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Cavehill: German plane

• Bookworm on Tuesday, 11th February 2003

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  I do not remember hearing of a German plane crashing on the Cavehill but I clearly remember as a very young child how my family, along with many many others from north Belfast, spent nights sleeping on the slopes of the hill in the hope of escaping from whatever air raids might take place.
  Unfortunately my mother tired of this nightly trek with four children and on the night of the Easter Tuesday air raid we were at home on the Antrim Road which was quite badly bombed.

• Message 2. Posted by Lone Walker on Wednesday, 12th February 2003 permalink

  Hi Bookworm,
  I thought that a great number of schoolchildren were evacuated to the countryside before the Easter blitz. Obviously you weren't. Were you ever evacuated - if you were, where did they send you? Did you lose friends in that air raid?
  
  

• Message 3. Posted by Bookworm on Thursday, 13th February 2003 permalink

  Hello Lone Walker,
  Yes we were evacuated as an entire family because our house and all its contents was destroyed. We had several short stay moves and eventually went to stay with distant relatives in Portadown. This turned out to be a wonderful experience, or learning curve as they say now, for us city children.
  In answer to your other question, yes several of the children I went to school with and played with and their parents were killed in the Easter Tuesday air raid.
  Now back to the Cavehill, do you ever do any of your lone walking there? Granted it is not a very big challenge to an experienced hill walker but the view from McArt's Fort is quite spectacular.

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