The Politician
got quite a bit to put in here - ach well! Not so much!
How can you condense five years of political action and put it into a single web
page?
Impossible! I just got disturbed when people started
killing each other, and shot my mouth off in the local, Belfast, Press, appalled
at the stupidity of people shooting, bombing and maiming each other in order to
either 'Keep Ulster British' or 'Fight for a United Ireland'.
I'll not try to analyse the situation that developed, except
to say that it appeared to me that the only thing that would help in the
long-term would be to try to unite the ordinary decent people of the country,
Catholic and Protestant, Unionist and Nationalist, and learn to live together.
I was not alone in my views, and eventually, in 1970, those
who felt like I did got together to form a Political Party, at a packed meeting
in the Grand Central Hotel, Royal Avenue, Belfast.
It was the start of five years of hectic activity, in which
I, as an elected member of the Party Executive, Chairman of the Publicity Sub-Committee
and ultimately Founder-Editor designer of "Alliance", the party
newspaper, became totally involved - at the same time studying to take a degree
in education. Quite a balancing act.
To cut the story short - I'm a bit pushed for time -
elections took place in 1974 and I was selected to stand in the South Down
constituency.
These clippings record the event:
Thirty years later "Alliance" still survives - only just - despite
the hard lines drawn between the two tribes that exist in Northern Ireland.
The story remains to be played out. It's taking much
longer than I first thought. People seem to be afraid to move out from
entrenched attitudes- not a bit of wonder, I suppose, when the hard men of
violence have a grip upon 'their' areas and violent murder and obscene beatings
and knee-cappings are daily occurrences.
I remain firmly convinced that Alliance shows the way
forward. It may take 100 years, but I believe that in the future Alliance,
or the movement that it represents, will play a part in finally resolving
conflict in Northern Ireland.
There are enough good people out there to ensure that this
happens. All they have got to do is find the courage - and the wisdom.
Oh, by the way! I was not elected to the new Northern
Assembly. Eight of my Alliance colleagues were, and two of them, Bob
Cooper and Oliver Napier, became Ministers in the new NI Government.
Regretfully, six months later the Assembly collapsed, brought down by a general
strike organise by Ian Paisley and his Loyalist bullyboys, and the failure of a
weak-kneed British government to face up to threat that was, in my opinion, more
bluster than substance.
I did get my Education Degree, just about! It was 1975,
and I was 43.
"For goodness' sake!" I say to young
people who seem to have missed out on education, "I was 39 before I took
'A' Levels!"