Derry author Ken Thatcher to launch memoir ‘The Wife’s Sister’s Wee Boy’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born 1949 to a Royal Naval father and a Derry mother whose maternal parents had strong links with Ayrshire and Glasgow, Ken Thatcher lived in Drumahoe and the Waterside in a religiously undivided area until the age of seven before moving to the Cityside to what was at that time an equally undivided area.

After two years in Scotland in the mid-sixties, Ken returned to Foyle College and sat O-Levels and A-Levels before studying French Language and Literature at Magee College, a campus of the New University of Ulster, newly created by the Stormont government in the mid-sixties amid some fierce controversy. His studies began in October 1968 just as the first Civil Rights march took place in Derry, which is where this book ends.

Smoking, drinking, driving, gambling – Ken Thatcher had a colourful childhood. His new, humour-filled memoir of Derry in the '50s and '60s, ‘The Wife’s Sister’s Wee Boy’, will chime with anyone who ever struggled at school or in the pursuit of romance - and will strike a chord with readers well beyond the City Walls. In this extract from the new book Ken recalls growing up on Bond’s Hill, playing school with Anita Robinson and being hospitalised by the son of the local head constable…

It was around then, when I was aged five and a bit, that it was deemed safe that I should make my own way to school. This required me to walk up to Clooney Terrace, cross the main thoroughfare and embark on an Ulster Transport Authority (UTA) bus which would deliver me to the gates of The Model. This was not a school bus but a public service vehicle used by one and all. No one appeared to think that a five-year-old travelling on public transport would be subject to any kind of risk and of course I was not the only one of my age to be using public transport.

In those days buses still had a conductor whose duty was to issue tickets to the travelling public.

The tickets were made of thick cardboard and if you bought a return you had the onerous task of keeping it safe all day for use on the return journey when it would be punched with a set of clippers. One Christmas I was delighted to get a bus conductor’s outfit from Santa and spent ages issuing tickets to anyone entering our house. I was slightly miffed when The UTA bowed to progress and the old system was replaced by a newfangled machine which issued tickets from a roll of blank paper.

It was while travelling from school that I first experienced sectarianism. I had just alighted on Clooney Terrace and was looking forward to getting home when I was accosted by two boys who seemed to be more or less the same age as myself.

Ken and his mother in the 1950s.

They demanded to know whether I was a Catholic or a Protestant and were nonplussed to discover that I didn’t know. Helpfully I suggested that if they waited I would run down home, ask my mother and report back with the answer. For all I know they may still be waiting. I still wonder which answer they were hoping for, whether they wanted to visit violence upon me or welcome me as a future comrade in arms. Despite this rather unwanted intrusion our street remained a tranquil haven with plenty of scope for play.

Bond’s Hill was a cobbled street for most of the time I lived there and was never designed to take the amount of traffic it would eventually be required to absorb. It did however provide me with the opportunity to play a game which was common at the time – collecting car numbers.

I would sit at the kerbside with my legs on the main carriageway, noting down car numbers as they drove past. It could take a couple of hours to fill one side of a page. Picture that nowadays. There would be a policeman at your door remonstrating with your parents for allowing their child to play in the traffic and even worse you’d be poisoned by fumes and at risk of being squashed by rushing cars.

Ken travelled from the Waterside aged 5 on a bus to the Model School on Academy Road. Pictured here is the old academy, after which the street was named.

There’d probably also be a visit from Special Branch wondering what your interest in car number plates signified! At that time there were still horses and carts at work pulling their heavy loads over the cobbles too, their iron-shod wheels rattling as they moved slowly up and down the hill. I don’t think they counted as they didn’t carry a registration plate.

I also became quite friendly with a denizen of Melrose House, the old people’s home at Dale’s Corner, who seemed to spend his days tramping the streets before retiring for the night. To me he seemed always downcast, eyes firmly fixed on the ground. I discovered that he was constantly on the lookout for discarded cigarette butts which he broke up and refashioned into roll-ups. My mother swiftly dissuaded me from any further engagement with him.

Although the Waterside was very much a junior partner in our city, for those of us who lived there it provided more than enough entertainment. First of all, it was the location of two of our four railway stations. Railway travel was still enjoying tremendous popularity and we had the biggest and most important of the four stations at the bottom of our street. In the early fifties it was still a very busy hub both for passengers and freight.

