‘I am fully behind them’... actor James Nesbitt pledges to support campaign for special pensions as injured Troubles survivors recount their harrowing stories
JAMES Nesbitt was visibly upset yesterday as he listened to maimed survivors of the Troubles telling harrowing stories of how they were still suffering decades after being caught up in the violence.
The Cold Feet star pledged his support to the victims’ campaign for the Government to introduce special pensions to help them cope with the legacy of their injuries in the twilight of their lives.
Mr Nesbitt was at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast to launch a new exhibition of massive portraits of 10 men and women who were severely injured in atrocities including the bombing of the Abercorn Restaurant and more.
The Coleraine man, the patron of the WAVE Trauma Centre, said the victims weren’t looking for sympathy or pity despite living through “experiences that almost defied imagination”.
He also pointed out that upwards of 500 people had been severely injured in the Troubles.
“They have moved on, but what they will not do is to move aside,” Mr Nesbitt said.
“All they want is a pension to give them a degree of financial security. I am fully behind them.
“Many people say ‘thank God the Troubles are over and we can all get on with our lives.’
“But many people like me need to be reminded that what happened to the survivors is not consigned to the past, but is in the here and now.
“All their injuries are life-changing and permanent.”
For university lecturer Dr Mary Hannon-Fletcher, just going to the RVH for the launch ceremony organised by WAVE re-awakened painful memories.
She was seriously injured in a drive-by shooting in 1975, when she was a teenager, and was lucky to survive, though she was left paralysed.
“The pain and the suffering and the surgeries and the investigations and the rehabilitation carry on,” Mr Hannon-Fletcher told the audience.
“Every day, all of us are living in pain and suffering. On top of that, we have been ignored and left to suffer and struggle on by ourselves. We want to be remembered and we are going to keep fighting.”
In a recorded message, another victim, Peter Heathwood, told how his father dropped dead after he saw what he believed was his dead son being carried away from a 1979 shooting in Belfast in a body bag.
What Herbert Heathwood did not realise, however, was that his son had survived the gun attack and that ambulance crews had used a body bag to carry him because they could not fit a trolley through his home’s narrow doorway.
A doctor told Peter Heathwood he did not know how he was still alive. He also told him, however, he would have to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Peter sees his late wife, Anne, as another victim of the Troubles because, blaming herself for opening the door to the gunmen, she turned to drinking.
In another video played to the audience, Jennifer McNern, who lost her legs in the Abercorn Restaurant bomb in 1972, told how it was not until she lifted the sheet on her hospital bed that she realised her limbs were missing.
“I started to scream and scream,” explained Jennifer, whose sister, Rosaleen, also lost her legs in the blast.
It wasn’t until after her mother died that Jennifer discovered she had to move all her shoes from their home.
“It nearly broke my heart and breaks my heart to this day,” she said.
Margaret Yeaman was blinded outside her estate agent’s office in a bomb attack in Banbridge that killed an 11-year-old in 1982.
Margaret, who still has glass coming out of her body, said she felt like a disappointment to her grandchildren.
“I love them dearly, but I feel as though I have let them down and that I’m a failure because what grannies do is give their grandchildren some money and
It feels as though we are knocking our heads against a brick wall
say, ‘We’ll go out in the car to the shops and see what you want’. But I can’t do that.”
Mark Kelly lost his legs in a no-warning bomb attack at the Glen Inn in Glengormley in 1982.
However, the former DJ and Irish dancer said he felt lucky to have survived at all because he lost a 13-year-old Catholic friend and a 16-year-old Protestant pal in terrorist attacks.
“I learnt very early that our conflict respected no one, age nor religion,” Mr Kelly said.
At yesterday’s launch, Mark — who was volunteering as a video and sound engineer — stressed that survivors were “entitled to a fair deal from politicians who had failed to deliver for them”.
He added: “We are saying to the politicians that after RHI and other scandals, they must take care of those people who have been most affected by the Troubles.
“At times it feels like we are knocking our heads against a brick wall, but we are survivors and we are persistent.
“What we need from the Northern Ireland public is support to embarrass our politicians.”
Paul Gallagher was left paralysed after a shooting at his home in Lenadoon in 1994, carried out by gunmen who took over his house to wait for neighbours that never arrived.
He said he and other WAVE members refused to think of themselves as invisible.
“That’s the purpose of the exhibition — to make us visible, to remind people that we still exist, that these images cannot be ignored,” Mr Gallagher added.
“The biographies that accompany the photographs are short and to the point. They only state what happened to us. There’s no indication as to who injured us. There’s no judgement or blame apportioned because that is not what we are about.”
Mr Gallagher hopes the portraits will serve as a reminder that something needs to be done to help survivors to get on with their lives.
“We were left behind by society,” he said. “We were badly treated and left to struggle. (We had to) break through walls of apathy and indifference”.
The WAVE Trauma Centre plans to take the powerful six foot by six foot images of the 10 survivors to Stormont, to the Dail and to Westminster in a bid to persuade politicians to back the pensions campaign.
But Alan McBride, the co-ordinator of the injured group, stressed people felt they had been failed by politicians’ standoff over pensions.
He also said the DUP were opposed to Sinn Fein proposals to include injured combatants in the payouts.
“What we are looking for is a bit of money so that these people can live out the rest of their days with a bit of dignity,” Mr McBride explained.
“It cannot be right that because of a few individuals who were injured planting bombs the overwhelming majority of victims are denied pensions that would be around £4,000 to £6,000 a year, which isn’t a huge amount of money.”
Mr McBride, who lost his wife and father-in-law in the Shankill bombing, said WAVE was hoping Westminster would step in to tackle the pensions issue because politicians here were incapable of solving it.