Next morning at six they left Mayo without breakfast. They were on the road in the dark. He brooked no complaints. And this time he kept his head down as they crossed the border lest anyone might recognize him. Everywhere this RTE film of the confrontation was being viewed. He was terrified. He could not wait to get back to the safety of his own home. He drove furiously, in his mind’s eye watching himself right his hat and turn back to strike the man who was down and screaming.

Jonathan Adams had become a part of history. Whenever a documentary of those troubled years in Ireland was made, that clip from the Telefis Éireann file would be shown. Word went out through the police that the cameraman responsible should be dealt with. But by now, TV men were coming from all over the world.

That evening on Ulster Television, as his family sat round after dinner, the news turned to the riots in Derry. Again, in slow motion, the Catholics collected in Duke Street. Again they began to move forward. Again they implored, hysterically, in the name of God, to be let through. Jonathan Adams stood up and switched off the TV. He said nothing. He left the room. Catherine switched the TV back on. In his kitchen, Jonathan Adams heard the eerie voices call out again. He thought it was fiction, but it was reality. He could envisage the whole scene, the heads, the hatred, the jerky movements. He came in shaking with wrath. The TV was switched off again.

“I don’t want ye to look at that,” he roared.

He unplugged the TV and put it into his car.

By the following day it was obvious that everyone in the village, including Matti Bonner, had seen Jonathan Adams on the news the night before. He sent the TV back to the company he had hired it from. He phoned his superiors to see if they could bring forward his retirement. In the barracks, young Saunderson joked: “Ye still have it in ye, Sergeant.”

“Mind your own business, sonny,” said Sergeant Adams.

He was terrified. Terrified and angry. The seal on his privacy had been broken. Sleepless nights followed. Each night the same set of images swam again before his mind, and he succumbed to such fear that he spent the night at the foot of the stairs, a loaded revolver in his hand, facing the door.

Then the girls learned at school how their father had been teaching manners to the popeheads.

“Everyone saw you on television,” Catherine said, when she came in from school.