To be honest Dave - I was living in Brum at the time. i can believe it and I know much worse stuff happened to lots of Irish people. The atmosphere must have resembled Whitechapel in the 1880's when jack the Ripper was about - a reign of terror.

The atmosphere is hard to describe.

Try and imagine it with these Al Quaeda blokes now. As a prelude the news on the TV every night was bombs going off in Belfast, and murders and our soldiers killed. then this McDade character blew himself up on the roof of Coventry post office. then these two bombs went off in pubs that everybody used in the city centre.

It all happened in a very short time. Up to that time Birmingham city centre streets had been as full at ten o'clock at night as they were at ten in the morning. After the bombs the whole place was deserted. People just scuttled out after work.

Irish folk singers were bluntly told to shut up if they sang a rebel song - apart from at the communist party folk club, where they had Brits Out all over the walls. People were rude and said awful things to anybody with an Irish accent - even to Irish children - (I was a teacher at the time). the Irish joke telling thing reached fever pitch - a defence mechanism maybe.

Grim times!