Day Eighteen

18th May 2009 NORTHERN IRELAND

...and it doesn’t make it alright…

Sat at the breakfast table with Omar… it’s a little after seven thirty, both of us with a mug of Tea, we are talking about this and that. Mum (sorry Sumie) is putting together a cooked breakfast (I do offer to help, knowing that I will be told to stay where I am) … there’s a shout from upstairs “Mum have you seen my shirt” … of course mum knows where the shirt is… our mugs are topped up. By eight we are all sat at the table, a cooked breakfast in front of us… Sumie is the last to sit down. This scene is what happens every day up and down the country and around the world… ‘Breakfast’ and centre stage a mum… I think if we took mums out of the picture the world would fall apart pretty quickly. I have heard it said that if we woke up one morning and there was no woman in the world, men would notice before they had reached the bottom of the stairs… if it were the other way around, two or three days (maybe a week) would go by before women would notice there were no men around…I think many a true word is said in jest.

Breakfast is done, the table is cleared and my bag is over my shoulder, at the front door Omar gives me an envelope, tells me he had checked how much the ferry cost to get from Dublin to Holyhead in Wales and that the money in the envelope will cover the cost of the fare… “Really you have already given so much, I cannot take this”… but I see in his eyes, Omar will not take the envelope back… and again I am stuck to find something better to say than thank you, “Thank you”.

Sumie walks down the street with me, we stop at a junction “Take this road, at the end of the road turn left and that will take you to the main road heading into Belfast”. I again say thank you for allowing me to stay. “I am happy you chose to stay at our home, it was our pleasure” … I nod my head in gratitude, “I felt very much at home, I too am glad I stayed… thank you”. I set off down the road… “left at the bottom of the road”… I hold my left arm out and nod to show that I understood. At the bottom of the road (which is a little over a hundred yards and no more) I turn round to see Sumie still standing at the top of the road… I decide to turn right, just and till I’m out of sight and then turn around and head in the proper direction… I look up the road I’ve just come down to see Sumie starting to come after me, when she sees me heading in the right direction, I see her laughing… I laugh to, we wave to one another and with that the days walking starts.

The plan for today was to reach the far side of Belfast. Where… I’m not too sure… a thumb print will take me past a place called Lisburn. Much of the morning I walk with the shores of Belfast Lough to my left, sticking as best I can to the pathway that runs close but not too close to the road, sometime diverting to take me along a sandy beach and through a few different parks (Loughshore and Hazelbank Park)… the sky above, like yesterday is overcast… the sun is trying… and so is the rain… I let them battle it out… I figure me hoping for a little sunshine will not change the outcome… it will be what it will be.

I try to put my head in the right place to think about stuff… a square peg , a round hole, a good God, a muddled up world, an un-muddled world, the what ifs… but instead the head is watching a Blackbird hop from tree to tree, a young boy chasing after a dog… too young to be by himself, is un-muddled even a proper word, I see a dad picking up a ball the dog didn’t want to chase, the little boy running back to his dad, holds a stick high above his head, with the dog jumping up to try and grab the stick. That is how much of the morning was, I guess the head was just not ready for thinking about stuff.

It was not until I was on the outskirts of Belfast, an area called Tigers Bay, walking on pavements with red, white and blue curb stones… that the thinking part of me starts to kick in… I wanted to think that this red, white and blue was a throwback to the days when the two sides of the troubles would mark out their territories… only the paint didn’t look that old… maybe this part of the world is not made for you and me… maybe just me or maybe just you… depending on the flag we swear allegiance to… no I don’t believe that… most people are good and will go out of their way to be of help to others, that said I do find it a little sad how it is we build barriers around ourselves… Belfast has a rich history, from Iron age settlements to one time being a major centre for the production of linen, not forgetting the ship building industry (the Titanic was built in this city) … and yet today for many, the mention of Belfast brings to mind: riots, bullets and bombs. I don’t know if it’s wrong or if it’s right for an outsider to comment on the relatively recent history of Northern Ireland and yet I don’t know how I cannot when walking through the city streets of Belfast… do I just hold on to my thoughts and not speak them out aloud, I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do either. Maybe I should rename the blog from ‘Truck driver walking’ to ‘Truck driver skating on thin ice’.

It is a little after mid-day and I am in the city centre of Belfast…I find a café… and again after explaining something of what it is I’m doing; I am shown a table given a pot of tea and an egg and sausage sandwich… never do I ask and expect to be given… and yet again and again that is what happens. The table I sit on is outside of the café, on the pavement… I stay at the table for quite a while, thinking about stuff, watching people come and go, catching a few sentences of conversations as couples and small groups of people pass by. The waitress that I had spoken to earlier comes out… “I’m sorry please give me a kick if I have been sat to long”. “Not at all, I’ll bring some more tea” … a few moments later a fresh pot of tea is sat on the table, “Thank you”. I am sat leaning back on a chair on a pavement outside a café, legs stretched out under the table, drinking tea… in a city, that as a kid growing up in the 70’s, I had only ever seen on TV… the twisted metal of cars that were no more and shattered windows… and in the 80’s, my time spent in the military, watching from the mainland, the TV screens never seemed to change… Army Land Rovers, petrol bombs and again the sound of breaking glass. In the late 90’s the two sides (the unionists and the nationalists) came together and signed the ‘Good Friday Agreement’… the idea, for the two sides to share power and bring the violence to an end.

