Thatcher's Spy - Willie Carlin

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      I was shaking and tried to stay calm as I watched from the edge of a wood just a few hundred yards from the riverbank and the ship. Just then, a helicopter appeared overhead with a spotlight directed at the vessel. By now my knees were trembling and I put my right hand down to steady them. I could feel the sweat running down my neck and my hands were clammy as I gripped the metal steering wheel inside the cab. I had visions of being blown up or shot in the opening salvo of the Third World War as it spread along the Iron Curtain. Corporal Frankie Shivers, my commander, was advised over the radio to load up the Browning machine gun with live rounds. I heard him say, ‘If we open fire on this ship we could start World War Three.’ There were a further four hours of intense activity over the radio network; things were getting worse and I just sat there, frozen to the seat. All I could think of was to say a decade of the Rosary and pray that we could get out of this wood, away from the river and back to the safety of our camp.

      At the other end of the woods sat another scout car manned by a commander and driven by another young Irishman just like me. Trooper Hughie McCabe was married, a Catholic from Belfast who was also not enjoying defending our gracious Queen and the German border. He and I passed the hours away chatting on the internal network about all sorts of things, we even sang songs over the net, much to the amusement of our commanders. Watching the ship we saw people come and go from the cabins until eventually things seemed to quieten down. Just before daybreak, Corporal Shivers and Lieutenant Sutcliffe were ordered to stand down. We were later told that the East German sailors had been overpowered and the ship returned to its captain. Back in the squad room we were hailed as heroes and the Colonel himself came from headquarters to congratulate us personally.

      After the exercise was over, life in the camp returned to normal with lots of dos in the mess, and, for me, baby-sitting various NCOs. Tony Bamford, who had joined the army in 1966, was posted to our regiment and had become a frequent visitor to my room. As time passed we became friends, often going to the cinema or to the mess together. Tony was going on leave for the whole of August; he and his girlfriend, Mary, were to be engaged. I had also planned to be on leave for the last two weeks in August and the first two weeks in September.

      Tony and I arranged to meet up when I got to Derry, and I invited him to a party at my aunt Vera’s. Tony had been writing to Mary on and off for over a year and had dated her while he was on leave. He also phoned her regularly. I spoke with her one night as Tony introduced me over the phone. She sounded like a nice girl and I was pleased for him. At this time, my brother Robert was in ‘B’ Squadron and drove three-ton trucks, so I rarely saw him. He had gained in confidence and had friends of his own, so for the first time I travelled to Derry on leave on my own. My mother didn’t know that I was coming and Tony brought her the message that I would be phoning her at the phone box in Leenan Gardens at 7pm that night. I arrived in Derry at lunchtime and was picked up by my uncle George, then spending the afternoon at Vera’s. Just before 7pm, as my mother and father waited for the phone to ring, I walked up behind them and put my arms round my mother. ‘Hello Mammy,’ I said giving her a hug. My father had seen me coming, but stayed silent. There were tears and lots more hugs. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like a soldier any more, I just felt like a wee boy who had come home. Life was boring in Creggan; most of the people that I knew were busy working or mixing with new friends and I spent most of the days helping my mother around the house.

      Before my return to Germany from leave I met up with Tony and Mary. We spent the afternoon sitting in the Waterside park, listening to Tony Blackburn on Mary’s transistor radio. She was a lovely girl, full of fun and energy, and she said she would write to me too as I didn’t have a girlfriend or a pen friend. A few months later, back in Paderborn, Germany, Tony told me that he and Mary had sort of drifted apart and they didn’t communicate anymore, which probably explained why she had never written to me. However, that Christmas Day a backlog of Christmas mail was brought into my room. There were some letters from my mother and father, cards from my brothers Tommy and Dickie and my sister Doreen, together with other cards from various aunts and uncles. There was one particular card that simply said, ‘Season’s Greetings’ and underneath was written ‘Remember me, Mary McGonagle’, and her address. At the bottom in brackets, Mary had added, ‘Please write to me’. I spent the rest of Christmas Day writing to Mary, and by the time I had finished had used nearly a full writing pad. I posted my letter on the first available delivery, hoping she would receive it by the New Year. Within weeks, I had received a letter back from Mary and had spoken to her on the phone. We continued to write over the spring of 1968, and I went home again on leave in June.

