Social Life in Belfast

This story is taken from an interview with Rose Stone, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interviewer was David Reid, and the transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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I didn’t get married during the war til the end of the war. I was married when I was 19.
I used to go to the dances. I used to learn the dance. John Dawsers in Belfast — him and his wife taught dancing. And there was 3-4 dance halls in those days. There was Gardners and there was another one down Ann St as well. And there was another one near the big clock — we went round them all. Friday, Saturday night mostly. Oh, they were [well-attended] — learning to dance. That was good. We had [American] servicemen coming — but you weren’t allowed to go out with a yank in those days!

[who said?]
My father! And coming home, I had to be home for 10 o’clock. If I wasn’t, he was standing at the door, and we had a big long hall, and you had to climb right up. But he was just worried that we would get home all right. We got a wallop if you weren’t home on time. So the next time you went out you were home for 10 o’clock.
There were good days too, you know. It wasn’t all doom and gloom. It was bad when the bombing started in Belfast, it really was. And that we heard on the wireless — because we didn’t have television in those days. We just had the radio, you’re dependant on the radio telling you whatever was going on or who was at.

My brother, he was in the army, he joined the army. And my father was an army man, my uncle was an army man, all army. And that was it. Well, then my father, he got off the army cause as I say my mother died and left 4 of us. Now, my aunts, they said they would look after us, but they soon got tied. So we ended up just looking after ourselves. And that’s how it was in those days. Whereas nowadays they come in, the Social Services, and they take over. Different entirely. And they didn’t do us any harm for my father was strict. He was very hard on my brother, I used to think. Cause my brother got out, he forgot about the time, and then father got mad when he’d got the dinner ready and couldn’t find him. He’d been out in the street playing. Or one of the streets.
My father was a Christian. Sunday morning we had to go to church and we had to go again in the afternoon. And then again at night, we went 3 times. That took us out all day Sunday, and what we went to, we went to all things in the church. Different things in the church. And we went to that, and …

[what was Church like?]
On a Thursday night they would have had table-tennis, and we’d have played different games. And we were growing up then. We were going with boys then, you know what I mean? That was all, because there wasn’t anything else. Though my father once gave us the money to go to the pictures. And we went to the pictures, the picture didn’t come on that night — something broke down. So we waited and waited and waited, and I said to Jim “We’d better go home, or my dad …” so we went home, and they gave us a card for to come the next night. So right enough my father didn’t say anything that night, it wasn’t our fault the cinema broke down,. That was in the Crumlin Road Picture House. And it broke down, so we couldn’t see any more, so we waited and waited to 10 or after 10, and then as I say “we’d better go home, because we’d get it if we don’t!”
And that’s how it was. So it was mostly all to do with the Church things. We had table-tennis, and played other games and that, Thursday night we used to do that. And then Sunday you were at church.

[was church more popular during the War yrs?]
Oh yes it was. Definitely. And it was all connected with the church then. Depending, some churches were better than others. But I’ll tell you what was a good one — the Salvation army. They used to have a good one. Theirs was on the Thursday night too. And it was all kindsa games you played. They were very good. Funny enough my own son was out there at the time, Korea I think, and he said to me “Mum, if you’ve anything to spare, give it to the Salvation army”. Because they were out, I forget the name of the place, I’m getting forgetful now. They … it’s been recently on the news. And he says “give it to them. Give it to the Salvation Army, mum. We were at the station, we were called up in the middle of the night. We hadn’t a cigarette between us, we hadn’t anything at all, and the Salvation Army came along in the middle of the night, gave us 2 fags each, and gave us a mug of tea and a powers bun. Boy, but it tasted good. If you’ve any money, give it to them, because they were there. And Sandy’s home were there. But Sandy’s Home wanted half a crown for a mug of tea and a bean.” And he says “we hadn’t a bean between us.”

[VE day]
we’d been out the night before, there was another one — something else was on. And when I came to go home my father was standing at the door, waiting on me. I got up the hall, and I said “But I’m going out again!”
he said “You’re not going out of here”. And that was, that night I didn’t get out. He just was in a mood, I suppose. He worried about us girls when we went out, and yet there wasn’t the badness that’s going on nowadays. Because we wouldn’t have turned a word on my father. And you wouldn’t in those days. Though my youngest sister, she was only 6 when my mummy died, and my father would let her off everything, whereas we would have …

I had started to go with my husband at that time, and I was just coming up to 19, so we got married. I got married at 19.

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