Showing posts with label Dixie Elliot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dixie Elliot. Show all posts
Dixie Elliot ✍ with his Graveside Oration For Óglach Denis Sa Gallagher.


I was standing with a group of friends on the steps outside the old Shantallow Community Centre, that dark winter’s night back in October 30th 1974.

I can’t honestly remember who those friends were, but I do remember someone coming from the direction of Moyola Drive. Again, I can’t remember who this person was, only that he had shouted over to us that Wee Ben had been killed in a bomb explosion.

The memory of those brief few moments have been etched into my mind since then; a memory as dark as that night had been. Word would soon follow on the heels of that terrible news that Sa Gallagher and another Volunteer had also been in and very close to the car when the bomb exploded prematurely while Ben sat with it on his lap in the back seat.

Óglach Michael Meehan was only sixteen when he died that night almost fifty years ago. Sa was barely a month from his seventeenth birthday and the third volunteer would have also been a teenager.

They had pulled into a petrol station, between where the Council offices and the roundabout are located today. Their intended target was a British army sangar on the Quay. The third Volunteer got out of the car holding a 45 handgun and ordered civilians who had been in the forecourt to leave. He then proceed to put petrol in the car so as not to arouse any suspicion. Inside the car, Sa, who had been the driver on that night, turned around to speak to Ben and at that very moment the bomb exploded.

The volunteer, who had been outside putting petrol into the car, was thrown back by the force of the blast. For Sa time would have been frozen in a brief few moments of shock and uncertainty, there would have been a nightmarish ringing in his ears. Then the door to survival in his mind would have been prised open by instinct. But another door kept him locked inside the waking nightmare; the car door, which he couldn’t open. Then instinct intervened again and he kicked out the windscreen. As he crawled free the thought that he had escaped the clutches of death would surely have crossed his mind. The rear of the car where Ben had been seated only seconds beforehand was nothing more than a twisted mess of smothering metal. Sa heard the ominous sound of wailing sirens in the distance and saw the flashing blue lights of the fast approaching enemy vehicles coming up Strand Road from Fort George army barracks. Instead of running in the opposite direction towards Lawrence Hill, as instinct would have most of us doing, Sa and his comrade had the presence of mind to walk calmly towards the oncoming Military and RUC vehicles.

As the enemy roared past them they saw that a group of people had gathered outside The Carraig Bar, so they approached them and Sa recognised one of the men, a teacher, and asked him to take them to Shantallow, which the man did. Sa was later smuggled across the border where he received treatment for his facial wounds. He was then billeted with an old farmer who fed him with spuds and very little else. Sa told me that the old fella gave him a large tub of Vaseline and instructed him to keep applying it to a wound on his face. He did so and the wound quickly healed leaving barely any sign of a scar.

Anything was better than life on the run in an isolated farm and a daily ration of spuds, so Sa left the old fella to his endless supply of spuds and returned to Derry and the war.

That was Sa Gallagher, he had Republicanism flowing through his veins. His father, Dinny, was a Republican, as was his grandfather James Gallagher. By the time I joined the IRA as a 16 year old, Sa, who was five months younger than me, had been a veteran. He had even been a member of Na Fianna as a small boy, in the 1960s. He once told me that the Fianna at that time had been more like the Boy Scouts.

When I moved to Carnhill from Rosemount around the middle of 1972, I got involved in the Shantallow riots which were a daily occurrence, while Sa was an active member of the IRA, putting his life on the line each day. On one of those days, he almost shot me while I was hanging on to the back of an RUC Land Rover, which was slowly moving down Drumleck Drive. I was attempting to pull the rear doors open so that someone running behind could hurl a paint bomb into the back of it.

I heard an awful rattle on the side of the Land Rover and quickly realised that it was bullets hitting it and not stones, so I jumped off and rolled behind a parked car. The Land Rover then sped up and roared on down the street.

Sa had stepped out from Deery’s alleyway and opened fire on the Land Rover not knowing that I was hanging on to the back of the thing. Shortly after that he came and said to me, ‘what the bloody hell were you doing, hanging on the back of that Land Rover?’

‘Trying to open the back door,’ said I. ‘I didn’t know you were going to open up on it, did I?’

I was still a just rioter at that stage, throwing stones and paint bombs at the Brits and the RUC, while this IRA volunteer, who had been around my own age was firing live rounds at them. Sa and I have laughed about him almost shooting me many times over the years. Not long afterwards, I was taken aside and told that I would be better putting my energy into the IRA than rioting. So I joined Na Fianna and within a short time, The IRA. From that period on Sa and I formed a bond that would last the rest of our lives, a brotherly bond.

Around August and September of 1976, the British policy of criminalisation, was in full swing. they wanted to label Republicans as criminals. The so called conveyor-belt system of arrest, brutality and torture was quickly filling the prisons with young men and women. The first IRA volunteer to be sentenced as a result of this policy, Kieran Nugent, refused to wear the uniform of a common criminal, famously telling the screws that they’d have to nail it to his back before he’d wear it. The Blanket Protest had begun and many more Republican prisoners would follow him onto it.

One after the other, or in small groups, we found ourselves on remand in Crumlin Road jail and one of the very few active volunteers left in Shantallow was Sa Gallagher.

But his freedom would be short-lived, Sa was eventually led, in handcuffs, through the gates of the Victorian prison to reunite with the rest of us. On the day of his trial a grim-faced judge, wearing an absurd wig which made him look like King Billy, looked down on him from his lofty position of power.

Sentencing was quick, without the nuisance of having to prove guilt. And in Sa’s case it was shocking in it’s severity. He received two life sentences, plus 365 years in jail.

After that it was a short van journey to the concrete hell known as the H Blocks and the long years of brutal beatings, torture and food which wasn’t fit for animals. The bitter winters, which included the Winter of 1978, when the cold winds would reach into our cells, through windows without glass, and grip our naked bodies with their icy fingers.

The summers would come, when the warmth of the sun could only be felt by reaching through the concrete bars of the cell windows, and they would eventually leave us to make way for another cruel winter. The unrelenting violence meted out to us by the screws was the constant thread which wove the seasons together. The birds would visit and entertain us with their antics and their songs of freedom, while the shifting clouds or the blue skies would remind us of a life we had once known beyond those high walls and watch towers.

