Hooleygan

by Terri Hooley

  On top of that, I was approached by Dougie Knight, the owner of Knight’s Music Shop on Botanic Avenue, to see if I was interested in setting up a blues club – as if I would have turned him down – and so I became secretary of the new Belfast Blues Society. On Sunday afternoons we would clear away all the racks in Dougie’s store and get in some fantastic acts to play. We had people like Denny Warwick, who was a great blues guitarist; the Jim Daly Blues Band; Shades of Blue with a guy called Brian McCaffrey who could play the guitar with his teeth; Memphis Slim; my personal favourite, Champion Jack Dupree; and we even had Arthur Crudup who wrote the Elvis classic, ‘That’s All Right, Mama’.

  Sadly, our secret sessions at Dougie’s shop came to an end in 1967 when the police shut us down, again for operating without an entertainment licence, but by then we were putting on gigs at various other venues around the city. We used to go to a club in Ann Street in the centre of Belfast called Betty Staff’s Ballroom. It was an unusual place in that if you started kissing a girl, or even if you got too close to one, Betty Staff herself would come round with a can of hairspray and spray you in the face to separate you! If you were smoking a joint that was ok, but woe betide if you were too amorous with the girls. There was none of that allowed at Betty Staff’s.

  In 1968 we booked the War Memorial Building, a few streets away from the city centre, and put on a concert with American blues singer, Juke Boy Bonner. Riots had broken out all over the city that particular day, and all the pubs were shut by teatime. We weren’t even sure if Bonner could avoid all the trouble and make it down from the airport, and we had a huge crowd waiting to see him, so it was a long, nervous wait before he finally arrived. We were all so relieved when he did, that Pauline Harrison gave him a big kiss on the cheek. The next day Bonner went to London and recorded a track called ‘Belfast Blues’. But that was the last concert we did and, for me, that was the night the party ended.

  I was still very active in politics and the underground music scene – I used to get magazines like the International Times, Oz and Friends and sell them at local pubs, or at Queen’s University alongside my own poetry mags. Though when I say ‘mags’ I really mean pamphlets, which I would run off at a printers’ shop and distribute free of charge! The anti-Vietnam War movement still had a lot of support in Belfast, but this was the time of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights movement and it wasn’t long before public demonstrations were banned within a certain radius of City Hall. Northern Ireland was changing and tensions were definitely running high. We had no idea what was round the corner for us all.

  It was 1968 and the party wouldn’t start again until punk came along.

  Bombs, Bullets and ex-Beatles

  Our world changed forever in the seventies and the Northern Ireland I knew became almost unrecognisable. As the violence increased, many of our best people decided to leave; musicians, artists, writers, they all got out – it was the original brain drain.

  One by one, all the weird and wonderful clubs that I had loved when I was a teenager began to disappear. As people retreated into their own areas there was little need for the Fiesta Ballroom, the Plaza or Betty Staff’s and they soon closed. Belfast became a ghost town.

  The biggest shock to me was how ghettoised the city became. The Troubles brought about an end to cross-community contact and it seemed that the notion of Protestants and Catholics sharing this tiny place was a step too far for many. I couldn’t believe how so many freethinking people I knew became utterly single-minded, adopting an us-against-them mentality. Some members of my own family, who were members of the Orange Order, even began to lose contact with all their Catholic friends. It really was the start of the dark ages.

  I often wonder if I should have left too but I think I would have felt too much like a traitor, as I have always loved Belfast and her people. Luckily, I was one of the few people who could have lived anywhere in the city and, despite growing up in the predominately loyalist east Belfast, I knew as many people from the nationalist community as from my own.

  When I first moved out of my mum and dad’s I shared a number of houses and flats with friends of mine on Claremont Street and Wolsey Street in the university area of the city, and then on the Malone Road – in the posh end of town – before ending up in a flat on the Donegall Road, a staunch Protestant enclave and a hotbed of support for loyalist paramilitary organisations. We had a poster up on the wall which a certain UVF commander took a real shine to. It was a picture of the Rvd Ian Paisley alongside the words, ‘Paisley for Pope’. I handed it over, and as far as I know it is still on the wall of his living room! In fact, I knew all the loyalist paramilitary leaders in that area; some of them had even asked me to edit their organisation’s magazine – an offer I politely declined!

  On another occasion, a prominent loyalist offered me a different type of job; to start taking his wife out socially in an attempt to distract her from the fact that he was having an affair. This all came with the strict instruction that I was to keep everything platonic and that there was to be no funny business! I, of course, had the best of intentions, but one night, having made plans to go to a house party in the university area, she came round early to my flat while I was still getting ready. One of the lads I was sharing with let her in, and before I knew it she had joined me in the shower! I tried, but I couldn’t resist her, and since her husband was continuing to pay me I continued to take her out. Of course, I was constantly terrified we would be found out though!

