New Troubles book is a tour de force

I FELT the need to put pen to paper having just finished reading the new book Reporting The Troubles.

Over the years, as an avid reader, I have read many, many books on our sorry, troubled past.

This book really touched a raw nerve, which I don’t think any other book has (even Martin Dillon’s The Shankill Butchers, which was a hard read for me).

This month of November, for many here, is a really sad time, given that, worldwide, it is all about remembrance.

I don’t know if it was fate that I picked up this book in my local library, finishing it on the eve of our brother’s, Paul Armstrong, 44th anniversary.

He was just 18 years old when he was abducted, tortured and murdered. His young body was found in a disused bakery in Bryon Street, off the Oldpark Road, on November 8, 1974. A caller to the Samaritans from the UVF (Protestant Action Force) claimed to have killed him in retaliation for the Guildford bombings.

Back to the book. These renowned journalists and reporters are to be highly commended, as over the years they must have seen some really harrowing scenes. I don’t want to pick anyone out, but I felt the last chapter, by Gail Walker, really summed up the whole book. I actually read the last chapter three times.

After 30 years of horrific violence and 20 years of relative peace, our politicians are in stalemate. I fear the legacy of our troubled past will never be resolved and families will never really get any truth, or justice.

We are often told to draw a line under the past; that, for some, is easy to say. Most people’s past is here right now in the present.

GERRY ARMSTRONG Belfast