The H Blocks were prisons within a much larger prison and throughout those long years of confinement we might only have seen each other on our way to and from the monthly visits, which were a valuable means of smuggling comms in and out of the jail and tobacco for the smokers among us. As we passed each other we gave a quick greeting and moved on like the wretched ghosts that we had become. In September 1979 I was moved from H6 to H3 where Sa was at the time and we got to meet up at the weekly mass in the canteen.

It was a Sunday just like the many other Sundays in the H Blocks and I was sitting in the front row of seats with Sa. The second hunger strike led by Bobby Sands had just begun. As we spoke to each other, Bobby came over and squeezed in between us. I introduced him to Sa and for a few moments we engaged in small talk. There was little we talk about knowing what lay ahead for Bobby in the weeks and months to come. He then got up, we said our farewells and watched as he went around the other men doing the same thing. We both knew that Bobby was saying his goodbyes to the men he had led during those hellish years and we knew that we’d never see him again in this life.

When Sa was told the terrible news that he had cancer and that it would eventually take him from his family and friends, he faced it with the same courage that he faced the forces of the British Crown as a youthful yet fearless IRA volunteer. He refused to lie down and wait on the end, and we were awestruck at how he got on with what had to be done, painting and decorating his home, doing repairs and getting out and about as normal.

I spoke to Sa one day, about what lay ahead of him, and he told me that he should have been buried in the Republican plot beside young Ben Meenan since 1974, but that he had somehow survived, that he had met and married Anna, who gave birth to his two girls, Sarah and Tricia and watched them grow into young women and in turn bless him and Anna with grandchildren. Ben never got to have that he told me.

A Dolmen, which is a monument to the Irish warriors of legend and of more recent times, stands on or near to the spot where the Gallagher family home on Hogg’s Folly, once stood. And today we lay one of those Irish warriors, Sa Gallagher, to rest.

Óglach Denis Gallagher has left us. His heartbroken family, Anna, Sarah and Tricia. His grandchildren, Donnchadh, Heidi and Darcy. His brother and sisters, Helen, Philomena, Jamesie, Lizzie, June, Jacqueline, Geraldine, Anne and Majella. And we who are his friends and comrades.

We remember at this sad time his father, Denis, a proud Republican, his mother Molly, a gentle soul, Charlie, his brother and Katie his sister and his grandchild, Darragh.

Although we grieve for him, Sa leaves us with memories which will never diminish with the passing of time.

The oak spreads mighty beneath the sun,

In a wonderful dazzle of moonlight green -

Oh would I might hasten from tasks undone,

And journey whither no grief hath been!

- Ethna Carbey, Bobby Sands’ favourite poet.

Codladh éasca mo shean cara.

Sleep easy my old friend.

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

For Denis

Dixie Elliot ✍ There is a video of a so called volley of shots outside the home of Óglach Sa Gallagher circulating on social media.

I can tell you now that member of this group approached Sa a while back and asked him if he wanted it. He told him in no uncertain terms that he didn't want it, as he had no time for this group.

They approached his wife earlier today, at a vulnerable time, unbeknownst to myself and got her permission to do it not knowing what she was giving permission to.

The first attempt caught us on the hop as we weren't expecting it and it was embarrassing to watch as the weapon repeatedly jammed.

As a close friend of the Gallagher family I can say that they are angry that this happened and that it was done without their permission.

The daughter of Sa Gallagher has just contacted me to ask that the video is taken down and that it is such an embarrassment to her daddy.

This family are grieving for their father and their brother, a Republican held in the highest regard by all Republicans as seen by the numbers who attended his wake.

The last thing they need is this.
Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Unwanted Volley

Dixie Elliot ✍ Big Richard O'Rawe invited me to a talk that himself and John Crawley were giving to a delegation from the AOH in America, in Derry's Maldron Hotel last night. 

The talk was meant to be about their respective books, Stakeknife's Dirty War and The Yank.
I was very reluctant to go because of the AOH but it was a chance to meet up again with Richard, Bernie and their two lovely daughters, Berni and Stephanie, as well as John and his wife Debbie, so I agreed.
 
Last night myself and Sharon turned up at the hotel, as did Danny McBrearty. The receptionist had told us that everyone was having a meal in the dining room so we waited.
 
When they began to trickle out I noticed that Martin Galvin seemed to be in a state of panic. Then the O'Rawe family came out and we greeted each other warmly. When John and Debbie emerged, John was like a man who had lost his phone or his wallet, he was clearly distracted.
 
John then told me that he and Martin Galvin had a row in the dining room over what he could or could not say about the GFA.
 
"I'm damn sure," he told me, "that I'm going to be told what I can nor can't say!"

As it turned out I would have really regretted not turning up when I heard how the talk went. Richard gave an excellent outline of his book and talked about the dirty war.
 
Then John took to the stage. To cut a long story short, he gave the AOH a lesson on the history of Irish Republicanism, then proceeded to tear the GFA to shreds. The admiration I already had for John Crawley was increasing by the minute.
 
I was surprised to see that many in the AOH delegation were clapping him as he spoke. But what I didn't realise was that John was causing a few arses to open and close up front.
 
After John had finished saying what he had to say, Danny McBrearty rowed right in behind him telling of the surreptitious moves by McGuinness, in particular, to suss out who would be relied upon to tow the leadership line and who had to be pushed out.
Before anyone else got a chance to speak a big guy at the front got up and put an end to things, saying that it was time to move out of the conference room. It reminded me of Séanna Walsh silencing the Palestinians at the Europa Hotel meeting.
 
The ordinary members of the AOH were then milling among us thanking us for our service and wanting photos taken. I wondered what they'd think when they eventually got round to reading both books.

Afterwards we gathered in the hotel bar for a few drinks. Sharon and myself, Richard and his family, John and Debbie and Danny McBrearty. When I say a few drinks, for the most part they were non-alcoholic drinks. There wasn't a member of the AOH delegation to be seen, they had clearly been ushered off to their rooms before anymore damage could be done. Only Martin Galvin remained and he appeared to be suffering from PTSD.
 
After a while I noticed that John and Debbie had disappeared from our company and when I asked, Martin Galvin told me that they had gone to a bar around the corner. That was rather strange, I thought, they didn't even tell us that they were going.
 
Come 10.30 we were going our different ways, the O'Rawe family, as well as John and Debbie had been booked into the hotel by the AOH delegation and we were going home.

