‘My father walked in after two years away at war, i was so proud of him’
Former service engineer Bertie Salmon (84) survived wartime in Belfast. Bertie, a grandfather who now lives in Hillsborough with his wife of 63 years, Margaret, says he doesn’t remember being frightened — more curious — by what he saw.
“I was only nine years old on VE Day,” he says. “I lived on Broadway in Belfast with my father Joe, a Navy officer, and my mother Mary Jane. Dad was called up for duty and went away in 1939. We didn’t see my father for two full years.
“I remember the time well, even though I was very young. When the sirens went, all of west Belfast headed for the hills. I remember when I was only five years old and getting dragged up the Whiterock Road at speed to get away from everything.
“People used to sit up on the side of
Black Mountain looking over Belfast. I remember the drone of the aeroplanes over our heads. You couldn’t see them, but you could certainly hear them. I remember hearing the bangs and seeing the flashes of the bombs hitting the city below. It all looked like a nightmare to me at the time, but I wouldn’t say I was frightened. I was so young I didn’t know any better.
“I remember going down High Street in Belfast after one raid. There was just a single tram track going down the middle of the road and the rest of the street was just rubble — the whole place was flattened. I remember Cavendish Street was hit by a landmine that was heading for Mackie’s factory and foundry. It missed the foundry and wiped out nine houses in one go. No one survived. Other times you’d see a full street with no windows or doors or even a roof. Everything was just blown out of it.”
Bertie says VE Day itself has faded in his memory in comparison to the day his father, an officer in the Navy, came home from the war.
“I remember the sense of relief that we had when the war ended,” he says. “We had a wireless radio in the house and we heard the news on that. I don’t remember a street party as such. The memory from that time is of my father coming home, of him walking in the door in 1945. I was so happy and so proud of him.”