Duke Street in the first half of the 20th century.

Regular as clockwork the station would spring to life at 6:30 am. A new arrival to the area might be roused from slumber by the sounds of engines getting up steam or the clank of trucks being shunted round the yard.

Then there would be the sound of lorries bringing goods for transport to Belfast or collecting goods for distribution around the town and local villages. We residents never really heard any of this and dozed on, the noise having become part of the backdrop to our daily life. 

I was a little frightened of the station. My father was often required as a serving member of the Royal Navy to take the train to wherever he was stationed at the time. We always went to the station to wave goodbye which I found rather difficult. My problem was compounded when, as we stood on the platform to say our farewell, the train would vent steam with a roaring hissing noise which would terrify me and frequently reduce me to tears. Even today, if we visit a heritage railway, that sound brings all those memories flooding back.

If you travelled down Bond’s Hill past Watt’s Distillery which by that time was just a bonded warehouse, you came to Duke Street which was a really busy commercial thoroughfare. One of the highlights for me was the blacksmith who worked in a yard accessed through an archway just off the main road. The blacksmith was happy to allow us to stand and watch as he replaced shoes on the enormous dray horses which still worked in the town.

Master Thatcher, long before he became a Foyle College teacher and bookshop owner.

These huge animals stood peacefully as they were shod. First there was a hiss of steam as the iron shoe made contact with the foot, followed by the smell of burning hoof and the bang of the hammer as the shoe was secured with nails.  

Just beside the railway station Wall’s ice cream had a cold store from which they served local shops. My mother worked in there for a brief period, which was terrific as it meant that sometimes if a package got damaged we would be treated to an ice lolly or perhaps a ‘Mivvi’, a new invention combining an ice lolly and an ice cream. Further along, near where there was a kind of goose neck twist in the street, there lived an old lady who ran a shop where we bought comics.

That was about as far as we would venture. Craigavon Bridge was never crossed unless on our way to school or accompanied by parents. Just behind us on Clooney Terrace there were several shops that my mother might frequent. There was the butcher’s shop, known to us as ‘Patsy’s’, where you could see the butcher cut the meat from the carcasses hanging from hooks at the rear of the shop.

The floor was strewn with sawdust to absorb whatever fluids were emitted during the butchery process. Meat was still a luxury and a little was made to go a long way. I can still see my mother stuffing a fairly small piece of steak to stretch it sufficiently to feed half a dozen people. My memories of those days were of clean plates at the end of dinner – noses were not turned up at anything edible. The only other commercial establishments I frequented were Dale’s chemists, where I would collect prescriptions for Granny, and Tillie’s chip shop where we would sometimes get a fish supper as a treat.

In the other direction lay St. Columb’s Park. To get to the park you walked up past Dale’s Corner and made your way along the perimeter fence of HMS Sea Eagle, which housed the NATO Anti-Submarine Base. Unknown to me we were at the height of The Cold War and Derry had a key role to play in keeping the threat of communism at bay. My father eventually found employment there. The park seemed a long way off but was probably a five-minute walk. The wide, open space it provided became increasingly important after we got our first dog.

Who provided the entertainment for children in Bond’s Hill? Ourselves, for the most part. There were a few people of a similar age to myself living in the area at the time. One in particular is clearly imprinted on my mind.

Glendermott Road, around the corner from Ken's home on Bond's Hill.

Her father was the principal of a local primary school and she was wont to play school with us. She always played the role of teacher and would sit us in rows on her doorstep and begin to teach us. It came as no surprise that in later life she did indeed become a prominent schoolteacher and journalist.  

There was only one boy in the street of my age as far as I can remember. His father was a head constable in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, a now-defunct rank which stood between sergeant and inspector. The only game I can clearly recall playing with him involved us throwing stones at one another in his backyard. The point of the game eludes me but at all costs you had to avoid being struck by a missile.

Unfortunately, I failed and soon I was running up to our house with blood pumping out of a gash on my forehead. Immediately my mother realised that it was too much for a sticking plaster and I was whisked away to The City and County Hospital on Infirmary Road, looking down Clarendon Street.

This was my first experience of a casualty department and within an hour or so I had two stitches inserted with a minimum of fuss and was sent on my way. I still have the scar, which as my hairline recedes has become more prominent.