The tall soldier stooped to lift me in firm hands, swinging me up in a dizzying arc and holding me suspended at arm's length above him. I squealed with half-fearful delight as I looked down - a long way, it seemed - into his laughing, upturned face; then he set me down and took his place by the troops. He was the Sergeant Major, and he was my father, and that brief contact was the last I ever saw of him.

There were a lot of soldiers in the town that day, closely packed, dense columns of them, marching to Belfast. To me, a wee boy, the fact that the Royal Ulster Rifles were going to war meant little; until my father came along I had been absorbed in staring wide-eyed at the grand-looking officer who rode a big white horse at the head of his men. Ahead lay the righting, and on 1st June, 1916, when I was five years old, my father was killed at the Battle of the Somme. My mother was left a widow with no pension until later, owing to an official mix-up, and with seventeen children to feed and clothe in the small house at Newtownards, Northern Ireland, that was our home.

Yes, I was the youngest of seventeen! Sixteen of us were boys and the eldest, Lizzie, was a girl. To me she was another mother-figure, someone in authority who wouldn't think twice about beating you or boxing your ears if you misbehaved. I used to keep out of her way whenever it seemed prudent!

Mother worked valiantly to keep the home going after Father died. She was just a little woman in a skirt and shawl, but in addition to all her work at home she was soon tackling jobs like washing floors in offices and pubs in the early mornings and laundering shirts for the gentry to earn a shilling or two.

 My mother's name was Mary, a beautiful, gentle name. There was nothing gentle, though, about the way she kept the lot of us in order. She ruled her family with iron discipline and from the big boys to the youngest we all jumped to obey her orders. She had a powerful voice, and she had no hesitation in giving us a whack with anything handy to en-force our obedience.

So there we were, poor and fatherless in an overcrowded house. Yet I remember those childhood years as among my happiest times. For all Mother's strictness we loved her and knew she loved us, every one, and our evenings, with the day's work and schooling done, were contented and full of fun.

Mealtimes were all-important to a growing lad! Mother had a big black cooking-pot full of potatoes, scrubbed and boiled in their skins, which hung over the fire. When they were cooked, the skins cracked and insides softened to a lovely floury whiteness, she would strain them and tip the lot onto the bare kitchen table for us to help ourselves. There was always a jug of buttermilk. I used to fetch it from the farm two miles away, where it was given free for the asking - and with our plates and mugs my brothers and I would sit down, just anywhere, on the uneven, red-tiled floor. We had no carpets and our feet were bare; I went barefoot all my young days and was as tough and lively as a young animal, firm-limbed and rosy-faced, with strong white teeth and clear eyes.

There was something to be done before we could start our simple meal.

'Quiet now,' Mother would hold up a hand. Then: 'Lord, we thank you for this good food and ask your blessing upon it,' she would say. Our 'Amen' was the signal to start, and believe me, we needed no second bidding!

After tea we really enjoyed ourselves. We had no television, true enough, but we made our own entertainment. 'Give us a tune Tom,' someone would beg, and my big brother Tom would fetch his accordion whilst another brother, George, brought out his flute. Then the older boys would begin to sing the old Irish ballads such as ‘The stone outside Dan Murphy's door' and 'The bold Phylum Brady, the bard of Armagh,' with the rest of us joining in.

Presently Mother would look up from her sewing in the big armchair under the oil-lamp.

'Now then boys, make room for Wee Hugh . . .' and we would scramble to one side, faces shining with pleasure, so that Hugh could do a step dance, his feet tapping with a captivating rhythm. Hugh was much in demand at socials and parties and concerts all over the country, so you can tell he could really step dance well.

The fun went on all evening, and I think that being the youngest I had the most fun of them all. Mother kept order with an occasional 'Now, now . . .' until at ten o'clock she would decree, 'Bedtime, boys,' and bring the party to an end.