  Years later, I ended up living in Andersonstown in west Belfast which was, and still is, a predominantly nationalist area. Most of the women I knew in this district had husbands who were in jail, and so they were lonely and in need of male company. But by then I had learned my lesson – I had skated close to the line in the past by getting involved with women who were married to paramilitaries and had sworn never to do so again, so I made sure to keep everything non-physical. And it was actually great! The women of the area looked after me and I was a regular visitor in a good few houses. Sundays were a particularly busy day for me as I was expected for dinner in about six homes. It was exhausting eating that much food! But I always felt safer in republican areas – there was a greater sense of community and togetherness and, once you were accepted, you became one of them. When I moved to Andytown it was a bit of a novelty having a Protestant living in the middle of such a staunchly republican area, but I can honestly say there was never a problem. There was no question of being excluded because of your perceived religion.

  That wasn’t always the case in loyalist areas where you always felt certain that people would look for any excuse to give you a kicking. One time, for instance, I was DJ’ing at the Maple Leaf Club in east Belfast when this man weaved his way to the stage and ordered me to play the National Anthem. I have never played any National Anthem so I told him to fuck off. He just stood there looking at me, rocking back and forth on his heels for what seemed like an age before turning away. I must admit that I felt a little scared, and was convinced I would get a beating before the night was through. But, amazingly, what had been a sea of drunken terrorists not two minutes before, formed an orderly line of gents who stood to attention and sang ‘God Save the Queen’ themselves! Rather than provoke any fresh controversy I quietly stood to attention too.

  It was because of that stubborn streak I had, as well as my mingling with people from both communities, that people hadn’t a clue whether I was Protestant or Catholic. I just used say that I opposed oppression in all its forms, and that applied to all sides.

  But there was no denying that the civil situation in Belfast had worsened and, to be honest, I didn’t really want to get involved. I was spending all my time with my friends, and my reputation as a DJ was such that I was getting regular gigs around the town and further afield. I was also so bound up in international issues and protests that I had little patience or time for Northern Ireland politics, such as it was. To me it was the territory of the narrow-minded and bigoted.

&nb
sp; Anyone who knows me at all will know that my politics are very simple. We have to ensure the world is fed and that oppression in all its forms is stamped out – it wouldn’t take long to write my manifesto! I know it may be a fairly naïve and simplistic view, but then that’s me all over and I don’t understand why we have to complicate things unnecessarily.

  In fact, one of the only local political issues in which I ever got involved was in 1967, when I marched to protest the banning of Republican Clubs. Their close links to the IRA made the establishment uneasy, but I believed that the party was legitimate and politically motivated. I may not have actually agreed with those politics but I was willing to support their right to practice them. However, even in the late sixties it was becoming increasingly obvious that no matter what cause, project or principle you became involved in, it came with a sectarian tag.

  I suppose that’s why, around a year later, the RUC Special Branch came to the door with warnings for me to take a step back from protesting. They told my dad that I needed to cool it, that there would be bombs going off in this country and that there would be no room for our protests. They were not trying to intimidate us, they just told us they couldn’t guarantee our safety and, looking back, I can see their concern – it was all very well lifting anti-Vietnam war protestors off the streets, but now they were faced with the prospect of real political violence. It was a situation the police had never really had to deal with before.

  I did take their warning seriously, but it wasn’t enough to stop me being concerned about the issues that mattered to me. I – and others like me – continued to protest on the issues we had always cared about, even as it became clear that this country was in real trouble.

  One of the ways we made sure our voices were heard was through our very own pirate radio station, Radio Harmony, which I set up in 1970 with my friend Tommy Little. We were complete novices at the pirate radio game but it was such an important medium in those days – throughout the sixties and early seventies you would rarely have seen a hippy without a transistor radio stuck to his or her ear, and a lot of what they were listening to was broadcast by pirate stations – we knew we had to give it a go ourselves.

  We broadcast from a derelict house on Rocky Road – in the Gilnahirk Hills on the outskirts of east Belfast – a road which I always thought was well named due to its incredibly steep incline, the top of which offers fantastic views over Belfast. I remember once looking out over the city and finding it hard to believe that down there were bombs, bullets, soldiers, armoured cars and paramilitaries. The city looked so peaceful from up there.

  Not that the sight of soldiers on the street was particularly common in 1970. Soon they would be on every Belfast street corner, but when Tommy and I spotted an army patrol making its way up Rocky Road straight for Radio Harmony we thought we had been rumbled.

  We watched them getting closer and closer, and Tommy began to shit himself – he could envisage years spent in a Gulag somewhere stretching in front of him – but the revolutionary in me told him to keep broadcasting until the very last second, we wanted to be on air when they burst in and cut us, and our attempt at free speech, off.

  Tommy was a mess, he put on a record called ‘Alone Again Or’ by an American hippy band called Love, and promptly fainted! It was left to me to face the invading forces. As it turned out, however, the squaddies were completely lost and were clearly happy to see a one-eyed hippy who could read a map and send them on their way. They had no interest in our wee pirate station at all – though even if they had, they needn’t have worried. Tommy and I were so crap at it that Harmony only lasted a month.

  I suppose though, that it was my time as a pirate radio DJ which indirectly led to one of the biggest disappointments of my life, an event which reinforced for me the old adage – you should never meet your heroes. And John Lennon had been my biggest hero for many years. He was the creative force behind The Beatles, he was politically aware and was a fervent peace campaigner – a symbol of the fight against oppression – and so, in the late sixties, I began to write to him, asking him to play in Belfast.

