Jimmy Toye grew up in Free Derry, and is a volunteer at the Museum of Free Derry.
Some visitors on Fahan Street
The first few months after British soldiers came in August 1969 was the honeymoon period, but when they started raiding and backing up the RUC any relationship there quickly faded away. The British Army became more the target for routine riots etc around the Bogside. The IRA, Provos and Officials, were slowly building but still nowhere near the capacity they would develop in 1971, and especially after Bloody Sunday in 1972.
I was not a Premier Division rioter, more a second division, League of Ireland recreational rioter. I played my part, but was careful, as I was almost caught and was hit once with a rubber bullet. A regular stoning place was at Butchers Gate, at the top of Fahan Street. The Brits would block the gateway with their plastic/perspex shields. They would stand behind firing rubber bullets etc. Sometimes if you had a heavy enough rock it would bend the top of the shield and hopefully whack the soldier behind. It was pretty routine most days. We would go for our tea about 4.30pm. and the Brits knocked off as well then, resuming about 6pm.
One day during a routine riot, the shields parted, and to our shock a Brit officer, tall, no helmet, just a beret, a sidearm, he came striding out his arm outstretched and hand up. He shouted “HALT”! and we actually stopped, turned back to the open shields and to our amazement a wee Citroen car came trundling out and four frightened French tourists, staring out of their wee car, turned and went down Fahan Street. What they were doing coming here in the middle of our riots, I don’t know. We had forgotten for some seconds about the Brit officer as we looked at the wee car. The Brit then clicked his heels and turned, going back in between the shields, shouting to us “CARRY ON!”. The cheek of him!
But that was 1970, roll on six months and into the following years and he would have been shot at. It was fun then, but we didn’t know, and they didn’t know, the horror and deaths that would be coming.
