The German writer Heinrich Boll has written of the Rhine that he was "prepared to believe everything of the Rhine" except its "summery cheerfulness". "My Rhine is dark and and melancholy. . ." he wrote. For him, the river was impervious to the false promises of tourist brochures.
After reading through Robin Livingstone's The Road: Memories of the Falls (Blackstaff), I understand what he meant. This collection of over 170 photographs from the turn of the century to the present day is the Falls in all its "summery cheerfulness".
It is, according to its editor, "an unashamedly affectionate look at the Falls I knew, the Falls my parents and their parents knew, and perhaps even the Falls that my own children may come to know."
It is all that and no mistake. Photographs of people, places, football teams, schoolchildren, "characters" of a bygone age leap out. Without doubt, many who read the book will reminisce fondly over pictures of old faces and many will find themselves succumbing to Livingstone's tender introduction. The pictures of mills long since gone will invoke many a story from those unfortunate enough to have had to work in them. For Livingstone, "The Falls is the beating heart of West Belfast."
Communal memories
People from nationalist West Belfast are ferociously proud of their folklore and communal memories. The Andersonstown News, of which Livingstone is editor, regularly carries fond articles about people and places swept away by developers and the passage of time. "Characters" abound in may of these pieces and pride in place and people are paramount. The Pound Loney, a network of narrow streets that has attained mythic status on the road, is a frequent subject of vigorous debate. Where it began and ended is the stuff of scholastic arguments which would tax even the most erudite of philosophers. So perhaps is it no surprise that Livingstone has decided to concentrate on the positive.
Yet the viciousness and ferocity that have been part and parcel of many people's lives in West Belfast are on record for all to see. Surviving the West was a feat in itself given that the British Army, the RUC, republican and loyalist paramilitaries were laws unto themselves and frequently killed with impunity. That people in West Belfast have suffered violence is unquestionable; that people in west Belfast inflicted violence (often on "their own" to use a cancerous phrase) is equally unquestionable.
And it is here that I found myself remembering Boll's Rhine. This summery Falls is but part of the story. Livingstone's decision to avoid the openly political in his choice of photographs is understandable to a degree. (The legendary politician "Wee" Joe Devlin and the area's current MP, Gerry Adams, are the only politicians to get a look in. The section entitled "Troubled Times" is only 10 pages long.)
The stark images which people associate with West Belfast have been more than numerous over recent years - nationalist homes being torched by loyalist mobs (a few images of which do appear in the book); the buckled railings of St John the Baptist Primary School where the Maguire children were killed; Sean Downes dying after being hit by a plastic bullet; Micheal Stone bombing mourners in Milltown Cemetery; two doomed British soldiers being pulled from their cars; and, most recently, RUC officers scanning concrete to find the remains of dead men.
Necessary antidote
Perhaps Livingstone (no stranger to the personal tragedy that Belfast's conflict has wrought) is offering a necessary, if partial, antidote to all that. I suddenly realised after flicking through the photos for the nth time that this was normality - or at least that this would have been normality had west Belfast evolved in a parallel universe: old ladies with babies, happy looking kids, proud shopkeepers. This is how normal societies should remember themselves. Given the stark images of the past 30 years, it is proper to challenge the violent with the domestic. Yet there is a danger that the true picture of the Falls Road becomes distorted, out of focus.
For the life of me, I can never understand why people in Belfast hold the old slum housing of the area in such fond regard. Was West Belfast really a better place with claustrophobic two-ups and two-downs, outside dry loos, no central heating, endemic overcrowding, poverty which saw almost everyone going to bed hungry? What was so great about it all?
Stoic acceptance
Perhaps, in contrast to 30 years of sustained state and paramilitary violence, it seems like some golden age. But speak privately to older residents of the area and the stories of what people endured can be horrendous. Yet this poverty is accepted with a stoicism that would embarrass Zeno himself. Shoulders are shrugged and old lines are trotted out. "Sure, we knew nothing else." "Sure, you had to laugh." Really? No one has ever done a Frank McCourt on the Falls. It would be an interesting read and one which might counter the saccharine sentimentality of so much Falls lore. Mind you, I advise any would-be author to buy a tin hat. Despite the concrete, cities seem to flow like rivers. The Falls and its environs are no exception. I was born in Belfast in 1965, five years after Livingstone. The city, or rather the part of the city in which I grew up, in has been transformed even in my short lifetime: most of Divis Flats have gone; Twinbrook and Poleglass have ceded from Lisburn and become part of greater West Belfast; greenfield sites of my youth are full of homes; the gates of houses sprout padlocks to deter so-called "joyriders". The army forts which marked the borders of our reservation - though still there and still unwanted - do not seem quite so intimidating. Livingstone's book is the sunny side of the street. I look forward to a second volume which shows the Falls in the rain.