‘Two boys. No father? It wasn’t planned’
JUNE McMULLIN, 64, A PROTESTANT UNIONIST EXPLAINS HOW TOO MANY HEARTS WERE BROKEN
Imet John Proctor when I was 14 years old. It was 1973. He was known as Johnnie, and I saw him for the first time at a dance at my local village hall. I remember when we first started going out and my mother chasing him from the door saying: ‘Away home with you, boy!’ But he kept coming back.
He was kind, gentle and had a car, so always brought me back home safely. The Troubles were happening in other areas closer to the cities, but not where I lived. It was a small village. What were people going to blow up – a couple of sheep?
I thought we were lucky, and I considered it my safe haven - but that would be far from true. At that point, Johnnie was working as a mechanic locally. ‘I think I’ll hand in my notice and join the police,’ he told me one evening.
I was speechless. When he brought the forms home to join the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) I threw them in the bin.
‘We’re not going down that road,’ I told myself – it wasn’t safe. In the eyes of the Republican community, Johnnie would’ve been seen as representing the Queen and the British Government – it would have put a target on his back.
Johnnie disagreed: ‘It’s a better job, better pension, better life, and better pay.’ So he joined.
There weren’t any riots where we lived in Magherafelt, County Londonderry, so he just needed to be extra careful. As time went on, I watched as he fell in love with the job – but turmoil had started to reach our village.
A young man had been going home from work when another car came up from behind and tried to shoot him. The Troubles had come to sleepy upper lands.
When you had someone in the security forces in your family, that was your way of life. Constant fear, not knowing when it would be your turn.
I had my son Adrian, and I went into labour five weeks early in September 1981 with Johnnie Junior. My Johnnie had been visiting me at the maternity wing of the Mid Ulster Hospital. I had walked down with him and kissed him goodbye before waiting at the window to wave, but after hearing gunshots I knew that was our final goodbye. I was left with two boys. No father. It wasn’t a world we planned. Johnnie was the 17th policeman to be killed in Ulster. But he wasn’t a policeman. He was a father and a husband who had gone to see his newborn son.
The IRA ripped my family apart on the 14th September 1981 and for the next 32 years, Johnnie’s killer, Seamus Martin Kearney lived just half a mile away from me. He was convicted of murder in 2013 after his DNA was found on a cigarette discarded at the scene. He received a life sentence, but under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, he served just two years. I felt robbed of justice.
That feeling has always been there. I’ve lived my life with that memory but I’ve had good times. I’ve remarried, I’ve had more family, I’ve got grandchildren and my focus is on them and now.