Then, when I got outside, I was told what had really happened to John and Debbie. The two guys who were in charge of the AOH delegation - Martin Galvin was not one of them - had pulled John aside and told him that they weren't welcome at the breakfast table the next morning. John and Debbie went to their room got their belongings and took the long journey home.
 
Neither I nor Richard had known a thing about it and I believe that it was held back from us knowing what our reactions would be should we have found out while inside the bar.
 
The AOH are heading off to Belfast this morning, I believe, with their check books. The two big guys will be hoping that their money can buy a rebuttal of the truth they didn't want their members hearing in Derry. 
Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Ancient Order Of Censors

Dixie Elliot ✍ I recently became aware of a video which was posted on YouTube during the week by Sinn Fein titled, ‘Hunger Striker Sean McKenna remembered by his comrade Danny Morrison.’ 


Danny Morrison, Sinn Fein’s Director of Revisionism, walked among the graves of the Republican dead in Milltown Cemetery and once again lied in regards to the ending of the first hunger strike back in December 1980, laying the blame for it’s failure on Brendan Hughes.

If that was sickening enough, seeing him using the name of the late Sean McKenna to sell this lie added to my anger. The grave robbers Burke and Hare had more respect for the dead.

According to Morrison:

. . . The following night the British government were due, through an emissary, to deliver a document to the hunger strikers. Before the document arrived, the hunger strike was called off by Brendan Hughes. The document arrived and Bobby Sands was sent for. All the promises of a progressive prison liberal regime were now, that the British government knew that the hunger strike was over and all those people who said they would intervene and support the prisoners and would support reforms, they all disappeared . . . 

The thing about the truth is that you cannot get caught out telling it, something Morrison can’t seem to get his head around as he’s a habitual liar and the above statement is full of holes, big holes.

I stated many times, given my huge respect for Brendan Hughes, a leader who always led from the front, that any attempt to smear his name regarding how that hunger strike came to an end would be met with the truth and the only ones to blame for this are the liars like Morrison.

However, the one very important person who exposes Morrison’s lie regarding how that hunger strike ended was Bobby Sands himself. I will get to that soon.

Take for example Morrison’s claim, ‘the document arrived and Bobby Sands was sent for…’

No thought whatsoever has gone into that particular lie. Father Meagher received the document at Belfast airport from ‘The Mountain Climber.’  He then took it to Adams and others who were waiting in Clonard Monastery. As they were looking over it Tom Hartley entered the room and told them that the hunger strike was over.

The document contained nothing, it merely indicated that prisoners could wear ‘civilian-type’ clothing during the working week. That was another form of prison uniform.

Bobby had been sent for when the hunger strike ended and he had no document because it was still in the hands of Gerry Adams in Clonard Monastery. The source for this is Adams himself in his book, A Farther Shore.

Why would Bobby return to our wing that night and tell desperate men in Irish that, “ní fhuaireamar feic.” (we got nothing) if there was even the slightest of chances that some British offer gave us some hope of ending the blanket protest? Why did Bobby then sit down on his mattress and start writing a comm to Gerry Adams informing him that he would be leading another hunger strike which would begin on January 1st instead of waiting to see if the Brits kept to their promises? Because they had made none. That hunger strike ended because, as Sean McKenna was nearing death, some men told Brendan they were coming of it, leaving The Dark with no other choice but to end it before Sean died needlessly.

In fact, Bobby told Adams exactly that in the comm he was writing to him. (see screenshots taken from page 305, Chapter 21; Nothing But An Unfinished Song, below).

. . . I don’t believe we can achieve our our aims or recoup our losses in the light of what has occurred. Sooner, rather than later, our defeat will be exposed. When I say, in the light of what has occurred, I mean not only the boys breaking but perhaps our desperate attempts to salvage something . . . 

Adams, Morrison and the others knew how it ended from the time they read that comm from Bobby, yet they persist in the lie that Brendan Hughes had ended it and was therefore responsible for the second hunger strike which claimed the lives of ten brave men. They do this because The Dark died with his principles intact and he never betrayed his dead comrades for political or financial gain and he didn’t hold back, while he lived, in telling the truth.

Given that he also knew the truth, yet was only too willing to promote this lie at his master’s behest, I have no problem in naming Raymond McCartney as being one of those men who told Brendan they were coming off that hunger strike.

Near the end of the video Morrison tells anyone foolish enough to believe him that Bobby’s election victory paved the way for Sinn Féin’s move towards electoral politics. He would have you believe that the hunger strikes were part of a long term strategy to bring Sinn Féin into government in the Stormont it was determined to ‘smash’ back then, and to take their seats with the Free Staters, who had sided with the British against their own people in the North.

According to Morrison:

…The election of Bobby Sands, on the 9th April 1981, provided the springboard for Sinn Féin to adopt it’s electoral strategy, the fruits of which we see today… 

Bobby only stood in that election in the hope that victory would mean that Thatcher couldn’t possibly let a sitting MP die on hunger strike. This of course proved not to be the case, as she was a vindicative evil bitch.

However, even while the hunger strike was still ongoing, Adams and his inner-circle, which of course included Morrison, began to furtively lay the path which would take an unwitting Republican Movement onto the road of electoral politics. Three days after the death of Michael Devine, on the same day that Owen Carron won the bye-election for Bobby’s vacant seat in Fermanagh/South Tyrone, Sinn Féin announced that in future it would contest all ‘Northern Ireland’ elections. 

The hunger strike was still ongoing and this decision had not been to put to the Movement as a whole because that year’s Ard Fheis would not be until late October. Michael Devine had barely been lowered into his grave as they ‘seized the opportunity’ to set their ‘electoral strategy’ in motion. It comes as no surprise that it was Morrison who would ask the delegates at that Ard Fheis if anyone there would object if they took power in Ireland with a ballot paper in one hand and the Armalite in the other.

We all know what eventually happened to the Armalite. They decommissioned it, as did they the right to call themselves Republicans by attending the coronation of the British king, Charles.

Thanks to the family of Bobby Sands, who had only recently found out themselves by uncovering one of his prison comms in the National Archives, we now know he had requested that he be buried in Ballina beside Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan, because he didn’t like Milltown Cemetery. Bobby also requested that he ‘wanted wrapped in a blanket cause I don’t want humiliated in a stinkin’ suit or shroud.’

