I went to the IWM on Friday and visited the “ Living with the Troubles” exhibition. I was 14 when the Government sent in the Army presented as protecting the civil rights marchers from a sectarian and violent police force and 43 when the Good Friday agreement was signed; I lived in London, also working in government buildings for much of that time. This exhibition though is about Northern Ireland and the experiences of those who lived there and participated in, or tolerated and survived the Troubles.
There was one picture documenting the aftermath of a riot in Belfast, taken from a height showing a large area of dereliction. We see similar pictures today from war zones, but I believe that this was a symbol or symptom of underinvestment and community poverty. There were similar sites in London and Liverpool, and probably other British cities, and similar imagery is available in the film/musical, “the Commitments”. It’s hard to remember the poverty and inequality that existed in the UK in the 1960s/1970s and at the end of the decade I went to university, one of the 4% of the school leaving cadre that went to university i.e. I was not trapped in that poverty, but I do remember the installation of central heating and the later demolition of the house’s coal bunkers. (We didn’t have an outside toilet though 🙂 ).
