The Son Of A Belfast Man

<p><strong>This is in part a story of my father's memories and life. Joe growing up in Belfast in the nineteen thirties. A man of the times he lived in. Struggling to survive as a child hungry and poor then put into the Christian brothers home to be schooled fed and disciplined.</strong></p><p><strong> Joe like some other people of the times hired a horse and cart and traded in goods as a fifteen-year-old teenager. A second class catholic making a living in that divide of discrimination. Having to fight with his hands gaining a tough reputation. Then having to flee Belfast. Giving him twenty-four hour to leave the city. Joe had a spirit in him that you didn't want to cross. It would put a haunting fear in rivals for he would come back to fight again.</strong></p><p><strong>Joe ends up in London as a seventeen-year-old with a gun he gets sentenced to borstal training. Then returning home to Belfast. He meets my mother after a couple of years. They move to England to make a living.</strong></p><p><strong>My story my father's son John and my memories growing up was always a struggle along with learning problems disturbed by the violence as a child. A quite Irish lad seen and not heard withdrawn and bullied at school. Taken under my father's wing and learning how to stand up for myself.  Boxing was a turnaround but ending up in trouble. Then sentenced to an institutional borstal of correction training and the fights that followed. </strong></p><p><strong>Myself john and my father Joe worked together throughout the later years more like two brothers than father and son. My father had maybe not the right way but a way to overcome a situation learned on the streets of Belfast. </strong></p>