Now, more than half a century later, I can remember as clearly the scene which always followed. In my mind's eye I can see that shabby room and the seventeen of us kneeling down, keeping perfectly still while Mother prayed, her eyes lifted to Heaven. Her grateful thanks to God for all his mercies invariably came first, humble and sincere. Then she would pray for us each in turn, Lizzie, Tom, Hugh . . . until she came to me, the youngest. I'm afraid I often wished she would hurry up and get to me so the session would be over, and sometimes I was naughty enough to lift my own eyes and watch her, growing restless if I thought she was praying too long over one of the others.

When my turn came she always ended her prayers like this: 'Dear Lord, bless Willie; save him one day and make him a man of God’. Those words came from a mothers heart, day after day, year after year, and God heard them, yes, and answered.

The older boys might go out for a bit after prayer time, but we younger ones trooped up to our bedroom. More of a loft it was really, with no ceiling between us and the rafters and some gaping holes in the roof where the rain could get in. Six to a bed we were, top and bottom, all faces and feet and just a candle for light. Then, when we were all snug and the candle blown out, Wee Hugh would start his mischief.

'Once upon a time there was a big, big, white ghost...Hugh's voice was weird and spooky in the darkness. Then he would reach out and grab one of us by the leg with bloodcurdling moans and strange noises until we screamed with delighted mock-terror which gave way to laughter. Soon, though, Mother's voice would call up, 'Quiet! Get to sleep, now.' Then sleep would come, deep sleep, blessed sleep, until the same voice woke us to another day.

Of course we had no such thing as a bathroom. Summer and winter we washed in cold water, sharing two old tin basins and a couple of towels between the tribe of us. All the same we had to pass an inspection by Mother or Lizzie of our faces, hands, ears, neck and feet before we were allowed out to school.

Breakfast always consisted of two slices of bread and margarine - and you should just see how quickly a quarter-pound of margarine could vanish with seventeen knives all dabbing at it together!

The baking of our bread became my job when I was about eleven. We all had our tasks to do; the big table had to be scrubbed white as snow every day, the uncarpeted stairs and the tiled floor washed, and so on. My work, as soon as I got home from school, was to bake the bread - soda bread, wheaten bread, potato bread, oat cake... I got to be quite an expert, and you can guess how much was consumed every day by a hungry family of boys. Still, I was proud of my cooking and liked to think that the big griddle, the baking board and bowl, bag of flour, bird's wing duster and all the rest of it were in my sole charge. The griddle hung on a chain over the open fire, and many a good oat cake did I produce on its heat

Two slices of bread and margarine again for our school lunch, rolled up in newspaper with our school books, and since our school had neither dinners nor dining-hall we ate our food in the yard all year round.

This yard was covered with 'screening' from the local quarry - little blue stone chippings which were very hard on our bare feet. We soon got use to it, though, and some of us barefoot scholars could soon run faster than the toffs' who wore shoes; yes, and we played football barefoot, too. I could meet that ball with my unshielded toes and give it a kick which would send it flying, and never feel a thing.

Football was a favorite sport with me, in fact, and I was often out with the lads playing in the street on a summer's evening.

'Get in! Get in! The mail’s coming!' That was the cry which went up when at six o'clock the Royal Mail van -thn first motor-vehicle i ever saw - came ponderously along the street. It traveled at about five miles an hour, I should think! But to us the sight was an exciting one as we cowered back by the wall clutching our precious ball.

We had a football team at school, and after a while I was made its captain. How proud I was! We had won several cups and the schoolmaster liked us to be well turned out, particularly, it appeared, for one special game which was in prospect.

'This is a very important occasion, boys,' he told us. 'You will all get new jerseys and pants from the school, and I want you all to get a pair of new boots.'

My heart went right down to my feet What chance did I have of buying new boots? Happy to be barefoot, the most I could muster was an ancient pair of handed-down, very grubby boots. I put the problem to Mother, but I already knew the answer.

