All for the Love of a Father

Marty Dickson

Description

Six young boys, all under the age of fourteen, had no choice but to undertake a journey laid down by the evil of terrorism. They were asked to swear an oath of revenge, which they duly did without hesitation. Someone else's ideas forced them to take that oath and, in doing so, made them act like that evil. The end game was to overcome that which destroyed their childhood dreams and take their revenge so that the road ahead was of their own making and decision. How they did that was a challenge like no other. It was a challenge that would either destroy them or lead them to peace. But which road? This journey has yet to be told.

Sujets

• Love
• Love (disambiguation)

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 29 mars 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528959865
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

All for the Love of a Father
Marty Dickson
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-03-29
All for the Love of a Father About the Author Dedication About the Book Copyright Information Acknowledgement Prologue Chapter 1 Mummy’s Goodbye Chapter 2 Family Life Chapter 3 Daddy’s Death Chapter 4 Daddy Comes Home Chapter 5 Saying Goodbye to Daddy Chapter 6 Life Without My One True Love Chapter 7 Six Boys Become Six Men James Sammy Stephen Billy John Boyd Chapter 8 Time to Remember Chapter 9 Unwanted News Chapter 10 Back with Daddy Chapter 11 Hammer Blow Chapter 12 Truth That Leads to Revenge Chapter 13 Revenge That Leads to Truth Chapter 14 Revenge at a Cost Chapter 15 Saying Goodbye Again
About the Author
Marty Dickson was born in a small market village called Sixmilecross, in the county of Tyrone, Northern Ireland, and spent all of his youth living there. He started to write music at the age of fifteen and played his first live gig at the age of seventeen. His love for Rock music and Motorcycles was to become his passion in life. In 1987, he moved to Cambridge with his then-girlfriend, Elaine, who he married ten years after the day they met. He played Bass guitar in numerous bands over the years, spending most of his time on the road touring or in his studio, writing and recording music. He had some success with one of his songs entering the Top 100 singles charts. He also became a keen restorer of old motorcycles, which he owes to his father, Cecil Dickson, who was an ex Road Racer and restorer himself. In 2015, he decided to give up on the constant touring and recording, and turn to writing books. This is his first book to be released. He has never forgotten his hometown and writes passionately about his love for it. With his second novel underway, Sixmilecross will yet again play a role in it. He still lives with his wife and children in Cambridge, England.
Dedication
Dedicated to all the forgotten, innocent victims of the troubles in Ulster, who seem to be the only ones who have paid the price for peace.
And still are.
About the Book
Six young boys, all under the age of fourteen, had no choice but to undertake a journey laid down by the evil of terrorism. They were asked to swear an oath of revenge, which they duly did without hesitation. Someone else’s ideas forced them to take that oath and, in doing so, made them act like that evil. The end game was to overcome that which destroyed their childhood dreams and take their revenge so that the road ahead was of their own making and decision. How they did that was a challenge like no other. It was a challenge that would either destroy them or lead them to peace.
But which road? This journey has yet to be told
Copyright Information
Copyright © Marty Dickson (2019)
The right of Marty Dickson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528911672 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528911689 (Kindle e-book)
ISBN 9781528959865 (ePub e-book)
From this point onward this book is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Acknowledgement
My thanks goes to the W. F. Marshall family for letting me use a verse from Tullyneil in my first book. My father was a great lover of his work and grew up in Drumlister, which was the influence to another one of his poems, Me an’me Da , which is all about living in Drumlister. That is the link my father’s family has with Sixmilecross and W. F. Marshall. If you ever get the chance to visit Tyrone, find your way to Sixmilecross. The history of W. F. Marshall is everywhere to see.
I have to thank my three girls, who encouraged me through the writing of this book. My wonderful wife, Elaine; and our beautiful daughters, Lisa-Ann and Kerrie-Louise, I owe you and love you so much.
Finally, to the families of all the innocent victims. Never let your voices be silenced, because your voices are the voices of the innocent victims of terrorism in Ulster.
Prologue
To a lot of people in Ulster, the peace was welcome, but some people openly accuse both the British and Irish governments of trying to ‘airbrush history’ to cover up deaths to appease the victim makers. Those people are the victims who have and always will be the only ones to pay the price for peace in Ulster. Every family and every person in the north of Ireland has been affected by the troubles in some way. Through the generations of the last century, Catholics and Protestants have been at war with each other, with the British government in the middle. Some hoped that this would all change when peace was agreed in 1921. Nearly all the sides agreed on a ceasefire and a way forward. Some didn’t and vowed to carry on fighting to get the brits out of Ireland no matter how long it took. The six counties of Ulster stayed within the British Empire and the remaining twenty-six counties stayed part of the Republic of Ireland. From this time forward, Catholics and Protestants began to live side by side in peace and in some cases Protestants and Catholics married. Strong family ties between the two religions meant that the old divisions became more and more distant. My mother’s parents were from that time. My grandfather, a Protestant man, and my grandmother, a Catholic woman, started a family hoping that the peace would hold and their different religions would never again divide people. Forward fifty years, this was still the case, but the peace was broken.
Now, Catholics and Protestants were being harassed for, as it was called, shagging the other side. If you did, you were a Taig-lover or a proddy-lover, and in some cases, people were badly beaten and even murdered for doing so. My grandparents stuck together through thick and thin but they and their children, because of pressure from the troubles began to take different sides in the conflict. My parents followed in my grandparents’ footsteps and married the other side. Daddy was a Protestant and Mummy a Catholic. It became very hard for them, day to day, with the instigators of the troubles on both sides of the divide trying to make their ideals the local law. Thankfully, my parents didn’t listen to anything but their hearts. With the troubles in full force again, more and more innocent people from both sides got caught up in it and were made to take sides. Some did and were happy to. Some had no choice but to do what they were told and those who were left did what was right and stood up to the gangs of murders. For that, they became some of the innocent victims. Both sides murdered anyone who went against their beliefs and both sides killed at will. As a family, we were one of those innocent families who become victims of the troubles. A mixed family, with both Protestant and Catholic relations, we inadvertently become a target. We lost so much in the blink of an eye and none of this was our own doing. The terrorists become more and more vicious without a care to the one’s whose lives would be destroyed for ever. The shootings become endless and without a second thought and the bombings become relentless and indiscriminate. Thousands died and tens of thousands were affected beyond belief. To us, it was like the end of the world and to them, it was just another job well done.
Former US senator George Mitchell:
“ Nobody can expect those who lost a loved one to let go of their grief. That’s human, natural and understandable, but in the end, Northern Ireland has made a decision to move forward and it was a right decision, whatever the consequences of the past .”
Chapter 1