Danny Morrison tried to claim that Bobby had later changed his mind about Ballina by coming up with a few lines which he claimed were contained in a comm from Bobby, but the comm he referred to did not in fact include those lines in both the books it was included in, Ten Men Dead and Nothing But An Unfinished Song.

What he could not lie about was that Bobby’s simple request, that he be wrapped in a blanket because he didn’t want humiliated in a stinkin’ suit or shroud, was denied him. Bobby Sands was highly intelligent and he would have fully realised that the screws would not have handed over a prison blanket for him to be laid to rest in. He was obviously referring to a similar type of blanket which would be symbolic of the protest which took up the final years of his life.

Bobby Sands was buried in a shroud and his family weren’t made aware of his final request.

Excerpt from Bury Me In My Blanket by Bobby Sands:

I've thought about that too,” I said, “and it's hard to say to oneself that one is prepared to go to such an extreme, but then we are special prisoners and we are struggling for a special cause, so if I should die here, tell “Mr Mason” to bury me in my blanket . . . ” 

 

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

More Lies Morrison

Dixie Elliot ✍ Ryan Tubridy's new agent, Danny Healy-Rae, has told an RTÉ News reporter that he has applied for the vacant newsreader's job with BBC.

 

Healy-Rea said that Ryan Tubridy isn't available for comment at present as he doesn't know yet that he's his new agent and that he applied for the job without telling Tubridy.
 
"Would you be havin' a pint with me before you be on your way?" Healy-Rea asked the reporter.

"I will indeed, thank you."
 
"Then it's your round, that'll be €150!" said Healy-Rea.
 
"A €150? That's a bit steep for two pints!"

"It's traditional that new-comers buy everyone a drink in this pub." said Healy-Rea.

"But there's only you and me here!"

"Ah now, don't you worry a thing about it, I'll see to it that everyone else gets a pint when I open the bar... Will you be havin' a wee whiskey with that pint?"

"F*ck no!"
Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

RTÉ News

Dixie Elliot ✍ In other words, stay off Facebook Timothy or you'll be going straight to hell.


The day before the Last Days everyone will be on Facebook posting photos of the giant meteorite hurtling towards the earth wondering will it hit down around Sydney Australia or in the Shantallow area of Derry.

The day after the Last Days the last person left on earth will still be on Facebook tagging all their friends to see if they heard any craic about the end of the world and if it was all a mix.

Of course, no one will respond and 28 days later this Omega Person will start sending out friend requests to people across the world.

Twenty-eight years later, someone finally accepts a friend request from the Omega Person but that other person is still using a fake name.

"Hi Kissmyass, it's amazing to find another friend on Facebook who's still alive after all these years. What's your real name?"

"Oh I can't tell you that, you could be working for the dole."

"When was the last time you got any dole Kissmyass?"

"I forget now, but I know I'll be getting a lot of back money. Anyway, I see your name is Sausage Doherty. Are you from Londonderry?"

"It's Derry... Up the RA!

....Fucksake, Kissmyarse just blocked me... well two of us can play at that game, I'll block him straight back."

The End. . . .
Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

You're Going To Hell . . . Timothy

Dixie Elliot ✍ I first passed through the gates of H5 near the end of June 1977, about a week after my 20th birthday.


That was 46 years ago. I had just been sentenced to 12 years, which was nothing compared to some of the heavy sentences being handed down by the British judiciary at that time.

Check-in was at the reception area known as 'The Circle'. Why it was called that I'll never know, maybe because it sounded better than 'The Rectangle'.

Having failed to persuade me to check into, what he tried convincing me was 5 Star accommodation if I only conformed, the unfriendly receptionist, who wore a white shirt, told his staff to show me to my new lodgings.

I passed through the bar area, known as, 'The Grills' and found myself on a wing with guys yelling at me all at once about one thing or another.

I had never stayed in a hotel before, but I knew from the time I had spent on remand that I wouldn't be given a room with a sea view.

I was right. The only view I could see, through the concrete bars in the window, was the wing opposite. The men on that side were at their own windows shouting at the men on our side of the block and they in turn were shouting back. Having experienced a check-in during which I was shouted at, I wondered if everyone shouted at each other in this place.

The wing and the cells were all nice and clean at that time, we had bunk-beds, a table and plastic chairs, even a nice piss pot and a clean water gallon.

My first cellmate on the Blanket Protest was a lad called Bailus Boyle, he was from either The Markets or The Short Strand in Belfast. Bailus seemed to know the words of almost any song you could mention. He often sang Jesamine by The Casuals, a group from the 1960s which was only around the corner from the 1970s back then. I suppose it still is.

The only two songs I had in my repertoire were the Elvis songs, 'Jailhouse Rock' and 'Wooden Heart' (I even knew the German part of that one).

Later that night after the screws had left us the wing OC called everyone to silence as the shouting was to begin in earnest, this time it would be official shouting. The best shouters in each block would shout to each other in Gaelic, passing on the events of that day, like who got beat up by the screws, the names of the latest men to join the protest, plus orders and sceal, if there was any.

I realised at that point what all the shouting, during the day, had been about; the men were practicing their shouting, hoping to be selected as the block shouter.

After it was all over, bar the shouting from wing to wing, it was time for the entertainment of the night. There would be the retelling of books out the side of cell doors which, more often than not, were told totally different to the actual books themselves.

There was of course the sing-songs, which consisted of, The Good, The Bad and The Atrocious. I was neither good nor bad and when my time came, after some persuading, I got up and belted out 'Jailhouse Rock' which I shouted rather than sang. To my utter surprise the wing went crazy, I had achieved stardom.

A few months later, in August 1977, a screw called me up to my door to tell me that Elvis had died. It had nothing to do with me, I might have murdered two of his songs but I had an alibi, which put me in jail at the time of his death.

Scuby Brown and Willie Hogan (Hogay) were in the cell next to mine, friends who were also from Shantallow and we had yarns out the windows which lasted long into the night. Over time the same yarns were being retold, having run out of new ones, so our conversations eventually got to the stage in which we ended up talking shite, little knowing what lay ahead of us.

An incident which still stands out in my memory was hearing a fracas coming from a cell just across but up a bit from mine. I juked out the side of my cell door just in time to see a big screw known as, 'The Beol Mór' landing on his back out in the wing. The Beol Mór was one nasty piece of work. He was a big man with lips like the inner-tube of a tractor tyre, thus the nickname, which meant, 'Big Lips'.

