So; if you’ve read all
that has gone before you will now know that I have been set on a course of
training by a secret cabal to become the greatest Master Candle Maker in the world. On top of that, I am the high Chief of the
clan O Neill and the true King of Ireland, although as my young self I do not
know any of these facts yet. All I do know
is that the world is full of perverts, I have the loveliest legs in Ireland, I
had been reunited with my bike and oh yes, and I had managed to get expelled
from Violent Hell, twice!
The summer holidays were approaching and I was frustrated at
the fact that I had been offered free passage to Europe, but there might be a
price to pay, which I was not willing to entertain. I decided that if there were two of us, by
sticking together we might make it to Rotterdam unmolested. I began asking about. I had plotted out a route on the map in my
pocket diary, my bike was in top condition, I had a rucksack at home and was hungry
for adventure.
They were not many takers, probably because they didn’t have
as fantastic a bike as I had, however I was approached by one old school
friend. Finbar Magee. Finbar was a lovely fellow, his family lived
in the middle of bandit country, were farmers by trade and Finbar sported the
most wonderful head of ginger hair you had ever seen. Finbar explained that he heard I was trying
to find someone to accompany me on a jaunt abroad. We began to talk and I discovered that Finbar
wanted to go to London for the summer.
I eventually agreed that I would go with Finbar to London. He had a brother there so we could spend a
night or two on his floor until we got ourselves sorted out. Seemed like a plan so I accepted. This was a Friday
night, so on the Saturday Finbar came to our house with his parents. Introductions
were made and the parents gave permission.
Finbar and myself went into Warrenpoint and went to see Mervyn. Mervyn was working in a travel agents office.
“Mervyn, we want to go to London.”
Mervyn amazed us as he flipped through all sorts of books and
charts and time tables. I hadn’t really
given it much thought and actually had to begin to think about the trip when
Mervyn asked if we wanted to fly, or go by boat, and would we want to go from Belfast
or Dublin?. We opted for the flying route
of Belfast to London and waited as Mervyn arranged the process. Rather than pay the fare Mervyn gave us a
letter which we were to hand in to the British Airways desk at Aldergrove
airport.
That night I went to Finbar’s house, as it was closer to the airport,
and the following morning his mother drove us to Aldergrove. We went straight to the British Airways check
in desk and presented ourselves and the letter from Mervyn. The desk was about chest high so the staff
probably didn’t see Finbar and myself count out the money and hold it
ready. They presented us with tickets
and as a small queue was forming asked us to move through to the departure lounge. We did.
We stuffed the money back into our pockets and began to
wonder about this flying thing. We were
two very clever fellows from Violent Hell so we should be able to work it out. We came to the conclusion that the aeroplane
would be like a bus, we would pay as we got on, and there would be a conductor
or something like that. The flight was
boarding so we asked the stewardesses who were directing us to the bus if we
should pay them. They smiled and laughed
at us.
There were no stewards or stewardesses on the bus taking us
to the aeroplane so we knew we wouldn’t have to pay the bus driver, we weren’t daft. The steward who welcomed us onto the aircraft
smiled and ushered us to our seats. Once
airborne we knew that someone would come along, like a bus conductor, and issue
us with tickets so if someone was flying to London , like us, then they would pay
x amount, if someone was flying to Paris they would pay 2x and so on. But what if someone got on the plane at
London? We realised that this flying business
was quite complicated so scoffed the nosh they offered us seeing as it was
included in the fare.
We got off the aircraft in London and knew that we would pay
as we entered the terminal. However we
didn’t, we found ourselves standing by the carrousel waiting for our bags when
two hands approached us in a northerly direction and were placed on our shoulders. They didn’t even say hello, not once, or twice,
or even thrice!
“Peter Morris and Finbar Magee? We nodded as warrant cards were flashed in
our faces and were not exactly delighted
to be informed that Special Branch were going to take us away so that we could
help them with their inquiries. This was
just before the Guilford four, Maguire seven and Birmingham six incidents so
Finbar and I knew that there was a good chance we could be locked away for a
good number of years and all because one of us had ginger hair. We had tried to pay the fare on many occasions
since arriving at Aldergrove so with the letter from Mervyn, and the cash we
hoped we wouldn’t be in too much trouble.
Luckily they only tried to pin the burning down of a hotel in
Warrenpoint the previous evening on us. They
knew we were from Warrenpoint and that we had probably run away to hide after
we had burned the place down, as you do.
After my experiences with the priests and getting expelled for doing nothing,
except telling the truth, I was a little bit worried. Luckily the story that we had spent the night
in bandit country was backed up by a number of people, including the pervert
priest, so we were allowed to leave although they very kindly informed us that
they would be keeping an eye on us. It was
lovely to know that for two young fellows from rural Ireland would be protected
by a shady police group.
We came back out to the carousel to find our two bags still
circling, looking very sad and lonely. We
collected them and as getting arrested, or lifted, as we referred to it in Ireland
was an almost every day occurrence we paid little attention to what had just
happened and began to wonder where we would pay our fare. We left the arrivals hall and entered the main
terminal building. We could see the exit
doors where we knew we would have to show our tickets and pay the fare.
We still wondered where we should pay our fare as we stood
outside Heathrow terminal and realised that we were quite some distance from home.
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