Mummy’s Goodbye
Standing in a churchyard in the far corner of a small County Tyrone market village, commonly called the Cross, is where our life’s journey, that started some 25 years ago, ended. It’s not a journey we took willingly; it’s a journey forced upon us because of someone else’s ideology. This churchyard at the edge of the village is a place that is so quiet and peaceful. A place you would think would be free from the disease and hatred that is destroying the land we love, yet it’s full of the results of that disease and hatred that has destroyed every stretch, every corner and every piece of this land that you step on and every single person you see or speak to carried the burden of grief forced upon them.
Wherever I look in this beautiful graveyard, there are the reminders of that disease and hatred buried below in the ground that I tread.
The wind blows through the trees making a sound that, in my mind, could be heard nowhere else. The old oak trees move side to side in the swift breeze and you can imagine what has passed them by in the old, gone and forgotten days and if they could speak what tales and woes they would tell.
The birds are singing and seem to be flying above us in sync, flying in tandem to the sound of the wind on the branches and leaves and swooping down towards us as if they were about to attack us before flying upwards again. In the distance you can see the Sperrin Mountains and the green grass on the hills and fields. And all the different colours of the trees blowing in the breeze are like a painter’s dream scene. I can imagine a painter like James Humbert Craig, originally from Belfast, spend his life time looking fo