THE barrel of the military rifle was pointing right between my eyes when I looked up from the kerb.
I could see a small core of intense darkness surrounded by a ring of white. I knew someone’s finger only had to move a few millimetres and a live bullet would emerge a millisecond later, almost instantaneously ending my life.
I gasped. I felt the nerves in my wrists and palms; my pulse accelerating.
I tried to change my focus, looking along the barrel of the gun to the other end. I saw part of a face, the jaw obscured by the gauntlets holding the gun as it rested on the roof of the Army Land Rover. I could see some of a man’s cheeks, but not his eyes, hidden behind darkened goggles. I couldn’t see any other features. They were obscured by his helmet.
For the few seconds that felt like a lifetime, I tried to breathe as deeply but as silently, motionlessly, as I could. I tried not to move. I somehow knew that any rapid gesture could be my last. I was too aware of the military ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ ethos to do anything else.
I blinked.
The gun barrel was no longer directly in front of me. It was in exactly the same position on the Land Rover. The firearm itself hadn’t moved, but the vehicle had. The traffic lights had changed and the armoured, white Land Rover had crept forward, still blocking the pedestrian crossing but no long the immediate threat to my life it had been a few moments earlier.
That was in central Belfast, near a university building at lunchtime on Saturday March 19th, 1988.
I can never remember that date; I have to look it up. I know how to because, later that afternoon, two undercover servicemen were identified, pulled from a car and killed at a cemetery in the west of the city in Northern Ireland where the funeral of a member of the paramilitary IRA was taking place.
I was in Belfast, for the first time. The ‘Troubles’ were not as intense as they had been, but they were far from over. The euphemistically dubbed ‘low level’ conflict over whether Northern Ireland should be part of the Republic or the United Kingdom had begun in the early 1960s and would last until 1998.
I was taking part in a day-long meeting with friends and colleagues from a UK-wide non-profit organisation. We had guests from the Republic and we were taking a midday break.
We’d left the university meeting room to find somewhere for lunch. A group of us walked down a hill, turned left at a junction and waited at a pedestrian crossing.
I was at the front of that small group.
I was 31.
I knew within an instant that, still alive, I would never forget that experience, lasting far less than a minute. I didn’t know until later that I would be able to retrieve the date whenever I wanted to.
The meeting resumed for the afternoon. Not until I was back in a hotel room in the early evening, ‘freshening up’ before going for dinner, did I find out what else had happened that day. I’d turned on the TV for the news. Reports of the cemetery killings, the international political reaction and local outrage dominated the bulletin. That this had happened within two miles seemed surreal.
Some regarded the presence of the UK army in Northern Ireland then as repressive ‘occupation’. Others were – and still are – offended by that suggestion. They saw the military presence as an extension of more constructive policing.
Different and distant
I never gave enough thought to ‘occupation’ until I moved to France in 2020 and Armistice Day, during the second pandemic lockdown, that November 11.
Twentieth century wars in England – and most of the United Kingdom – were very different and distant from those elsewhere. The people of what is now the Republic of Ireland were, for The Great War of 1914-18, part of the UK. Ironically perhaps, conflict there started during that War, with the Easter Rising in 1916. ‘Partition’, the formation of the Irish Free State and then the Republic didn’t gain momentum until after that war over.
That war was not fought on ‘England’s green and pleasant land’, although the North Yorkshire seaside resort of Scarborough, like other towns along the north east coast, was bombarded by the enemy battleships. The land battles took place in northern France, at sea, and later, in the air.
Of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and dependent territories, only the Channel Islands were occupied during the 1939-45 Second World War. Those injured or killed ‘in combat’ elsewhere in the UK were casualties of bombing; war in the air.
Those who experienced ‘eye-level’ conflict in the 20th century were those who lived on the island of Ireland, not elsewhere. ‘Terrorist outrages’ on ‘the mainland’ during the Troubles involved bombs too, not bullets.
Being in rural southern France on the 79th anniversary of the declaration of Victory in Europe further changed my perspective. The 1939-45 war here was not fought in the air overhead. It was fought on the ground.
After invading, the Nazis won. Much of France was occupied. The war was not only to defeat Naziism itself but to free so much of Europe from its grasp.
During the Occupation, members and supporters of the local Resistance would meet in the basement storage cave of the 19th century house that is now my home. It was then separated from the impressive former business building opposite by a short terrace of dilapidated homes. That bigger building, perhaps 30 metres away, had been commandeered by the Nazis as the headquarters for the Gestapo secret police. The Resistance were, almost, hiding in plain sight.
