Fifty years ago this week, with a suitcase in one hand and an absurdly heavy and misshapen rucksack on my back, I boarded a bus in Armagh and headed to Belfast. Now, in the great scheme of things that doesn’t sound terribly exciting; but this was 1974 and Belfast had already established its reputation as probably the most dangerous city in western Europe.
I was on my way to Queen’s University to begin my degree in politics and philosophy. I had had offers from both Leeds and Manchester, but since I was under the impression that I was destined to become the greatest political journalist of my generation (having written a few pieces for the Armagh Gazette) I reckoned that Belfast was the best place to be. Let’s face it, the cream of the UK’s new generation of journalists was already cutting their teeth in and around the Europa Hotel. I was bound to fit in.
My Mum and Dad had been supportive, if not demonstrably encouraging, of my decision. Having adopted a clinically shy, mute, terrified six-year-old in 1961 and given him the space and love he needed to find both himself and his voice in the relative safety of Armagh, I suppose they worried that allowing him to embark on an awfully big adventure to one of the bomb capitals of the world might not be the wisest course of actions.
Letting me go on the bus by myself was part of their plan. My Dad, still the wisest person I’ve ever known, decided that I needed to make the original journey by myself and booked me into a bed and breakfast on the Stranmillis Road for the five days before I could move into my official university accommodation.
I had been to Belfast many times with him and my Mum: at least one Saturday in every month we drove down, went to the big stores, had lunch (in the long-gone Kensington Hotel), toured the bookshops in Smithfield Market and then visited elderly aunts (who always smelled of gin and talc). But apart from that I didn’t know Belfast at all.
So, arriving at a bus station and trying to find my way to Stranmillis Road was a bit like Paddington arriving in London from Peru, but without the Browns coming to rescue me. My parents had given me £50 (which, if my calculations are accurate, would be around £400 today) in cash and told me to make it last until the end of the week, when they planned to bring down the rest of my belongings for the university accommodation.
It took me almost two hours to reach the guest house because I was still very shy and too scared to ask anyone where to get another bus or taxi. Also, years of elocution had given me an English accent and I was afraid of one side or the other beating the crap out of me if I opened my mouth and asked for directions.
The guesthouse was a weird place: the sort of place I had read about during the cheap detective phase in my early teens. This was still a time when there were travelling salespeople and ‘respectable’ young ladies who boarded while they waited for husbands and a home of their own. My parents may have thought that being forced to share space and talk to people would be good for me.
It wasn’t. I didn’t eat the meals (which my parents had paid for) and didn’t go into the lounge to socialise. And I never worked out how to put money in the gas and electricity meters in my room, so went to bed cold and unable to read.
Those five days were a huge eye-opener for the still young Alex. Belfast was clearly a divided city... I was also that cliché: one of those people who had never really mixed with or properly befriended people from a different religious or political background. They were, for the most part, just like me...
— Alex Kane
For the next few days I just walked around the area by myself. Starting at the main QUB site, wandering further up the Malone Road and on up to Shaw’s Bridge and gradually worked my way around the Ormeau Road, Sandy Row, Donegall Pass, the Botanic area and in and around the city itself. My beloved Smithfield had been destroyed four months earlier, but I soon discovered the warren of boltholes that the second-hand booksellers had found for themselves: and I was still haunting them over 30 years later.
I plucked up the courage to go into the Kensington for lunch (back then I always dressed in slacks and sports jacket, usually with a polo neck). As soon as I reached the restaurant a waiter approached me with the words, “Ah, Master Kane, are you eating alone or with your parents?” For the first time in my life I felt important. I was also very grateful that I had been adopted by a Kane rather than a Bates.
Those five days were a huge eye-opener for the still young Alex. Belfast was clearly a divided city — I wandered into the north, south, east and west of it. It was still a city that locked down at night. Still a city that was deserted after 9pm. Having to rush to the payphones in the Students’ Union and join the long lines of youngsters, some half or fully drunk, letting their parents know they were nowhere near the shooting, riot or bomb that had been reported on the local news.
I was also that cliché: one of those people who had never really mixed with or properly befriended people from a different religious or political background. They were, for the most part, just like me; and just as likely to laugh at the same comedy shows we watched in the dedicated TV rooms in the Students’ Union; and just as likely to wander the university area at night in search of munchies at three in the morning. My views and writing since then have been tempered by cross-community relationships I built up since then (although, sadly, I never became the greatest political journalist of my generation).
But the most important thing was that I fell in love with Belfast in those first five days. So much so that I turned down three offers to work outside NI in the years after graduation. I still love it. And love the fact there is so much natural beauty within half-an-hour’s journey from whichever direction you start.
I owe my Mum and Dad so much: but one of the best things they ever did was send me to Belfast for those five days to find myself, my bearings and the courage I needed to keep fighting my shyness.
