We’d started to chat about Christmas, ignoring the fact that it would be my last without a baby, when eleven British soldiers and six civilians were killed by an INLA bomb in the Droppin Well disco in Ballykelly, County Derry. It was a time bomb left beside a support pillar on the dance floor and most of them died when big lumps of masonry fell on their heads. Three of the young people killed were teenagers like me. Christmas celebrations faded back into the gloom of a freezing Northern Irish winter.

We brought the cows in and tied them up in the stalls and the sound of them rattling their chains and splattering the groop added itself to the rats and the howling wind when the sun went in. It was dark by three o’clock and we were often in bed by seven after Bridie stoked the fire.

Eileen came down with Bernie for Christmas Day. She didn’t have time to do a whole big fancy dinner and visit Granda Ban. We were so happy to have them to talk to. John surprised us all by cooking the turkey and making mash and carrots and even gravy and he didn’t look like a cissy for a single second. Bridie burned some stuffing to go with it and we had a jolly time with my aunt spinning yarns and filling the kitchen with fag smoke. I got a baby blanket, a baby’s hairbrush set and a packet of white Babygros just in case I forgot the massive dome in front of me was a baby. I got nothing for me.

Me and the bump only went to town when I had to see the doctor. John dropped me off right beside the door, not from concern but because I still had to be concealed as I was far too pregnant for the few months I was married. I always went in alone. John made out like I wasn’t in the car the whole way to Carncloon but his hand with its big blunt fingers resting on the gearstick always felt too close to my leg so I made myself as narrow as I could just in case he remembered I was there. I saw Doctor Brown and he always had the same word for me.

–  Textbook.

That was nice; it made me think that I was still good at exams. I was as healthy as it was possible to be. I got plenty of Paris buns and my iron tonic and plenty of exercise. I was due on January 4th: an ambulance would pick me up about two days before that and take me to Omagh. I was almost looking forward to it because I knew that hospitals had magazines and books lying around and surely I’d get chips if I was there for a whole week?