Transcript
WILLIAM
Within this regime in Long Kesh, a number of things occurred. So, you were encouraged by the older men, particularly to think differently about the circumstances that led to your incarceration in Long Kesh. So, by that, I use the term politicisation because you were being called on to self-reflect. And in that self-reflection, one of the things that you were being directed to was self-directed education. And I welcomed this with both hands, I did some short courses with The Open University, I’m still collaborating with them to this day. And I think on my release then I was a self-directed, more analytical thinking young man.
In returning back to the community, the North Belfast community that I had been arrested from, things hadn’t changed significantly much. We were still living separately; we were still worshipping separately; we were still employed separately; we were still housed separately; we were still socialising separately and so on.
And in actual fact, the Unionist community were not very welcoming of former Loyalist prisoners. And for a number of years, I struggled to reintegrate back in this community.
And at the time also, I had a family of my own. So, I made my own way in life. On being released, I set up home with a woman that I had settled down and married, and I set out not to have my children brought up in the similar circumstances that I had been brought up. So, I moved to a mixed community, I should say - where Catholics and Protestants were encouraged to do all those things that I’ve just mentioned that they didn’t do in other communities. And one of those things was to educate our children together, and I sent two of my children to an integrated school, that was at the first time, the original integrated school in Northern Ireland. And my rationale for doing that, was to widen their horizons. So, I would argue that at the time, being a young man, having the limited choices that I have outlined, recognising that in retrospect, I had a limited imagination. I didn’t aspire to be anything beyond the immediacy of my situation. I didn’t want my own children following the similar path as I followed.I know that the world is a smaller place these days and I aspire beyond the immediacy of Northern Ireland. And I wanted my children to do the same.
So, in 1998 the opportunity was afforded me to play a different role within my community because in the mid '90s we had the development of ex-prisoners projects that emerged following the ceasefires in 1994. I began volunteering with the Ex-Prisoners Interpretive Centre [EPIC] and one of the things I volunteered in doing, was working with young men. And my rationale at the time was I could see in those young men, me 30 years earlier, and what I wanted them to do was deter them from following the path that men like myself had followed previously. And I set out then to be a youth worker by getting a diploma in Informal and Community Education; following that up with a degree in Youth and Community Work and then subsequently in 2011 graduating with a Doctorate of Philosophy.
So, I argue at times that I have a foot in both camp, and what I mean by that is I can argue that I’ve lived the experience of being someone who was immersed in the conflict, but also have sufficiently become a more intelligent, articulate individual to talk about the circumstances of that situation. And this then brings me right up to the present situation. What I’m attempting to do is ask these young men to think about the choices they make in their lives; ask them to think about the pathways they follow; ask them when at times they’re drawn in the negative decisions to consider what the consequences might be on them and others, so that ultimately, they have a wider horizon and a raised opportunity and aspiration to be more than they currently are now.