Dunmurry In The 60s & 70s

A Memory of Dunmurry.

I lived in dunmurry for 16 years from 1960 until 1976 the things that i remember in the village were the two barber shops the first one was beside jack norths sweet shop on the bridge where as a young boy i remember being left in here to have my hair cut while my mother did her shopping Here i had to sit in with old men smoking their cigs and pipes creating a fog that floated above their heads in this barbers you could also have your saw sharpened. At the top of the village was the other barbers shop which was a wooden hut. This barber was only gone to as a last resort as he was quite prone to leaving you with a soup bowl hair cut. Further up the village was a hardware shop owned by one of the neil brothers the other brother owning the ajoining fruit shop. In the hardware shop he sold every concievable item you could ask for within reason and at halloween it was brilliant to see his display of fireworks under the glass counter all waiting to be purchased. His brothers shop next door always put a full fruit display outside every day and closed every lunch time with said display left unattended manys a sore stomach was had from stolen cooking apples lifted of the display. Back up the village was a home bakery. There were no stairs in the premises and all the flour had to be manually carried up ladders to the next floor this was also the case in the bicycle shop at the end of this block of shops. Across the road was chambers sweet shop and news agents . Beside this was dunmurry presbyterian church whose halls were used as a court back then. Further down this side was dunmurrys washerette laundry where you took your dirty linen and clothes and shoved them into a washing machine and sat and waited for the cycle to finish. Cross the bridge and you met dunmurrys phone box bright red with glass windows phone books and backalite phone with A and B buttons. Also on this side was flemings the butchers. Also at the side of the bridge were the impressive entrance gates into the lilliput laundry with the well tended lawns on either side. The lilliput would collect your laundry in a pillow case with your name tag on it and return your sheets and other items in a brown paper parcel with a large tag on it itemising the contents. Opposite these gates was the first of dunmurrys pubs blown up in the seventies by terrorists and completly destroyed. Also in the village was a co op shop beside the park with toilets either side of the shelter for the caught short traveller. Dunmurry also had a train station up dumurry lane. My earliest memory of going on the train with my mum was going to the station going into the cosy waiting room with little coal fire in the corner and the station master opening his hatch and my mum buying the stiff cardboard ticket. Next the train would arrive a steam train with all the smoke and smells that accompanied it with its shiny brass turn door handles. Also in the villaage was a second park with a seesaw boat green in colour manys a good rocking that seesaw got. At the traffic lights was dunmurrys post ofice and across from that on the opposite side was a field with horses where tescos now stands across the traffic lights was our other pub the black swan or mussens as it was originally called. Dunmurry also had a police station back then there was no walls or fences round the building and it was manned all the times it even had lovely flowers outside the building. Over from the police station was a garage which was totally destroyed in a bombing and i remember standing with my friend the next day watching the ruins smouldering in the rain. Back down the village there used to be a habadashery store run by an elderly lady thats were i used to get my mutton dummies for going to primary school. Acros the road was a shoe shop and beside that the amble inn chip shop on up again there was speedy cooks chip shop. Back then you could get threepence for an empty glass coke bottle and sixpence for a rosses or c&c bottle we used to squeeze our hand through the fence at the back to get an empty bottle and return to the said shops to claim our money then down to jack norths to pick over his sweet collection. The lilliput employed the most people in the village every morning at 7.55 am the horn would sound and front doors everywhere would open as people made there way to work before the 8.00am blast on the horn to tell you that you should be in work.