So I was posted to Northern Ireland to 3
permanently based at
And their job was the security
the troubles were in full swing.
That was in 1983.
I went there
adjutant, so responsible for sort
But I did from time to time command troops
Well, of course it wasn't,
I looked out the aircraft window coming
and you know, because you watch the news,
war zone, you know, 24/ 7.
But because it isn't,
I mean it rains most of the time but it's,
country and lovely people as well.
But you have this, you know, this
of the communities which in the sort
So you'll be in Belfast,
I know the Ardoyne in north Belfast
and all the curbstones will be painted
in the colours of the Irish Tricolour.
There'll be Irish flags everywhere
you the C word as you go past and all that.
It's all very learned behaviour.
It's just almost always
you know, meant or anything.
And then you'll, you know,
peace walls between a community and you'd
which is loyalist and the curbstone
There'd be Union Jacks everywhere
hugging your like long lost friends.
And it was just such a.
Extraordinarily bizarre, you know,
because the people are actually both,
witty and warm and you know, if they,
if it wasn't for the Troubles,
on famously sort of thing.
But by 1993 the troubles
I suppose it was quite a sophisticated
contest in that the IRA ,
mainly the IRA ,
two other splinter groups,
sophisticated because
I mean there was surveillance everywhere,
You know, we were there, of course we
We weren't there in our own right.
So, you know,
an IUC officer to deliver a court summons,
to stop and get him killed.
It was a very extraordinary situation.
But he knew all the.
As we walked around, the IUC officer would
he's a bomb maker or whatever it might be.
So it's just a very strange.
Very strange form of insurgency,
That's.
That's what we knew.
When you go to later go to Iraq
it's a completely different situation.
It makes the situation in Northern Ireland
It was, yeah, it was very strange,
first haul because there was
But it was, I suppose,
Of some of the later things.
I mean, the sheer awfulness.
I mean, not to say
It was, I guess, a little bit more
