WHEN Jim Trainor asked Mary Quinn to dance with him at Glenavy dance hall she recalls she was delighted as, "all my friends were after him".
"He was very quiet but always immaculately dressed," said Mary.
From Lurgan in Co Armagh she went on to marry the car mechanic and at first moved to her husband's native west Belfast.
"We lived in a wee bungalow right beside St Agnes' church," she recalls.
The Old Warren estate in Lisburn was at first intended as a mixed housing development and in 1972, the couple decided to move there.
"We were just delighted to get this brand new house, it was a completely new estate," she said.
By now the couple had two children, a three-year-old girl and a little boy who was just 18-months-old.
However their dreams were shattered when Jim, who worked at the Speedline garage in Kennedy Way in west Belfast, was shot by a UVF gunman in the forecourt on January 29,1973.
At just 21 Mary found herself widowed with two small children.
"On that Monday afternoon he came home from work, he lifted the youngest in his arms because he was crying, he said he was working until 8pm that night.
"But he never, ever came home in the afternoon. To me he had to come home that day because that was the last time he'd be with us, my faith tells me that.
"There was a knock at the door and my daddy was there with the priest, Fr Molloy from Lurgan, he said to me 'Mary there's been an accident' I thought he'd been in a car accident.
"Thinking he's alive and I would have to get ready and go to the hospital, and then my daddy just said 'Mary sit down. Jim has been shot dead'.
"That was the Monday night and he was buried on Thursday in Milltown Cemetery".
An Historical Enquiries Team report showed that Jim had survived for an hour after he was shot. The report also revealed that the gun used had been recovered and was linked to the UVF.
"No one told me that he lived for an hour, I could have gone to him. I could have been with him at the end.
"They told me they hadn't the police staff to get me to him. I only had him for three years.
"I had to get a house back up in Lurgan and leave the new house in Lisburn.
"The people in Lisburn collected around the houses and got me money that went towards the funeral. The minister came to the door with it. I appreciated that so much, they were good people.
"But that was it, I was all alone."
Mary went on to marry again and have six more children. She is now called Mary Hull she says her husband Patrick supports her in speaking out on behalf of bereaved victims.
She says the pension is about recognition of the harm and loss caused to people like her, who were forced to carry on in grief without any support.
"I would have needed to be at the scene to witness him being killed, even though my medical notes say I was psychologically injured.
"So I want to know what they are going to do for the bereaved?".
After her husband's murder Mary attended Crumlin Road courthouse with her father to be awarded compensation.
The judge presiding over the case was Maurice Gibson, who was later killed with his wife in an IRA bomb as they crossed the border in April 1987.
"It was horrific, I was told by the solicitor to dress down like I was going in to beg. My daddy said 'she's not going in to beg, she's always immaculate and that's how it's going to be'.
"I went and got my hair done, that was the one thing I always allowed myself.
"He (Judge Gibson) made me stand up in the court, I wore a purple suit and my white blouse, that was the style then.
"He awarded me £6,000 for the loss of a life, didn't ask what had happened, he looked down on me from the bench and said 'quite an attractive young lady, prospects of remarriage.'
"Looking back I wish I'd said something, I didn't ask to be there."
Mary said for those who never got justice, recognition of loss can only now come from redress.
"It's too late for them to bring me a gunman who is an old man.
"I shouldn't be still fighting, but part of me remembers that young girl that I was then and I feel sorry for her.
"No one every asked 'Mary will you be all right, how are you doing today'.
"So she's who I fight for."