He had been in with big Peter Bowe messing him about when he got what had been coming to him, a fist in the mouth. Seeing that big bastard staggering back across the wing, with arms flailing like a young bird trying to fly, before he hit the floor really made my day.

After a month or so I was moved further up the wing into a cell with Sam Marshall from Lurgan, who would later be shot dead by a British murder gang after he left a local RUC barracks.

Not too long after that I was moved to H4. I never got to see Sam again nor have I ever come across Bailus since our time together in H5 that summer in 1977.

Strangely enough I often get called out by family and friends to this day for shouting instead of talking . . .

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Welcome To H5, The Hotel From Hell

Dixie Elliot I finally managed to watch Seamus Kearney's gut-wrenching interview on Prime Time.

We can never imagine what Seamus went through that day, as he was given the terrible news that his brother Michael had been shot dead as an informer and dumped on the side of a border road. 

Many years later, forty-four to be exact, we saw the pain etched on his face as he recounted the priest breaking the news, his journey back to the Hell-Blocks and being taunted by a screw.

The British were determined to win the war at any cost, even sacrificing their own agents to keep those higher up, like Scappaticci, in place. Going as far as to let members of their own military forces die so as not to expose a high-ranking agent/tout.
 
There is no doubt that the British government, MI5 and FRU were guilty of war crimes. It was indeed a dirty war in which many brave volunteers were dying not knowing that the 'leadership' had plans to end it from at least 1987. Not knowing how high up betrayal went and surely never believing that those, like Scappaticci and John Joe Magee, who led the unit tasked with rooting out touts were actually touts themselves.

Volunteer Michael Kearney was just one of their victims, how many more innocent victims of Britain's dirty war might there be?

How many more Stakeknives might still be waiting to be uncovered?
Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

How Many More?

Dixie Elliot ✍ I recently came across a cracker TV series on one of those streaming sites.

I can't understand why it isn't more widely known about.

Snowfall is about the Crack Epidemic in LA in the early 1980s. The main character Franklin Saint, doesn't drink, smoke or take drugs but he goes from being small time to a major player.

The cocaine is being brought into LA from South America by a CIA operative called Teddy, who is using the money to fund the Contra War in Nicaragua.

There are no good guys in this series, except for Franklin's father, who was a former Black Panther, and maybe his mother.

The characters are likeable but gradually grow more ruthless, in particular Franklin and the CIA guy Teddy, who has no morals when it comes to destroying American lives in order to defeat Communism in South America.

Snowfall can also be viewed on BBC iPlayer.

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Snowfall

Dixie Elliot  continues in short story form.


Newly-weds Peter and Marie O’Hagan were travelling north from Dublin airport on the M1 motorway. The couple had just returned from a two week honeymoon in Florida. It was six o’clock in the morning and a grey light was creeping up on the dark sky. There was very little traffic on the motorway at that early hour and only the occasional lorry or delivery van passed them.

They were tired after the long journey and when they saw the flashing lights, cones and roadwork signs they both swore. A diversion sign directed them off the motorway and onto a secondary road. This road was dark and winding and it took all of Peter’s concentration to stay awake and out of the ditch. He noticed Marie had dozed off but was glad that at least one of them had the luxury of sleep, hopefully they would be back on the motorway before very long. Now and again his headlights caught a diversion sign so he knew that he was travelling in the right direction. He turned yet another bend and the road became very straight.
 
The early light of dawn was sweeping across the sky when Marie woke. She looked at Peter in surprise.
“Are we not back on the motorway yet?”
 
“Clearly not,” he answered.

“There’s no need to be sarcastic,” she replied. “How long have I been asleep?”
 
Peter looked at the clock, it was fifteen minutes past six, which meant he had only been driving along that road for little more than ten minutes, but it seemed to have been a lot longer. He hadn’t bothered to watch the time because he had been on the alert for other diversion signs. 

“About ten minutes,” he said.

“Did you take a wrong turn?” asked Marie.

“No I did not, there were no other side roads and I haven’t seen another diversion sign in a while.”

“Then you must have gotten us lost.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? There were no other side roads.”

“No need to shout I’m sitting right here.”

“I didn’t shout.”

“It was your tone of voice. It sounded like shouting from where I’m sitting.”

“Give me patience.”

“And what is that supposed to mean, eh?”

“Try the sat nav.”

“You’re driving, you try it.”

Peter sighed and leaned across to turn on the sat nav. “It’s not working.”

“Let me try. Keep your eyes on the road in case you crash the car and get us killed as well.”

“As well as what?”
 
“Getting us lost.”
 
She tried the sat nav. “It’s not working.”

“I suppose that’s my fault as well?”

“You insisted on buying this bloody car.”

“You liked it as much as I did. Anyway it’s only six months old, the sat nav should be working.”

“Well it’s not working now, is it?”

The rising sun was soaking the clouds in hues of red by the time they came to the brow of a hill. Peter stopped the car, the road ahead went straight down the hill and disappeared into the distance in a perfect straight line. There was an expansive raised bog on both sides of the road, which stretched away into the early morning mist.

“Turn this car around and go back the way we came Peter.”

“Go back to where… to those roadworks? And what do we do then Marie? Do we simply drive towards Dublin on the wrong side of the motorway?”

“There you go again.”

“What?”

You’re shouting at me.”

“I’m not shouting Marie.”

“Raising your voice then, that’s the same thing.”

“I’m only trying to explain that we have to keep going in the hope that we’ll find a turn off soon, or someone who’ll give us directions.”

Peter eased the car into gear and moved off down the hill gradually picking up speed.
 
“This is our first argument as a married couple dear,” he said after a moment or two.

Marie turned her head to look at him in disbelief. “It is not. Have you forgotten about that argument you started in Disney World… when you wanted to take a selfie with Micky Mouse?”

“You said we were too old to take a selfie with Micky Mouse.”

“Little kids have selfies with Micky Mouse.”

“It was you who wanted to go to Disney World in the first place.”

“You can’t go to Orlando and not go to see Disney World.”

“You can, if you want.”

“There you go again, it’s all about you isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Oh, and what about Universal Studios . . . the Wizarding World of Harry Potter? You just had to start telling the guy directing the queue things he might not know about Harry Potter. You might not know this about Harry Potter. You might not know that about Harry Potter.”