      ***

      The regiment was posted to Bovington in Dorset, where the Royal Armoured Corps had its headquarters. At the time the centre was mainly staffed by civilians, but a recent change in emphasis by the Ministry of Defence meant that a regiment would now be in charge. The Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars were the first armoured corps regiment to run Bovington and we were all to be in place by September 1968. Of course, living in the UK meant being able to get home easier, and Mary and I had talked about my coming to Derry more often and how she might be able to travel to England and visit me. It was during one such leave that Mary and I made love for the first time. I was a virgin, and I discovered that Mary was too. It was one of those fumbling love sessions that you read about, except that I was twenty and she was nineteen – the products of a good Catholic upbringing.

      After I returned to Bovington, I settled down into a new way of life. I was now a Lcpl (Lance Corporal) clerk in the orderly room and was on a camp with men and women – the women being from the WRAC. During a phone call to Mary one evening, I asked her if we could get engaged. She said yes, and within weeks we were engaged to be married. The ring (from H Samuels in Ferryquay Street) was £10.17.06 and we celebrated by having two suppers in a nearby chip shop as we discussed how to tell our parents. We decided upon a ceremony on 19 July the following year and spent the next nine months saving to get married, since we had decided that we should pay for everything ourselves. Mary and I phoned each other nearly every night.

      By May 1969, Mary was telling me of marches in the Creggan and Bogside and she had joined an organisation called ‘The Civil Rights Association’. Ivan Cooper, one of her bosses at Kelly’s Factory, was one of the leaders, together with a young man called John Hume. She told me about being charged and batoned by the ‘B’ Specials, who I had never heard of, and started to send me copies of the Derry Journal so I could read about it for myself.

      On 1 July 1969 I asked the Colonel for permission to marry. As a soldier in the British Army, his permission was needed and a document had to be provided to give to the priest. Put simply, I was a number, a soldier, whose life belonged to the Ministry of Defence and, being under twenty-one, they had to be sure that I knew what I was doing and had thought things through. After a little grilling on both sides, permission was granted and I travelled home with my brother Robert and Nelson Bennett. Nelson was a Protestant and the Colonel’s staff-car driver. He and I had become friendly as he waited around the orderly room to pick up the Colonel. I had asked him, as he was going on leave as well, if he fancied coming to Derry and being my groomsman. He agreed and all three of us set off for Derry, equipped with our ceremonial uniforms.

      In Derry things were quite tense, but I visited Mary every night as we prepared for our wedding. Although we had saved enough money, there were still things that we made ourselves – like flowers for the guests. We had real flowers for our parents, our immediate family and the bridesmaids but for the rest of the guests we made paper flowers, which was quite common in Derry in the 60s. We would spend an hour or so each night making paper flowers using two toilet rolls, white for the men and pink for the ladies. Four pieces of toilet roll were folded into eight, bound around a pipe-cleaner, opened up layer by layer and then pared off with scissors to form the shape of a flower. A piece of real fern was attached to the rear, and silver paper was wrapped around the pipe-cleaner. The flower itself was sprayed with perfume.

      On the morning of Saturday 19 July, Robert, Nelson and I, fully dressed in our ‘blues’ with lanyards, chainmail and spurs, posed for photographs at the back of our house in Creggan. All of the neighbours wished us well as we boarded the wedding car and headed off, down through the city centre and over to St Columb’s Chapel on the Waterside. I remember travelling through the Guildhall Square and seeing all the RUC Land Rovers

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