Eileen Thompson

60, Ardoyne, Belfast

`We just hope that it doesn't go back, we hope that it stays the way it is at the minute. This Drumcree thing is keeping it going. "You're not looking over your shoulder any more. You see a car stopping and they ask you directions - you used to be afraid to tell them.

"I remember one time coming down in a black taxi, and I wasn't used to getting taxis, and he didn't stop where they usually stop to let you out. That time the assassinations were going on and I thought he was heading up to the Shankill. I was trying to get the door open and he stopped dead and he says to me: `Were you trying to jump out there'. I was.

"Shopping in the centre of the city is very different now. They used to search your bag before you went into every shop. You used to have to queue up to get in now you can just walk in no bother, you know.

"People know how to enjoy themselves in Belfast. That's one thing that hasn't changed. Even during the Troubles they always went out and had a wee drink. We used to go to the GAA club on a Saturday night in the Ardoyne and they used to say, now watch yourselves going home. And there was shooting up and down the street but everyone just went out anyway. You'd see flashes of gunfire but it didn't keep people in. It was cowboy country then."