The Droppin Well bombing. December 6, 1982,

[BigStevie Old Sweat Find all posts View Profile Close BigStevie]

Dead Horse said: "It can also bring back unwanted memories, but you will be among friends who KNOW" - as you are when you come on and post your memories.

It's good that you have been able to do this, and we are grateful for your sharing. It is one way of letting the dark times out under some control, rather than being overwhelmed by them and having to fight them.

To all those who lost their lives that night - remembered always; to those whose lives were changed forever - you are never alone, even at the darkest times.

[Guest Close Bean]

I tried to think of what triggered this emotional change in me, and I have come to realise that we have something very profound in common with the old boys who fought at Arnheim and those other bloody sensless battles from wars gone by. By maintaining your silence you preserve your personal memories and heartache, but whilst those memories will be forever with you, you can ease the heartache just a bit by talking to those who suffered in silence for so many years also.

This brought me to a question my 17 year old daughter asked me regarding (quite out of the blue) if I was around during the "troubles" in NI and did I have much to do with it, she of course knew that I had been in a bombing but had very little detail other than it was something I rarely mentioned and often brushed off as one of those things that just happened as if it was just another night down the pub. She asked for my help in providing her "international schoolmates" with an insight as to what it was like mainly to live in West Germany in the time of the cold war, I told her about "crash outs" and egg banjos in the back of the REME truck with a few yellow handbags of the famous "Herfie", the carnage on the German roads, the free ploughing service provided by British tanks for irate german farmers etc etc. I even borrowed some stories from friends to make my story seem more interesting and then I realised I had nothing really much to talk about that would interest her and I offered her a few words on my service in NI to pad it out a bit and keep the kids in the picture that we were not all sat in the back of the REME truck drinking and that whilst we did this there were soldiers suffering in a tin shack in their own homeland waiting to be shot at, and even the REMEs were short staffed because of attachments there.

I finished my apprentice training in Arborfield in 1982 and after a short course on Lynx and Gazelle as an air tech (I know, I know but someone had to work all night to get you boys home for a shower and a kip after COPs) my first crack at the "real world" was NI when it was still quite mixed up, maybe not as mixed up as it was for you lads in the early 70s but I had been brought up with my fair share of ITN and BBC news and took most of it in as a child. I arrived in early Aug 82 and departed in April 84 to move to Detmold with my new wife Ann (the only wife I should add, as its rare these days for them to put up with the army life for too long). I served a further 6 months with the AAC in Aldergrove in 1991 (or thereabouts, whilst I was away Ann was diagnosed with early cervical cancer, but she didnt want some other poor bugger to be spammed at short notice for my tour so made me stay for the final few months, whilst she dealt with it on her own. I am happy to say I`ve still got her and she is fit and well) My last posting to NI came about some years ago recently and I spent, I think just over a year or thereabouts doing a job which gave me immense satisfaction but not one that as you might understand I can discuss. Maybe I am bad luck, but within a few weeks there, there had been a notable incident and I had to put the phone down on her without saying goodbye, I can only imagine her thoughts, and although I couldnt explain over the next few days I assured her I was ok as she knew I was nearby. She is an absolute diamond to me cos the following week when something else happened, she just said "talk to me when you can...." I was involved in the follow up for them both and she understood comsec, I remember a programme many years ago on the TV and one of you "steely eyed trained killers" were complaining that its normally the REME bloke that manages to get a shot off at the terrorist and usually misses, I got one back for the REMEs over that time and I feel proud of that...

If I have said too much then please as ever admin cut as you require, but I cant go into any more detail and feel that maybe I have said more than I should have but most of it is open source anyway...I just wanted you to get an idea, that whilst we can deal with it mostly by squaddie humour, the bloody wives know when we are faking it!

Bean.

[Guest Close Bean]

This thread has stirred many emotions in all of us, and has prompted at least two chaps to post here who have not posted before.
May I say to them that the day we have together at the NMA in September is a good place to meet and share.
The Ulster Ash Grove ceremony, followed by a walk among the trees can go a long way towards easing pain and regrets.
It can also bring back unwanted memories, but you will be among friends who KNOW.

Guys,

It was never intended to stir emotion in you, was was opening up my head in a way that I never could before because we all feel anger, but as I am still in the army, I felt that I could never show that anger as that is what we are so good at "controlled emotions", but what happens when you leave? I have read Taffs account time and time again and there is not a word I disagree with, we lose all sense of place and time and to be fair we were ALL very very young. I PMd the very mate that was with me that night as I am trying to make some sense of the night (I have a bloody good memory!), the aftermath and the following days and believe me that night wasnt the only time I was betrayed. As I have said before, my background and that of my fellow soldiers at the time was council house estate, what the hell different did we know? Before I tell you the weeks following I still feel that I have to find as many as possible who were there that night, you need not have been in it when it went off, just to have been there was enough and I will open it to the local community of BK if they so wish, but feedback from you guys would help immensly. I have to go back, I cant have regret in my heart as well as the pain, so before I get too old I am making this my mission....but here are the words my friend sent to me on FB message.....