A little over ten years on, I am sat outside this café, and the peace is still holding, a little fragile at times but still holding on… and may it long continue. There is a book written called ‘Lost Lives’… without taking sides, it tells the stories of all the men, woman and children who died as a result of the Northern Ireland troubles (over three and a half thousand entries… over half of those entries were civilians). What we don’t need is another edition of that book. The picking up of a gun… and the killing of somebody’s son, somebody’s father a mother, a daughter, a child… is no answer to anything at all… it’s not alright… it only creates more hate and more killing… does not the world already have more than enough heartaches.

I pick up my dishes and take them into the café, find the waitress that had served me and say thank you and in return I am given a beautiful smile… To step away from the TV images of yesterday and into the physical streets of today’s Belfast… I think did me good… walking out of the café I pass what looks to be a bunch of work colleagues they were joking, smiling and laughing out loud. Past images I had of Belfast… the batons, guns, burnt out cars and broken glass are replaced with the friendly chatter of a coffee shop, egg and sausage rolls, pals poking fun at each other and breaking smiles. I’m thinking maybe this place was made for the likes of you and me.

I don’t think I took the most direct route out of Belfast… I wasn’t really lost… just wasn’t quite sure which way I was going… there is a slight difference between the two… I keep an eye on my compass… as I long as I’m heading kinda south I should be ok. I keep to the smaller roads; I don’t want to be walking alongside dual carriageways. Picking up signs for Dunmurry and Lisburn I put the map back in my side pocket. There is a little drizzle but not enough to dig out my jacket. It is about three thirty when I reach Lisburn… I was planning to try and find a place to stay here, but decide to push on a little further, looking at the map there is a smaller town about two or three miles further south (as the crow flies) called Hillsborough… (probably about three or four miles for a truck driver that hobbles).

Once in Hillsborough I find a church, the Church of Ireland and in doing so I meet the Rev. Richardson and again I share my story, hoping for a quiet corner in the church hall, that I could stay the night. I am told if I can wait for a few hours I can stay at his home… he has a meeting he needs to go to. Across the road there is a pub called the Hillside “I’ll pick you up there in about two hours” … and again I am lost for words… “Thank you”.

I was going to find a place outside to sit, but the drizzle looks as if it is here to stay. I step into the Hillside Inn… and yes… again I share something of my story… I tell the barman that the Rev. Richardson will pick me up in a few hours and would it be ok for me to stay and till then. “Yes of course it is, can I get you a beer or a pot of tea”. A tea would be really great, thank you”. I find a quiet corner… a tray is brought over with a pot of tea, milk, sugar and a cup and saucer. “Thank you I really appreciate that” … and I do… I let the tea sit for a moment… the day is all but done… I pour the tea… it is good knowing I have a place to stay the night.

I sink back in the chair, a cup of tea in one hand a saucer in the other, my thoughts drift away from the troubled past of Ireland to other troubles and heartaches we see around the world… there is conflict and division at every level in society… and I wonder how it all came about… I could be poor; I could be rich… I could be on the Right; I could be on the Left… I could be Muslim; I could be Christian… maybe I live in the West or maybe I live in the Far East… I could be gay; I could be straight… I could be black; I could be white… I could be wrong; I could be right… it doesn’t mean we have to hate them… it doesn’t mean we have to use social media to knock another down… it doesn’t mean we have to fight… it doesn’t make it alright… it’s the worst excuse in the world…

There is no future in a religion, a group or a whatever that teaches its people to hate. I remember a testimony from a guy caught up in the Rwanda genocide (he had done some terrible things), he broke down in repentance “The blood of my tribe was thicker than the water of my baptism” … I think that one sentence sums up far better what it is I have tried to say.

I reach over to finish the rest of the tea in the pot… only to find the tea pot is full… while lost in thought, somebody had taken the near empty tea pot away and replaced it with a fresh pot… I say a quiet thank you almost as a prayer… it is small acts of kindness, the thinking of others first, that will change the world. I am reminded of the heady days (day... the 9th of May to be precise) of the clan McBinbag... and the clans motto.... 'Better days will not come about by what the sword can take but by what the heart can give'. 

The day ends at Simon (Rev. Richardson) and Moyra’s home, a hot meal, a shower and the sharing of stories and for supper rhubarb crumble and ice cream… I’m not sure… I could be wrong, I could be right... nah I'm pretty sure I'm right.... days don't end better than this.

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