'I fear you've no chance at all Willie, the way things are with us.' The touch of sympathy in her voice did nothing to ease my sore heart, and I had to fight back the tears.

Then an amazing thing happened. Right on the very day before the match I saw Mother coming home from work, and there hung on her shawl was a fine new pair of football boots; I knew at once they were just my size.

Somehow she had managed to put aside a penny here, another there, so that this youngest son of hers should not be disgraced before the school. That was how she loved us, this hardworking, God-fearing little woman. I am glad to say we won the match; it was a day of glory for young Willie Mullan, I can tell you!

Now you would have expected that this good mother, who so 'loved the Lord’ herself, would have sent all us children to Sunday school. Well you'd have been right, but I have to report that I never got there. Oh, I would start off all right, but it was a long walk and there would be all sorts of interesting things to divert me on the way. For instance, there was the day I went to the forest.

That was an unusual sort of day, for I actually had a new coat. Mostly, being the youngest, I had to be content with clothes of all sorts and sizes, passed down the family till they reached me in a pretty worn-out state. This time, though, I had a new jacket - but that didn't stop me joining the other boys when one suggested spending Sunday afternoon in the forest climbing a few trees. We weren't in the least troubled in our conscience about missing Sunday school yet again; we called it mitching and it was a regular occurrence.

Well, so there was young Willie Mullan, scrambling up the trees, as happy as any monkey - until it was time to climb back down. Then, oh dear, oh dear, I made a bad job of it; I slipped and came down in a rush, catching my new jacket on a branch and ripping the back of it nearly out

'W... what will I say to Mother ?' I wanted to know.

My companions were no help. 'She'll kill you, that's for sure,' was the general verdict, and they were very nearly right! I hung about for a long time, afraid to go home, but at last I had to face my mother's righteous anger. My, I can tell you I was pretty sore for a few days. Would you believe it, though, by the next week I was mitching Sunday school again?

The day school I attended changed its name several times. First it was the Church School, then it became the National and lastly the Public Elementary School, but whatever its name I hated many of the lessons it tried to teach me. I did love the sports, as I have said, and I enjoyed history and geography. Religious instruction, too, was a favorite, and I listened spellbound to the Bible stories, although I questioned the reality of God in my mind and had none of the simple faith of my dear old mother. But as for the other lessons, well, 1 couldn't spell and I couldn't add up, and I was constantly in trouble. In my last years at school I got caned every day, and sometimes the Headmaster would lose patience with me when I would not flinch, and he would whack me round the legs. I had started off all right with a lady teacher who took pains with me, but in those later years I became more and more stubborn and unruly, throwing my slates at the teacher and causing an uproar on many days.

I am truly sorry now that I was such a nuisance and so stupid. Our old Headmaster was a great soul who had an almost impossible task. Actually I had a secret respect for him, even on my.worst days, but he never knew it

Still, I was happy out of school, and had one plaything, a big iron hoop given to me by a blacksmith. Miles and miles I would run after that hoop, one of a group of perhaps ten boys, our bare feet keeping pace on stones and dust and mud with barely a pause for breath. When we got hungry we might take a turnip from a farmer's field; we would split it in half on the top of a gate and eat it raw, crunching it with real enjoyment. Happy days indeed!

So the years went by until I was counting the days until I left school. I completed my education in the fourth standard of the Public Elementary, and God alone knows how I got that far. One Friday I left, to begin my working life on the following Monday. A new stage had been reached, and an important one for me.

How proud I was to be starting work! I had got a job driving a milk cart on a round, and every day I was up with the lark, hurrying round to the stable to groom the horse and harness him to the cart. I soon learned all the parts of his harness, the bridle, collar, hems, backhand, traces and so on, and greatly admired the lovely old cart with its two big shining polished milk-cans, covered in summer with snow-white linen coverings.

All round the town I drove, measuring out pints and half-pints for my customers. One of them was the Headmaster's wife and one day she had a word with me.

