I haven’t seen this, but the younger of my mother’s two brothers travelled from Dublin to Lanark to join the RASC in 1939. It was perhaps less of an issue for him as the family were English - my grandparents being from Reigate settled in Waterford after marrying in 1911, where they had the four children (and missed the Easter Rising) before moving to Dublin in 1920, just after Mum was born. My uncle later transferred to the CMP (I’ll scan and post some photos in the future) and was demobbed in 1945. It was a source of regret that he could never visit on leave in uniform because he would have been interned.
I never served in NI but I stayed with a family friend in Greenisland last year, I spent the whole time on edge especially when talking to the locals: on hearing my voice (obviously English (from Dorset)) you could almost see them thinking ‘have you been here before?’. I walked into a market in Belfast and nearly crapped myself when a voice behind called my name, fortunately it was a guy who’d lived in my block in the halls of residence at Glasgow University! It was also a source of regret to my mother that we were advised not to travel home in uniform due, largely, to the IRA.
Graham
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I am looking to purchase items from the British Administration Police & Prison Services in Cyrenaica & Tripolitania; Eritrea & Ethiopia; Somalia (f. Italian Somaliland) & British Somaliland; & the Dodecanese: insignia, documents, photographs etc.
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09-06-13, 08:14 PM
I didn't know you had an English accent!
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