“I was simply being informative.”

“It’s his job to know everything about Harry Potter. People in the queue started staring and talking about us.”

“Because you kept shushing me out loud.”

Marie turned her attention to her phone. “Be quiet I’m going to phone Mum.”

“It’s about half past six in the morning.”

“She’ll be awake, she always gets up early… there’s no signal.” Marie looked at her phone in horror. “And there’s no wi-fi connection.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” said Peter. “I haven’t seen a house since we turned onto this stretch of road.”

Marie was still checking her phone. “What happened to my photos?”
 
“Huh.”

“Most of my photos have been deleted, except for the ones of me and you. Do you think that’s funny Peter? Some of them were taken at our wedding.”

“Why would I want to delete your photos?”

“Well someone did.”

“Let’s listen to some music,” said Peter. He turned on the radio.

‘Well, we know where we’re goin’
 
But we don’t know where we’ve been.

And we know what we’re knowin’
 
But we can’t say what we’ve seen…’

“Road to Nowhere by Talking Heads,” said Peter. “And of all places too. Anytime we hear this song in the future we’ll laugh about it.”

“Do I actually look like I am laughing… do I? Most of my photos have been deleted, there’s no phone signal or wi-fi, but you can get tuned into some stupid radio station.”

“That is strange,” said Peter.
 
They sat in silence and listened to the song. At least it was a distraction. Then it ended. There was a brief pause and…

‘Well, we know where we’re goin’- But we don’t know where we’ve been...’

“It’s started again,” said Marie in annoyance.
 
‘And we know what we’re knowin’- But we can’t say what we’ve seen…’
“Maybe it got stuck and the guy’s trying to fix it,” said Peter.
 
It had turned into a bright sunny morning, but there was still no sign of life or a house of any sort along the road.
 
The song ended, but it began again.
 
‘Well, we know where we’re goin’- But we don’t know where we’ve been…’

“It must be stuck on a loop,” said Peter.
 
“Then turn it bloody off before I go crazy!” Marie was beginning to lose control of herself.

Peter switched the radio off. Then he spotted something up ahead. “Look there’s a town,” he said. “We’ll get directions back onto the motorway.”

“The sooner the better,” said Marie.
 
They drove straight into the middle of the town and the first thing they noticed was that vintage cars were parked along both sides of the road. They passed a green Morris Minor, a red Ford Capri and a silver Volkswagen Beetle which were clearly well looked after.
 
“There must be a vintage car rally on in the town,” said Peter. He was relieved to see that Marie’s spirits were beginning to lift again. It was a picturesque town, the houses were all stone built and of varying sizes. As they neared the centre of the town they came to a T-junction where another road went westward in a straight line for as far as they could see. Other stone houses and a church built from sandstone blocks went the length of this road for a distance. There was a stained glass window on the gable-end of the church and on the side which fronted onto the roadway there were sandstone images of two figures holding hands surrounded by lacework, much like the design one would see on a Celtic cross, these were set in relief within a circular frame. There was a pub in the middle of the row of stone houses on the opposite side of the road, it wasn’t yet open to the public.
 
They pulled in behind a 1960s black Ford Zephyr, which was parked on the left hand side of the main street and got out of the car. There were some people who appeared to be couples out for an early morning stroll, they looked at Peter and Marie in the way one would at the appearance of strangers. At the end of the row of stone houses on that side of the street there was another sandstone building with similar images in relief of figures holding hands on the wall facing the road. There were numerous oak, Scots pine and ash trees growing in and around this town, which seemed to be an oasis in the middle of a vast raised bog.
 
“There’s a supermarket,” said Marie clearly excited at the find. “And it’s open.”

The supermarket was at the foot of three stone steps which went down off the main street and there were two windows above it, clearly where the owners themselves lived.
 
A bell tingled above the door as they entered the supermarket. It looked just like any other supermarket in any town or city.
 
“I need to get some drinks and something to eat,” said Marie as she disappeared among the rows of shelves.
 
Peter went straight to the man who had appeared behind the counter from a doorway. He didn’t seem pleased to see them in his shop. The man looked to be in his seventies, he was unkempt and clearly hadn’t shaved in days.
 
“Can you tell me where we are, I didn’t see a sign with the name of this town on it when we drove in?” said Peter.

“Because there is none.”

“OK then, perhaps you can give me directions? We need to get back onto the motorway.”

The man snatched what appeared to be a road map from a rack on the counter and opened it out. He took a pair of spectacles from the pocket of the grimy shirt he wore to look at it. Peter was shocked to see that it was a map of Ireland but there were no cities, towns nor villages marked on it. One straight line went down the centre, from the north coast to the south coast and halfway down another straight line went towards the west coast. In each of the three sections there was a single word, ‘Bog’. The man poked his finger on the line near the top and then he poked it on the line near the bottom.

“You’re neither here nor there,” he said looking Peter in the eye.

“Then where are we?” asked Peter.
 
The man poked his finger on a dot in the centre where the two lines met. “You’re right here… in the middle of nowhere.”

Peter snatched another road map from the rack and opened it out. It was the same as the one on the counter.
 
“Is this some kind of joke?” he asked.

“There’s no brand names.” Marie had arrived at his side with two cans of cheap cola and several bars of chocolate in a wire basket. “Is what some kind of joke?”
 
A lady appeared at the doorway behind the counter. She was around the same age as the man and she also clearly cared very little about her personal hygiene. “What’s the matter Sean?”

“It’s a couple of lost souls, Mollie Kate.”

“Tell them to go to the reverend then, that’s his line of work.”

“What’s happening Peter?” Marie looked pale.
 
“Nothing dear, nothing at all.” Peter took the basket from her and turned to Sean. “How much do we owe you for these?”

The man looked at him as though he were joking. “There’s no prices on anything here, everything’s free, always has been.”
 
“Free?” said Peter.

“That’s what I said, didn’t I? If it’s free then people won’t go stealing it.” He grunted twice which appeared to be some kind of mocking laugh. “I expect I’ll be seeing you in here a lot,” he added.
 
“We’ll be gone as soon as I get the car started,” said Peter.
 