‘Im very glad to see you're settling down Willie and working so well,' she told me. I had a good idea, mind, why she was glad I was no longer a schoolboy; the place must have been a lot more peaceful without me!

In the evenings I had another job, this time selling newspapers, the Belfast Telegraph, Newtownards Chronicle and the Bangor Spectacle, at my pitch near the railway station. I was one of a gang of newsboys. I can see us now, clustered round the delivery man, collecting our bundles of papers, all of us clad in dark jerseys and caps, knickerbockers buttoned at the knee, and every one of us barefoot in rain, hail, snow or frost Our feet were used to the elements and we thought it no hardship, but some of the boys were often hungry and some indeed half starving.

One day in particular comes to memory now. One of the lads was a lad called Little Glendinning; his mother was a kindly soul who would sometimes give me a piece of bread and jam when I called at her door. Well on this occasion Little Glendinning had just that - a piece of bread and jam. He was just about to eat it when up came a big dog, Hector, who we knew to be as hungry as we often were; he would snatch anything that looked eatable.

Of course Little Glendinning wasn't going to lose his precious snack, so he slipped it up inside his jersey, quick as a flash, jam side against his belly, and eventually Hector made off. Then out came the bread and jam, and Glendinning began to tuck in - and that was when a little fellow, a thin, hungry waif of a child, crept up and licked the bits of jam off his belly where they had stuck. Yes, there were boys who knew what hunger was in those days, sure enough.

Some days, though, we had a windfall, like the time when a man gave me sixpence for a penny paper and told me to keep the change. You could buy a dozen Paris buns, full of currants, for threepence at the baker's shop, and the man always gave you thirteen. Tucking in to those we were as happy as lords, I can tell you. I became a super salesman with my papers, earning a halfpenny per dozen, but of course I gave all my actual earnings to Mother, only keeping any 'tips' for myself.

I still had another job to do before the day was done. Back to the dairy I would go, and with the milk cart and horse (though without the big cans) I made my way each evening to the big camp where thousands of soldiers were stationed. My job was to remove the swill barrels from the cookhouse and deliver their contents to a farmer who kept pigs. I liked the job and got on well with the Regimental Sergeant Major,a big, bluff man who would come and have a word with me.

'Come here and let me feel those cold feet.' He could scarce believe I didn't feel the cold as I jumped down from the cart into the snow. 'My, you are a brave youngster and no mistake. Here, bring the swill barrel; I've got a bit of meat your mother can use, I dare say...'. He would fetch a side of bacon or a big roast joint and drop it into the barrel among all the greasy soup and tea leaves and other leftovers.

'The guard on the gate won't find it, Willie. When you get home, take it out before you go on to the farmer and tell, your mother if she washes it well it will be quite good to eat.’

He was a good fellow; he knew my mother was a widow and struggling to make ends meet, so he tried to help, and many a night we feasted on pork ribs or roast beef - though I have to admit it was at the government's expense.

Well, a couple of years went by with me working hard and enjoying life. My older brothers had jobs too, and most of them did very well in later years, so it seemed Mother's burdens had lifted. Then a terrible thing happened to me.

It began with a casual meeting in the street. Two fellows I knew stopped to tell me they'd had a win on the horse they had backed, and I thought I could add to their good fortune.

'You'll be on a winning streak, sure enough,' I told them. 'Now what you should do is to put it all on another horse; then you'll really have some winnings.'

And would you believe it, they did that, and do you know, the horse won! Those two men could scarcely believe their luck.

'Sure, we owe it all to you, Willie lad,' one of them said. 'Come on down to the pub and we'll buy you a drink.'

Well I was just a boy of sixteen and I felt mighty grown-up to be strolling into that pub and taking my very first glass of beer. This was a man's life all right, I was sure.

But those two men did something to me that altered my whole life. You see that glass led to another, and another... and by the time I left the pub I was not only drunk (though that was bad enough) but also addicted to drink.

