary and I discussed the possibility of going back to live in Derry. The Troubles were at their height and Derry didn’t look like the sort of place an ex-British soldier would be welcome. Mark was nearly five and it was time for him to go to school, and we knew the army school wasn’t that good. Not because the Education Corps was incompetent, but families move around a lot in the services and sometimes the interruptions put the child back months. After weeks of discussion I promised that I would write to my sister Doreen and my father and ask their advice, since my family was closer to republicanism than Mary’s and they would know whether it was safe for me to return or not. My brother Robert had left the army after six years and settled down in Derry without any problem. Deep inside I knew they would tell me I was mad and that to come back would endanger my life, and I also knew that if Mary was aware of this she might change her outlook. By early January 1974 I had received a reply from Doreen, and it wasn’t what I expected. I would be safe enough and no one would touch me so long as I was genuinely coming home and had discharge papers. She went on to tell me that she had spoken to her friend ‘Paul’, who knew Mary very well. He had heard about Sharon’s death and couldn’t foresee any problem.

I was now under great pressure to leave the army, but I decided to share my thoughts and feelings with Colonel Green. ‘You would be mad to leave at this point in your career,’ was his response. ‘Besides, you’ll be in great danger if you return to Ireland.’ After further discussion I agreed that he could check out the real security situation in Derry through a friend of his in the Intelligence Corps, a decision that would change my life, and ultimately Mary’s, forever.