“Gone where?” replied Sean. “There isn’t anywhere to go. Drive down that road as far as it goes and you’ll come to the ocean, nothing else. Wait for as long as you want and you’ll not see as much as a fishing boat, never mind a ship of any sorts. There’s nothing out there except seagulls and whatever’s under the waves.” He leaned closer to Peter. “It’s the same if you go back up the road north or take that road across to the west coast. Everyone here has tried it more times than enough and found nothing. That’s the reason they’re still here.”

“Lets go Peter, these people are making fun of us,” said Marie.
 
Peter gathered up the drinks and the bars of chocolate and put them into a plastic shopping bag. He reached the door, then a thought hit him. “Who delivers your stock?”

“We never run out of anything,” replied Sean. “The shelves are always full… ask me how and I don’t rightly know… but the reverend tells us that the lord provides so I expect that’s where it comes from.” He grunted twice again.

“You’re crazy,” said Peter.
 
“You’ll be crazy yourselves before long,” said Sean. “Isn’t that so Mollie Kate?”

Peter and Marie were taken aback at the look of pure hatred the woman gave Sean before she stormed off in a rage.

When they got to the top of the steps outside the supermarket they were met by two men who were clearly waiting on them. They also saw that people were milling around on the main street obviously curious as to who they were. One of the men was well over six foot tall and of stout build. He wore a blue three piece tweed suit with a high-necked waistcoat. This man was dark skinned with thick black greying hair and a beard. They noticed he was wearing a clerical collar. His companion was medium height and thin with fair-hair and he had pale skin. He also wore a tweed suit which was brown.
 
“Good morning to you both,” said the taller man. “May I introduce myself and my companion? I am Reverend Howard and this is my life partner Bartholemew.”
 
He reached out a huge hand and Peter hesitated before he accepted the handshake. The reverend had a firm grip, but he took Marie’s hand as though worried that he might break it. Then it was the turn of his partner Bartholemew to shake their hands.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, before stepping back to Reverend Howard’s side.

Peter and Marie stood silent for a moment, then Reverend Howard gave them an inquiring look.
 
“Oh right, I apologise,” said Peter. “This is my wife Marie and my name is Peter... Peter O’Hagan.”

“Surnames,” said Reverend Howard. “Best forgotten. The quicker you forget yours the better.”

“Why would that be?” asked Marie. Peter was also shocked by the remark.
 
“After being here a while you will gradually forget everything from your past except your love for each other. You will no longer remember your families, friends or relatives. Your fondest and worst memories will no longer be memories, all will be forgotten, including whatever religion you might have practised.”

Peter was about to say something but Reverend Howard held up a hand to silence him. “As you see, I am a man of the church myself, that church over there. Given that the people in this town have forgotten whatever religion they once practised, I keep it simple and stick to the one god. That way there is no religious intolerance and we don’t fall out with each other.”
 
Bartholemew looked at Reverend Howard in awe, then turned to Peter and Marie nodding in agreement. They looked at each other in utter disbelief.

“I know what you are both thinking. You are thinking that this is a man of god and he is wearing a blue tweed suit. Black is so obvious don’t you think?”
 
“Well no actually, we weren’t thinking that at all,” said Peter. “We are wondering…”

“How we pass the time in this town?” said Reverend Howard. “A good question. Come walk with me while I explain.” 

He held a hand in the direction he wanted them to go in. They hesitated but the look they received from Bartholemew told them they needed to do as they were told, so they began to walk.
 
“That is our local pub,” said Reverend Howard pointing towards it. “It only opens once a week on Friday nights. Can’t have people sitting in a pub every day drinking themselves to death. Down here is our community hall.” 

He nodded towards the sandstone building at the end of the row of houses. “We have a weekly dance there every Saturday night. On the other nights it passes as a cinema showing old movies. Romantic movies of course, it helps in keeping the love for each other burning within our hearts. Doctor Zhivago is the most popular movie, it is shown every Wednesday night.”

Peter and Marie noticed a middle-edged man, who appeared to be in his mid-sixties and a pretty young woman, who looked to be no more than thirty years of age, standing on the opposite side of the road.
 
“That is Samuel and his wife Rosie,” said Reverend Howard.
 
“There’s a big age difference between the pair of them, how did they come to meet each other?” asked Marie.

“They can’t remember anything before coming here, like the rest of us,” said Reverend Howard. “But they arrived in that car.” He pointed to a Rolls Royce.
 
Seeing that they had become the centre of conversation, Rosie stomped off and Samuel scurried after her.
 
“The couples here tend to live a long life and for reasons unknown they die within a very short time of each other,” said Reverend Howard. “Isn’t that so, Bartholemew?”

“It is indeed Howard. Poor Rosie will depart this life long before her time just because she loved an older man. How sad.”

“Unfortunately that is true,” replied Reverend Howard. He seemed to notice the plastic shopping bag Peter was carrying for the first time. “You must be hungry, you need to eat a proper meal not that garbage,” he said and took the bag from Peter before handing it to Bartholemew. He directed their attention across the street to a cafe where two ladies in their fifties were standing at the door watching them. “Jia Li and Fiona will cook you an exceptional meal.”
 
The two ladies looked at each other, nodded their heads sadly and went inside the cafe.
 
“I don’t see any children about,” said Marie. “Why is that... are they not up yet?”

Reverend Howard studied her face for a moment, he seemed to be annoyed at the question. Then he broke into a forced smile. “This is no place to bring up children,” he replied. “Children can be a burden on a relationship so maybe it’s a good thing that our couples can’t have them.”

“Can’t have them… can’t have children?” Marie was shocked by his attitude. “Why can no one in this town have children?”
 
“There must be something in the water,” said Bartholemew smiling.
 
The look the reverend gave him quickly wiped the smile from his face. Then Reverend Howard smiled again. It was the smile of a shifty salesman. He spread his arms wide. “All you need is love.”
Peter and Marie looked at him incredulously. Peter seemed to snap out of it first. “The Beatles,” he said.

“What?” demanded Reverend Howard.

“That’s the name of a Beatles’ song,” said Peter.
 
“It’s the motto of our town,” replied the reverend, he was clearly aggrieved. “I came up with it myself.”
Peter was about to argue the point but caught the look Marie gave him.
 
