From Belfast with love

My friend Ann and I didn’t take long to decide to leave Belfast. It was early 1989 and we were in our final year at Queen’s University, not yet ready to stop being students. We couldn’t just google, there was no all singing, all dancing website to explore, we had brochures and leaflets with pictures and the edited highlights of courses we could apply to. We didn’t speak to parents or seek advice from wise professors. To us, it wasn’t an adventure and there was no risk involved, it was just the next phase of our young lives. We opted for Edinburgh, it sounded like a good place to be, and it looked very different from a run down and bombed out Belfast. Peace was still almost 10 years away. We knew very little about Scotland, just that it wasn’t Northern Ireland, and at the grand age of 21, we decided we were fed up with Belfast and all its troubles. We were ready for something different. A new city, a new university and a dream that only the young can carry easily.

Our parents didn’t intervene at all, they went along with our plan and simply dropped us to the boat and waved us off. I am sure they thought we would be home after the year was up, and we would be ready to settle down. I don’t remember a thing about that boat journey, just that it was long and I was wearing a very large rucksack which threatened to topple me on more than one occasion.

We arrived in Edinburgh in August 1989, both of us with a place at Edinburgh Napier (not yet a university), and no idea of where we might stay. It’s hard to believe now that our parents didn’t worry about that, didn’t ask questions or nag, and seemed to assume we knew what we were doing. We didn’t. We registered at Merchiston and quickly got on a bus to visit our respective campuses. I was pretty delighted to find myself at leafy Spylaw, whereas Ann was less impressed with the faded glory and rambling Sighthill building. Suddenly conscious we didn’t have a bed for the night, we started to consider our options. On the bus we met a friendly guy called Robert who casually advised that he had found a room in an old nursing home which was being turned into student accommodation. He took us there directly, and before it was dark we both had settled into student digs for the next year in a sprawling house near Bruntsfield. If my daughter told me that same story today I would be an anxious wreck.

Ann had won the toss for the best room with the ensuite, right beside the pay phone box and the front door. I had a smaller room on the second floor with a shared bathroom, there were 8 of us sharing, and it wasn’t always pleasant. It was a chaotic house, full of fun and drama. The alcoholic owner who lived there was a larger than life character who seemed to love and loathe us all equally. We were different from his previous house guests: we were loud, untidy, unreliable and I’m sure we were annoying as only students can be. However he had his moments too, often with speakers blaring at 3am as he tried to play golf through an open window. Nowadays there would be regulations, health and safety to consider, fire doors and the like. We were just glad to have a lock on the door and a decent bed to sleep in. The best thing about that house was the large basement kitchen which had been properly kitted out for the nursing home. There was a long refectory table and It was there that we met people from Nigeria, from Malaysia, Greece and Germany. The world was at last becoming bigger, and there was a freedom in this city that Belfast had been unable to offer.

Edinburgh felt so very different to Belfast. At first it was the absences we noticed. There was no need to have your bag searched going into a shop, there were no soldiers with guns or armoured vehicles in the streets. We weren’t awakened in the night by loud sirens and moved into the community centre. Instead there was the golf tavern which became an important meeting place, and where I was to meet my future husband. There were new friends from new places, the meadows for lounging in the sun, a festival dedicated to laughter and life, and we also found time to study. It really was buzzing with hopeful energy. We had full grants and enough money in our pockets to live on, topped up with jobs at the Scotch Whisky Heritage Centre. Irish girls in kilts working as Scottish tour guides, whoever would have thought ! That was a really special and unforgettable year, as we moved into adulthood.

I look back now at those girls with wonder. They were certainly living in the moment, following their hearts, with no real plan. They had courage and adventure in spades. I struggle to recognise myself in that younger woman, and I am saddened to find her almost gone. How I wish I could find just a little part of her energy, her carefree nature, her boldness and take it back.

Ann and I didn’t return to Belfast, our lives took us in different directions. I still call Northern Ireland home, my family is there, my roots are deeply woven and from time to time I feel guilty about leaving. Yet I am so grateful to this place, it welcomed me in with arms wide open and shared its bounty. It never treated me as a stranger, an immigrant. I am that settled settler now, part of Scotland’s tapestry, Scotland’s story. I was born and reared in Northern Ireland but I grew up in Scotland.