HOLOCAUST Memorial Day is always held during the last week in January and is a time when we remember the millions of people murdered under Nazi persecution and in more recent times the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.
It is always a moving ceremony and a time where men, women and children come together to pay tribute.
It was due to be held this Wednesday at the City Hall but due to Covid-19 it will now be available online. Register for free by searching for 'Holocaust Memorial Day Belfast' at eventbrite.co.uk.
Radio History
I happened on the football results on Saturday and it catapulted me back to the years when I sat with my granny and we guessed the results on our big cabinet wireless.
The fire was lit in the dining room, I was having milk, bread, butter and home-made raspberry jam, the big teapot was covered in a bright felt cosy in the shape of a country cottage, with a chimney pot, thatched roof, red door and embroidered lupins and blue delphiniums.
It must have been Duncan Hearle who read the football results and we almost knew what was coming thanks to his inflection (I'm guessing the actual results here...): Crusaders 1, (upward inflection) Glenavon 2; Glentoran 4, Linfield (pause, disappointed voice) 2; Ballymena United 1 (excited voice) Carrick Rangers 3.
Duncan Hearle had quite a history. Living in Singapore just before the Second World War he was imprisoned and worked on the Burma railway. In 1946 he applied for an announcing job in the BBC and was posted to Ormeau Avenue in Belfast to work on the Home Service and he must have liked it as he stayed for the next 30 years.
He presented over 20,000 local news bulletins and was known as 'The Voice of Radio Ulster'. Duncan retired from broadcasting on September 21 1976 following his last bulletin that morning at 8.55am.
He also brought us the results of the local point-to-point races and that's what we were waiting for. Would our family favourite romp home?
In The Saddle
We called her Silverstream because that's where we lived and she grew up in a stable especially built in the garden. I loved walking her along the tide on the edge of the Lough shore, mixing the mash, the smell of the bran, stirring in the pellets with an apple or a carrot for afters.
Dunging out was my job too. A grape with four prongs to lift the dung and shake out the straw.
How I loved those days and when I was old enough the excitement of going off to the races with my uncle to see our horse gallop over the fences and sometimes coming home the winner - Punchestown and Fairyhouse are magical names.
Silverstream raced under the stable name of Desert Track and to this day we have the belief she was a distant relative of Desert Orchid - possibly of the same blood line, a grey rated fifth best National Hunt horse of all time.
My brother and I have an arrangement that when we hear of a horse with Desert in its name we put a fiver on the nose to win - sorry granny... So far only one positive result.
Again I was fortunate. My uncle's trainer was the famous Willie Rooney whose stables were beyond Glengormley in the countryside with a view over Co Antrim; if I'm right, it was called Mount Top.
There I became friends with the family - mother Carrie and the children Ann, Eissen and Rosemary and their brother who died in an accident; sadly, Rosemary died three years ago when on holiday in Australia for the Melbourne Cup.
I recall Mrs Rooney baked beautiful buns, iced and with hundreds and thousands on top.
Mr Rooney was a Welshman who came to live in Ireland and became famous for setting a record for the most wins in Irish point-to-points at that time.
Success ran in the family with Ann becoming the first woman to win the Irish Grand National in 1984 on a horse Bentom Boy trained by her father. Rosemary finished third in the same race.
Interestingly, the stud is now owned by Willie Rooney's grandson Kevin Russ and his wife Anna, daughter of trainer Arthur Moore.
The girls were very generous in their information as to which horse I should put some money on but my granny didn't approve of betting, something my uncle - her son - chose to ignore, so I didn't follow the tip-offs and spent my half-crown pocket money buying half-straws in a box, some with a ballot ticket stuffed into it and if you got one of these you got a cash prize. It didn't occur to me this was gambling but as usual, the bookie always won.
Look Forward In Hope
Why do we depress ourselves? Last Monday was a magnificent day, in Belfast anyway, and the wolf moon was full and spectacular yet the third Monday in January is always deemed to be 'Blue Monday', only because someone decreed we would be feeling down because Christmas was over, the colourful decorations put away for another year and time to reckon with the money spent over the last few weeks.
Who says? It just might be a happy day with a hint of spring in the air and the buds filling out for a spectacular display in the not too distant future.
And there's Black Friday to contend with - it passed last year and I didn't even notice, let alone waste my time going to the sales.
Scotland The Brave
Tomorrow is the 263rd birthday of Scottish poet Robert Burns and his kinsfolk will be celebrating all round the world.
There'll be Cullen skink soup followed by the address to the Haggis served with neeps and tattees, a whisky sauce and a few drams of Scotch.
Happy birthday to all our friends and as the bard wrote: 'Scots, wha hae'.