  At that time I was still doing my utmost to arrange gigs and music events and so I got involved with members of the Queen’s Esoteric Society. They would put gigs on at the University – usually involving bands and artists that I would describe as ‘hippy dippy’ – and it was all purely self-indulgent.

  We knew we could muster enough interest to ensure the gigs paid for themselves, so we encouraged artists to come over to play for the society at Queen’s. We were all quite radical at the time so the music reflected that. Acts like Nick Lowe and His Band, Brinsley Schwarz, The Edgar Broughton Band and American folk artist Tim Hardin were probably the best known of those the Esoteric Society brought over.

  But I really thought that if Lennon would play here it would make such a huge difference to the place. Of course, in hindsight there was never really any chance of that happening and, even if it had, I very much doubt that it actually would have changed things, but back then we were all so idealistic we thought we could solve the problems of the world and, like I said, Lennon had been a hero of mine. Or at least he was until one fateful trip to London in 1970.

  Tommy and I had gone to England to buy equipment for Radio Harmony, but if we thought the capital was going to be a welcome break from the situation back home we were sadly mistaken.

  Don’t get me wrong, there were enough drugs available to ensure we had a pleasant time, but I found London to be very heavy and tense. I remember a lot of the hippies we met were very upper-middle class; obsessed with the ‘revolution’ but had never held a job in their lives. A lot of them were connected to the White Panthers, a far-left anti-racist group from America, and they were all seriously radicalised. To be honest I thought their heads were up their arses.

  Anyway, it was at a house party on the Portobello Road in west London which was being thrown by one of these people, that I met Lennon for the first time. The Beatles had broken up that April, and Lennon was still probably the world’s biggest star, so I wish that I could recall more about that first encounter, but we were all stoned and I don’t remember a hell of a lot about it.

  What I do remember is talking to a group of people who were obsessed with Northern Ireland. They all seemed to think of Northern Ireland as Britain’s Vietnam, and kept talking about sending arms to ‘the oppressed’. They were very much pro-IRA without having the first idea about the place or the politics.

  There were four big issues of the day as far as they were concerned: the legalisation of cannabis – which I did, and still do, support; an end to anti-gay discrimination – which I supported; American withdrawal from Vietnam – which I supported; and sending guns to Belfast – which I didn’t.

  So I was particularly disgusted when a couple of guys took Tommy and me to a locked garage and showed us several crates filled with brand-new guns. It scared the fuck out of me, they wanted to send these guns to Belfast. They clearly thought we were ‘the boys’ – members of the IRA. We were the boys all right, but not those boys! I just looked at Tommy as if to say, ‘Let’s get away from these mad fuckers.’ The whole thing was very scary.

  I was beginning to look forward to getting back to Belfast for a bit of peace and quiet, but the next day we were invited to another big house party. I don’t remember exactly where it was, but I do recall a very big house, with lots of art on the walls, that was clearly owned by someone very rich. Lennon was there but it was clear he was off his head – he was heavily into speed at that time.

  The discussion turned to Northern Ireland and Lennon started spouting what I can only describe as ‘green, nationalist, graveyard shit’. We began to argue, it got nasty and I ended up swinging for him. It was a proper haymaker and he landed on his arse. There was a scuffle as the London loonies and Lennon’s hangers-on tried to intervene but it was all over very quickly.

  I was glad to get back to war-torn Belfast the next day, but my attitude to Lennon had ch
anged completely. He was still an idol but I knew his views on Northern Ireland were ill-informed. In later years he even offered to do a benefit gig for the IRA and encouraged people to send money to help fund the ‘struggle’ here – it just seemed completely at odds with his pacifist principles, and all I can surmise is that it was the drugs talking. London was a strange place then, full of misdirected revolution.

  Many, many years later, in 1994, I won an Irish Music Industry Award and was to be presented with it during a BBC chat show, Anderson On The Box, hosted by Gerry Anderson. I was in make-up with another guest and we got chatting – it was Cynthia Lennon, John’s first wife! I told her about my encounter with John, warts and all. ‘He was a hero,’ I told her, ‘but our meeting was a disaster and it just goes to show, you should never meet your heroes.’ I held my breath and waited for her angry response.

  But it didn’t come, instead she said, ‘Terri, I’m so glad to hear that, people have no idea what a nightmare it was living with John.’ We had a great chat after that and became firm friends.

  I think what made the whole Lennon encounter all the worse was the fact that the Troubles had been very scary for everyone, and the seventies, at least to me, was the worst decade of all. It seemed that the whole country was having a nervous breakdown and I knew a lot of people who got caught up in it at that time.

  On 29 September 1974, a good friend of mine, Gerard McWilliams, took a skinfull of drink and some drugs and decided to walk home from Lavery’s bar in the centre of town. Home was Andersonstown, which wasn’t really that far but it took him through the staunchly Protestant Donegall Road area. A UDA mob dragged him down an entry off Lecale Street and stabbed him to death. He was only twenty-three years old. He was just an ordinary bloke walking home from the pub and his murder, like so many during the Troubles, was futile and utterly heartbreaking.