In Sydenham, East Belfast. I used to play in this park as a child in the 1960s and 1970s. This view is from an earlier era and that definitely looks like an Olympic class liner in the background, Olympic, Titanic or Britannic?
Category Archives: Belfast
Christmas 1943
The menu for Christmas Day 1943…
Mam…
And her parents…
ARP lapel badge & chevrons
I believe each chevron represents a year’s service.
Machine Gun Corps
Cap badge from WWI…
From a picture of the grandfather I never met…
It’s a crown with crossed Vickers machine guns, although I must admit it looks like something else.
Swift Matches
By Maguire & Paterson (N.I.) Ltd.
Unit Routine Orders 22/9/1943
My father’s housekeeping skills were a little better than mine…
Queen’s Quay to Sydenham
For 6d in 1969…
RAF Uniform
Not looking it’s best, this is my father’s WWII RAF jacket. It’s not doing too bad after 70+ years I suppose…
Senior School Certificate 1940
This is the Latin paper my mother took on her 18th birthday, 72 years ago today…
Stormont 1937
No difficulty in recognising the building behind my mother this time… it’s the Northern Ireland Parliament Building better known as Stormont…
In 1937 the building was just five years old and the Portland stone is brilliant white. After the air raids that devastated Belfast in April and May 1941 it was decided to camouflage Stormont with a coating of bitumen and cow dung as can be seen in this photo from the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum‘s collection…
Although this was removed after the war, the stone was permanently stained and it never looked as bright again.
Donegall Square, Belfast ca 1953
In this anaglyph my mother and brother are seated in the grounds of Belfast City Hall…
The grounds are layed out differently now and the building directly behind them has either been demolished or greatly altered, but the Scottish Provident Building on Donegall Square West (on the left here) amd what’s now the Co-operative Bank on Donegall Square North (right) are recognisable in this 2008 Google Street View…
Instructions to Students 1938 and 1940
In addition to the School Certificate papers I blogged earlier I have the Senior School Certificate papers my mother took in 1940. I will scan and blog them in the future, but for now I thought I’d draw your attention to the three extra Instructions that had been added in 1940.
First the 1938 version…
Now, in the 1940 version, see the additional instructions IX, X and XI…
1938 School Certificate Examinations
In 1938 my mother was a sixteen year old pupil of Methodist College, Belfast and these are the examination papers she took to obtain her School Certificate (Junior). Roughly equivalent to O Levels or today’s GCSEs the main difference was that all subjects had to be passed to get the certificate. One could simply pass a subject, get a credit or at best a distinction, but if a discipline was failed that was that.
Monday 20th June, 1938 was my mother’s sixteenth birthday. She had a three hour Latin exam in the morning followed by another three hours of History in the afternoon.
Rockin' Brian 