"yeah I'm up for a trip back there. Sounds like you need to get over some stuff. Maybe I'm lucky, either I didn't see some of the **** you saw or I just seem to have blanked it all out... Still remember talking to Paul Delaney just before it went bang, then seeing him crushed under the concrete later. Still remember you shouting for your jacket, the flames, helping people out, people laid out on the grass bank.
Going to bed and getting woken up 2 hours later by that dumb ass AAC WO2.
I still owe Paul Delaney a tenner maybe we should go back and spend it on a drink in the bar.
We didn't make it happen mate we were just kids drinking in the wrong bar when two brainwashed bitches decided to put a handbag full of explosives next to the wrong pillar.
Drop me a line we should keep in touch more."

Now tell me that he has forgotten? I hope we get to the bar on that night to spend Paul Delaneys "tenner" I for one will savour that drink as if it were my last because on that night he didnt get a chance to.....sorry again, just wittering on...

[BigStevie Old Sweat Find all posts View Profile Close BigStevie]

Wittering on, my arse. You're 'de-fragging' mate, nothing wrong with that. Your being able to put this on 'paper' not only helps you but lots of others too, those reading your words tonight and also those who find them later.
A good friend who had suffered a long time with dark memories similar to yours, came to an evening 'do' and found, to his surprise, a group of widows from the very area where he had been witness to a trauma involving an IED attack on UDR men.
He was able to talk, to laugh, to remember, to cry his tears, and left that night with a few answers and a lot to process but also having aired some long-held demons.
You may be able to this for yourself Bean, and I dearly hope you can. It's your journey, and when it is being followed by those reading your words on here, it helps them along their journey too.
So keep 'wittering'.

[Guest Close Bean]

You know Stevie,

Its a bit of wittering as well, because Squaddies moan, bitch, Tick and whinge no matter what....but this as you say is my story for those to come to see that it is also their story.

I have never had the chance to kill a terrorist, I have in the past few years contributed to putting gangsters and thugs away though, which is quite a different thing. Terrorists see themselves as Guerillas, "warfighters" and some of those may I say it contentiously who were IRA/INLA were indoctrinated to feel that way. They all espouse the memory of Michael Collins in the same breath as Eamon DeVallera without realising their own perverted history...but regardless, may I say that for me to move on, like the people of NI, the differences have to be put aside and I would more than anything wish it so, but, theres always a but.......you need to read the current batches of 18-20 yr old republican sympathisers to realise that 2016 and the centenerary of the Easter uprising is just around the corner. Maybe this is not what you all wanted to hear, but the fat lady hasnt sung yet, so I am sorry to say we will repeat the cycle, unless we really adopt a shoot to kill policy, you get found with a gun....summary execution, why did the british government never impose martial law?.....it would have been the same for both sides!!

[BigStevie Old Sweat Find all posts View Profile Close BigStevie]

You're preaching to the converted, Bean.
It is - and will be - another dirty, undercover war, that will be kept from the headlines.
No soldiers this time though - at least not visibly on the streets.

[Guest Close Bean]

Then you know how dirty we can get LOL....times have changed, but we have to guard against our sons and daughters being sent to another unknown war where its just another, every another is someones child! I think I may have seen this war through every stage, from having a laugh on NIRTT at the other BK, chasing my arse out through Whiterock gates, to picking up bits of my friends inside a pub, to safety inside a hangar making sure the lads were getting helis out the door on time, to casevacs by heli as the rearcrew (there were never enough AAC to go round) with some nasty things to see, I have seen every sangar in the province from deepest Fermanagh to XMG to the North and back for many days over 2 years and I have the utmost respect to you smelly buggers that used to get onto the Lynx and ask us to turn the heating up, but you could **** right off, it made me gag in the back! In my latter days mate I did other **** in the "dirty war" as you refer to, but its not dirty, theres no-one shooting at our boys with maybe a few exceptions and they dont even get a campaign medal for serving there. I have watched the towers fall, the roads re-open and the rebirth of Belfast to the repressed city it ever was, I have seen Derry move on at a slower pace, but hopefully it will all catch up. A couple of years ago I just so happened to be taking a slow trip to the RUC in Derry, I cant find it in wiki so wont name it and decided to fly over the Droppin Well but the guy in the other seat had never heard of it and was mortified that I relayed my story for the next 10 mins....until I realised it had happened before he was born, and he wasnt that special after all!...young uns eh?.....

[BigStevie Old Sweat Find all posts View Profile Close BigStevie]

Tell me about it - talking to a 'young 'un' about his first posting, Strabane, and when I said I had first been there in 1979 he looked at me like it was before time began.

Got a picture on the wall behind my desk at the minute, a group of blokes in 'working clothes' with big stupid grins; a visitor asked me when it had been taken - 'May 1981', says I - 'Christ I was in high school then' says he. The bloke I work with was 5 when it was taken.