It was quite late when I staggered along our street. For a moment I held on to the wall of our house, fumbling for the door; then I got it open and fell inside.

I had missed Mother's prayer time that night, that was certain. My brother Tom was waiting, though, just inside the door.

'Why you filthy young rebel, you're drunk!' His voice held anger as well as surprise, and quick as a flash his big fist sent me sprawling, head over heels, with a powerful blow.

The room reeled around me, but I became dizzily aware of hasty footsteps and someone bending over me. It was Mother.

'Leave him alone! You've no right to hit him; he's mine. Oh Willie, Willie’.

Very tenderly she helped me onto the couch and put a rug over me. Then, as my brother turned away, Mother knelt beside me and poured out her heart in anguished prayer.

That scene was to be repeated night after night for many weeks. Every evening now found me at the pub, and although I had no money I had enough brains to know that I could talk a bit and sing a bit and soon enough someone would buy me a drink or two.

Mother soon realized I was completely 'hooked' on drink.

'Dear Lord,' she prayed over and over, 'he is in the grip of this thing. Oh, won't you set him free?' And her words hit me far harder than my brother ever did, I can tell you.

The thing was, I didn't even lke the stuff 1 was drinking now. Often I hated it. But I was in an iron grip, and although I didn't know it then I was never to come home sober from that day when I was sixteen until I was twenty-four. I lost my jobs, I became known all round the neighborhood as the black sheep of the family, yet I just could not leave the drink alone.

One day, still in my seventeenth year, something even more dreadful happendI I was in the house alone with Mothe . I suppose all the others were away at work - when I happened to notice her face.

Something was twisting her features. She was having some sort of seizure. Alarmed,I gripped her shoulders and eased her onto the couch, at a loss what to do next.

Suddenly she began to breathe heavily; then she turned her face up towards Heaven and her lips moved faintly. There was one deep sigh .. . and then silence. Mother was dead, as suddenly as that.

Now 1 thought my heart would break. You see, I had none of Mother's faith to believe she had gone to be with the Lord, which the Bible tells us is far better. I just knew I had lost the best fiend I ever had at that moment, for I realized that whatever I did or however badly I behaved she had always gone on loving me and praying for me, 'Lord, bless Willie; save him and make him a man of God someday. Even now I was a drunkard her love had never failed, and neither had her hope in me.

Well then there was the wake, with all the neighbours and friends coming in to pay their respects, and do you know I disgraced myself again by going off and getting drunk, thinking to drown my sorrows. Just before the undertaker came to take Mother's body away went into the little room where the coffin lay, shutting the door behind me.

I no longer felt myself to be a big man. Now I was just a lad again, meeting for the first time the utter coldness and stillness of a loved one's dead body. In an agony of remorse and grief I cried, 'Mummy, I promise you I'll never be drunk again,' and I meant it with all my heart. Yet within a couple of hours I was full of the stuff, incapable and stupid. I was bound by shackles that I could not break, however hard I tried.

When the funeral was over the time came when my brothers had to decide what was to be done with Mother's things -and me. Some of them were married now, and Tom turned to one of them and asked, 'What's to be done with Willie ? Will you give him a home from now on?'

'Oh no, I couldn't. I've got children of my own to think of now. What sort of an example would a drunken lout like Willie set them?'

'Well then, will you take him?*

1 kept my head down so as not to see which brother was being addressed, but I heard the answer clearly enough.

'Not me. I could never manage him. He must go with one of the others.'

I could see nobody wanted me and in spite of my misery couldn't find it in my heart to blame them. They were all hardworking, honest men with decent homes. What would they do with a character like me around the plague ?

There in that room I knew my way was to be a lonely one. Something in my nature, the old stubbornness I had shown at school, rose to the surface, and I squared my shoulders.

'It's all right; you just go back to your homes and I hope you all do well. I'll look after myself from now on.' With a proud gesture I lifted my coat from behind the door and put it over my arm. Then I walked out