“I’m certain that Sean has already informed you that you cannot leave this place,” said Reverend Howard. “He gets a sick satisfaction in doing that. He is correct and you will both eventually come to accept and to live with it when you no longer have any memories of a past life. The one thing we do not tolerate in this town is infidelity. The punishment for infidelity is banishment. Thankfully it has only occurred on one occasion which we know of and that was about fifty years ago. The victims of this infidelity were Sean and Mollie Kate. Their spouses were having an affair behind their backs. The adulterers were found guilty and banished from the town. They were told to drive away and to never return.”

“My god,” said Marie. “But that’s like a death sentence. Where did they go?”

“Unfortunately it is,” replied Reverend Howard. “I didn’t make that law, it was written down long before we both remember arriving here.” He looked at Bartholemew, who smiled back at him and nodded in agreement. “It is also the reason that crime is here is non-existent, especially murder. More importantly, no one has had an affair from that day to this. As for the banished couple, they did not return nor was their car ever found. We believe that they reached the coast and drove over the cliffs into the sea.”

“We can’t stay here Peter,” said Marie.
 
Peter looked resigned to the fact that there was nowhere else to go. “Where can we go Marie?”

“Exactly. There is no where else to go,” said Reverend Howard. “Now if you will forgive us we shall be off, as we have other matters to attend to.”

Reverend Howard and Bartholemew walked across the main street in the direction of the church leaving Peter and Marie staring at each other in disbelief. Marie’s eyes were filling with tears. “We can’t stay here. Do you hear me Peter? We can’t stay in this place.”

Everyone else simply dispersed, as though a public meeting had just ended. Peter and Marie noticed that one couple remained, they stood just a few yards away on the footpath. The couple weren’t much older than they were. The male was about five foot eight, solidly built, with a ruddy skin tone and he had a head of unruly thick red hair. The female was stunningly beautiful. She was black and slightly taller than her partner.
 
“She’s Afro-Caribbean,” whispered Peter, without taking his eyes from the girl.”

“What?” said Marie.

“The girl is Afro-Caribbean.”

“We got the same welcome to this town with no name speech, as did everyone else here,” said the red-haired man as the couple came towards Peter and Marie. “My name is Liam and this is my wife Roisin.” He held his hand out. He spoke with a Dublin accent.

Marie and Peter shook their hands. “I’m Peter and this is my wife Marie. Is it true that we will remember nothing?”

“You will remember nothing about your past life when you wake tomorrow,” said Roisin, she also had a Dublin accent, much to the surprise of Peter and Marie. “You will only remember coming down that road and your arrival here.”

“I’m certain that we will become good friends,” said Liam. He smiled at Marie which made her uneasy.
“Indeed, we will,” said Roisin. “But I must tell you one thing… one very important thing about the two in the supermarket, Sean and Mollie Kate. Something the Reverend Howard deliberately failed to tell you. It is believed that they set their spouses up, by accusing them of having an affair, so that they could be together. They were the guilty ones.”

“But how can anyone be certain they did that?” asked Marie.
 
“Sean came to this town in that car with his wife,” said Liam pointing to a 1940s Ford Perfect. “So they would have arrived here in the 1940s or the 1950s. Him and Mollie Kate might appear to be in their early seventies but in actual fact they have be in their nineties. The people in this town believe that they have been cursed to live together forever for their terrible crime. They believe that the town itself cursed them. Reverend Howard refuses to admit that a grave injustice actually occurred but the longer they live without getting a day older is proof that it did.”

Roisin noticed that Peter was staring at her intently and she quickly turned her head away in fear. Marie saw this as well.
 
“Peter, get in the car, we are not staying in this place one second longer.”
 
“And go where Marie?”

“Anywhere but here.”

“There is no where else,” said Richard.

“Let’s go Peter. Right now,” demanded Marie.
 
Peter knew that there was no where else to go to but he decided to let Marie see that for herself, so he got into the car and started it up. She got in and looked at him, then the road ahead. Peter shook his head in frustration before they moved off.
 
After a minute or two of silence, Peter spoke. “You heard them Marie, there is no where to go to except to the end of this road and nothing.
 
“You seen those people Peter, they might be together as couples but they are still not happy. They want more in life, not for each other, but for themselves.”
 
“Whether you want to admit it or not Marie, we are stuck here with them.”

“I’m damn sure we are.”

“Where will we go to then?”

“We’ll drive straight over those cliffs if we have to.”

“Jaysus but you’re thran when you want to be Marie,” said Peter.

“You’re one to be…”

Peter hit the brakes hard.
 
“What did you do that for?” asked Marie.
 
Peter was looking in the rear-view mirror. “How did I miss that?”

“Miss what?”

Peter quickly reversed the car back up the road and stopped at a side road with a diversion sign. “It wasn’t there a second ago.”

“It bloody well is now Peter O’Hagan, don’t sit there looking at it, lets get the…”

Peter didn’t need to be told, he hit the accelerator and with wheels spinning they roared off down the side road. Marie looked behind. There were rolling hills, hedgerows and fields instead of that road and the bog. They passed a house and then another one on the opposite side of the road.
 
“Slow down Peter before you get us killed.”

“I got us out of there, didn’t I?” he said, easing up on the accelerator.

“You wanted to stay, didn’t you? I got us out of there.”

Peter knew that he had to change the subject. “Do you think that’s what happened to the couple who were banished?”

“They found that road?”

“Yes. Maybe it opened up for them because they were innocent.”

“You could be right.”

Marie took her phone out and checked it. “All my photos are back.”

They could see the motorway just up ahead. “Thank god to see that,” said Peter.

The early light of dawn was sweeping across the sky when Marie woke. She looked at Peter in surprise then out at the motorway. There was a steady flow of traffic.

“Ah you’re awake,” said Peter. “That road was an absolute nightmare.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“About fifteen minutes or so.”

“I’ve just had the weirdest of dreams Peter.”

“Is that so Marie? You must tell me about it when we get back home.”

Marie fell silent and stared out the windscreen at the motorway.
 
“Is everything OK Marie?”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice how you looked at that girl.”

“What girl?”

“Don’t try and deny it. The Afro-Caribbean girl from Dublin, you couldn’t take your eyes off her.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”

Peter looked in the rear-view mirror and saw a couple sitting in the back seat."

"Hi Peter, my name is Liam and this is my wife Roisin. We met in Marie's dream."

The car radio came back on. ‘We’re on a road to nowhere, Come on inside. Takin’ that ride to nowhere,
We’ll take that ride...’

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie


Road To Nowhere