I look at it and can remember how I felt, what I was doing, where I was (that's a relief ;-)) and what came afterwards. It made me what I am, and kept me from becoming someone else.

Memories are like photos; they are snapshots of time, with smells, sights, names (sometimes) and places, situations. And it is funny what can spur them up - a sound, a smell, a tune on the radio, a name, a face. And it can bring old emotions back sharply, too: some things still don't look 'right', for reasons that seem reasonable to you but not to everyone else.

People don't always have to learn about our time - they just have to be reminded, it happened, it was in all the papers, and it happened to us. These are our stories, this was our life.

[On1on Association Member Find all posts View Profile Close On1on]

This is on my wall at work, dated November 76, that gets some comments as well...

[BigStevie Old Sweat Find all posts View Profile Close BigStevie]

I'd guess and say that's you on the left, Onion?

[lori Old Sweat Find all posts View Profile Close lori]

This thread has been one of the most movingI have read on here - and I have been in tears at times reading it, as I am when I read Kens books. I am lucky in that I never had to witness any horrors first hand and cant begin to imagine how I would have coped had I found myself in any such situation. The whole of my time in Londonderry I never once got close to any incidents - just did my turn on the checkpoints without any problems - I was always off duty when news of any shootings/ bombings occured - my 8mths passed by with relative ease.

I have not been left unaffected though, due to the loss of my Uncle and my ex hubbys best friend - my Uncle killed in 72 and our close friend in 1984.

If I am honest I was more scared when I returned to NI as an army wife in 1984 - we lived in quarters outside barracks in Lisburn and my children were just 2 and 3 at the time - we we there for 2 years and living there you got to hear an awful lot more about what was going on than maybe the wives back home did. Every day was like living on a knifes edge waiting for hubby to come home. My friend Carol was another army wife out there, she too had 2 small toddlers just like me, she lived in Londonderry and shortly after we arrived in Lisburn we were going to visit them for a weekend - we never made it - Carols husband Dave Ross was killed just a few days before our planned visit. The memory of that will live with me forever.

[Guest Close Bean]

Lori, This is for you in particular, but for those out there who wish to comment or criticise, then your words are more than welcome.

I have been selfish all these years and have probably always had a passion for what I was doing at the time, regardless of location. But, I have never had the opportunity to treat life seriously, that serious part of my brain went that night by the things that happened and I will just brush over what I have already written. I believe in something, I dont know what it is but for me it is not God, that too was taken away that night as I couldnt reconcile myself with an atrocity of that scale being attributed to catholics, of which at the time I was one (not very practicing, but I still respected the sanctity of the catholic church). So I lost the lot, I lost friends, I lost my religion and I lost sections of my family for various reasons, but what I found that night was humour and a blinding faith in strangers and that for me has kept me alive, and I do mean it has saved my life!

My faith in strangers makes me naive, sometimes to a point when I look stupid, but to counter that I have been blessed with the wit of a hardened squaddie, and just act the part to best effect without making myself look daft but filing that experience away for later!

I have had what most from the outside would think have led an exceptionally fortunate service life, but I always knew who I was and where I came from and never wanted to change, the officers mess would never have accepted my street humour, so I never even asked. I wanted to fight for people without the constraints of politics and I think the world needs that cos if it wasn`t for politics this would never have happened!

I feel that I have put more into this world than I have ever got out but on the flipside I also got out of that terrible mess physically intact, and every day I think of them in some small way, so I do things in their name (but in my head obviously, or I would have been sectioned years ago!) So never be nasty and always listen and see the good in people, that is my mantra.

I know how the ladies feel, I have done much listening over the years. I don`t wish to be one of "those men". I was probably lucky enough to marry the most understanding person I know in this world, but please dont tell her! She is my "tail end charlie" always watching my arse and poking it from time to time! She is unassuming and quiet, but as strong mentally as anyone I know, I honestly dont know how she copes. Maybe we met at the right time, who knows?

To lose a friend is to lose an eye! you lose sight of the world as you know it, but you aren`t blinded by it. You losing Dave was just your perception changing, you never regain that sight, but you learn to deal with it!

I dont know what you did or what you do now, but please understand, as a friend....I am there for you should you ever need another kleenex..

Bean.

[lori Old Sweat Find all posts View Profile Close lori]

Thank you for those words Bean

[Guest Close Bean]

Bird,

I will put this public, it was as bad for you getting there as it was for us inside!! we at least had an excuse to leave, you had a duty NOT to.......

So bear the burden no more my friend, you did what you could and as a fellow soldier and human being.....I love and respect you for it sincerely, forever yours,

Bean.

[Guest Close Bean]

You buggers have got me sitting here with tears streaming down my cheeks onto my tee shirt, where else in the world could I have found such a bunch of twits who would listen to my whitterings and old stories? except maybe the pub, but we dont have any here in this here muslim country!!

its not my choice again, but here I find myself!!