‘The black taxi got closer and stopped ... then a number of men jumped out’

Catholic civilian ‘Trevor’ on how he survived an abduction attempt by the Shankill Butchers ... and then a bomb attack which was launched by theverysamegang

Trevor (not his real name) had just turned 17 when he started to venture down from Turf Lodge into the city centre to attend discos.

Young Catholics, he said, were always very wary of being beaten up by Tartan gangs, who roamed the streets late at night, looking for victims.

“You had to have your wits about you because, around about then, I mean, there was always assassinations and stuff like that, you were always wary of people driving cars,” he recalls. “It was then that you recognised there was a serious atmosphere in the city and that you had to be on-guard all the time.

“Because we were under age, we went to places where they didn’t know us and one of the places that we went to for a drink was the New Lodge.

“We used to have to get a black taxi into town. You couldn’t walk across Millfield, so you would have walked across Union Street out into Donegall Street, opposite the Irish News, and then up Donegall Street and across North Queen Street, past the police station and into the New Lodge.”

By 1977, this route home was considered to be one of the most dangerous in the entire city, especially as news emerged of how the throat-cutting murderers had actually come into contact with their victims.

“You were avoiding the Shankill, so, if you were walking across Millfield, there was always the opportunity that a gang would come running out of Brown Square, so, at night, you avoided walking across Millfield, especially if you were on your own.”

Having this kind of local knowledge certainly helped young Catholic men and women navigate the city’s political geography in such a way as to avoid coming into contact with “the other side” — yet it wasn’t fullproof, especially at night.

That evening, Trevor was conscious of a black taxi following him as he walked along the street.

The taxi got closer, then stopped. Several men jumped out.

“From my memory, it would have been very, very spontaneous. It wouldn’t have been ‘Right, we’re going to get (Trevor) on Friday night at 7 o’clock’.

“They would have known that was the route that Catholics would have used and that’s why Union Street was a particular favourite place for them, because a lot of Catholics there would have been drunk and staggering home at night.

As more adrenalin was released into his body, he knew the situation was life-threatening and, rather than freeze, he took flight and ran away as fast as he could. But it was not the last time Trevor would encounter the UVF.

On the afternoon of April 10, 1977, as he walked along Beechmount Avenue to watch the annual Easter Rising commemorative parade, he was caught in an explosion that blew him off his feet.

Trevor was thrown into a doorway by the force of the blast. He had not been far from the seat of the explosion and was lucky to have been sheltered by the brickwork of the doorway.

Trevor recalls: “I was passing the wee bakery shop that’s now closed down. I heard a loud bang. I don’t remember anything else.

“Then a man came up to me and lifted me up off the ground and put me in the ambulance. I was taken to the big Royal Hospital. I had my right leg off from just under my knee.

“Some metal went into my tummy and I had to have some stitches. I was in hospital for six or seven weeks.”

Panic ensued in the aftermath of the explosion, as the two wings of the IRA — Official and Provisional — blamed each other for the bomb.

Further along the parade, at Milltown Cemetery, guns were produced by the two factions and one man was killed in the gun battle that followed.

The UVF team responsible for the bombing, nevertheless, were safely back in the Shankill, where they contemplated their next move.