‘All we can do is pray... Alan was just in the wrong place at the wrong time’
ALAN McCRUM (11) LOUGHBRICKLAND, CO DOWN DIED MARCH 15, 1982
Alan McCrum had just finished his Monday evening piano lesson. A pupil at Banbridge High School, Alan would make his way to Watson’s jewellers on Bridge Street, where his neighbour, Mary McMullan, worked; she would give him a lift home.
The 11-year-old was one of five siblings — three older brothers and a younger sister.
It was half-past-five — time to go home. As Mary put away the last few trays of jewellery, Alan was chatting to the owner, Rodney Watson, about a watch Rodney had given him a few months before.
“I said, ‘Well, you’ve still got the watch. How’s it going?’ ‘It’s going great,’ said Alan, and then there was this huge bang. I hit the floor. The noise was fierce. I looked over the road and it was a mass of black. And then Mary said, ‘Oh my God, Alan’s been hit.’
An IRA car-bomb had exploded without warning. Thirty-four people were injured; Alan was killed when he was hit by a piece of flying debris.
Mary held Alan in her arms until the ambulance came and then drove, cut and shocked, to his parents’ house to tell them what had happened.
His mother, Eleanor, said she did not hold any hatred towards the bombers. “What is happening now in Northern Ireland is very sad and terribly tragic,” she said. “All we can do is pray.
“Alan was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
A memorial service was held at Alan’s school, where the principal, David Elliott, described him as a “bright, cheery pupil, who was popular with everyone in the school”.
On the day of Alan’s funeral, Banbridge High School was closed and his classmates formed a guard of honour as his coffin was carried into Banbridge Baptist Church.
“Alan was very jolly all the time and enjoyed himself,” said one of his classmates, Bryson McClelland. “We will miss him very much.”
“I played football with him at lunchtime,” said another schoolfriend, Gary McAuley. “It’s all very sad.”
Extracted from Children of the Troubles: The Untold Story of the Children Killed in the Northern Ireland Conflict by Joe Duffy and Freya McClements, published by Hachette Books Ireland, priced £24.99