None of them would recognise the space now, but, for me, I am far more aware of war and its consequences than I have been for most of my life. I vaguely remember parts of the cities of Portsmouth, Plymouth and Leeds where, in the early 1960s, nearly 20 years after the war ended, streets of bomb damaged terraced houses were finally being demolished and redeveloped.
I suspect that both the concept and the reality of occupation are, to this day, alien to so many in the UK, even the families of the military veterans who landed in Normandy on D-Day, June 6th, 1944, first to liberate France and then to defeat Naziism.
While the policing of the first coronavirus pandemic lockdown in the UK in 2020 was inconsistent and severely criticised, being confined to our homes for 23 hours a day was probably the closest to some aspects of occupation that many currently alive will ever experience, be they children or grandparents.
Occupation was probably like that, but far more besides.
Easy to sanitise
Occupation limits who you can meet and where you can go. Did you know your relatives, your immediate family, colleagues or neighbours? You had no idea who you could trust, who would contact the authorities, either with reports of genuine breaches of the imposed regulations or with allegations requiring ‘investigation’, a process that further diminished the little liberty you had left, simply because someone didn’t like you, what you say, where you come from, what you personify or what you believe.
Occupation means not having access to ‘due process’.
Simply listening to a proscribed radio station could be enough for the occupying regime to kill you, immediately – at home or in the street. Your execution would be ‘a lesson’ to others. Occupation equals repression.
Your sources of information are tightly controlled. Trusted friends or neighbours may try to pass on news by word-of-mouth, but only what benefited the repressors would be published.
Occupation is a long way from the comfortable co-existence portrayed in David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd’s 1980s UK television sitcom ’Allo, ’Allo. Not many places had such lackadaisical relationships between the occupied and the occupants. Occupation is too easy to sanitise.
Occupation means being with the enemy, all day every day. From my desk, I look out of a window to the ‘headquarters’. I look down at the narrow streets, imagining armed, uniformed men – and some women – going in and out of the building, of seeing them around the village, in the shops, in the cafés and brasseries, seeing them in human form, aware of the firearms they carried and trying to avoid looking them in the eye. Occupation demands perpetual deference.
‘I was scared. I still feel scared.’
As well as looking directly down the barrel of a rifle in Belfast, thinking about occupation, strolling towards the village cemetery from the war memorial for the second part of the VE Day commemoration, I thought about a more recent experience – in London, two or three days before the 2012 Olympic Games officially began.
I was walking from the bright lights of Soho to a hotel near Euston railway station. I had to cross Russell Square.
Usually a hive of activity, late into the evening, the place was empty, apart from a few volunteers huddled under a gazebo. Cars had been cleared from parking spaces. Buses were diverted. The square had an Olympic purpose. Nothing was stirring.
As I walked northwards, I saw one volunteer looking at me. Staring. Distrusting.
I was aware of an elderly couple a few paces behind me.
I sensed that he never took his eyes off us until we were out of sight.
I was uncomfortable. Why was he so suspicious? I know such events are always potential targets for terrorists and terrorism but his vigilance seemed too thorough. I felt I was considered guilty and a threat. The experience was uncomfortable and unnerving.
I was at the hotel entrance when the couple caught up with me.
I held the door open.
The man spoke first.
‘That wasn’t pleasant,’ he said. ‘London is usually so welcoming, such fun.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I was scared. I still feel scared.’
‘I was a child in the war,’ said his wife, ‘in Amsterdam. Occupation. By the Nazis.’
Her husband reached for her hand.
‘Tonight felt like that,’ she added, when she had relaxed enough to speak.
After a floral tribute was laid by primary school children from the commune’s ‘young people’s council’, maire Monsieur Lafaurie said the occasion was about freedom and being free, about democracy and about peace.
On May 8th, 1944, the village was occupied. The battle for Liberation would not start for another month.
Memorial plaques abound in southern France, as elsewhere, for those who lost their lives during those last months of occupation. Many were members of the Resistance who were shot and killed, there and then, when they were apprehended. The plaques are on nondescript buildings, on country walls and on the edges of woods. In the coming weeks, they will be decorated with strips of tricolour ribbon and flowers in remembrance.
Liberation didn’t end the effects of occupation. Emotions surrounding real or suspected collaborators, and their families, have largely been eliminated, but not entirely. They may be tacit, but they linger. The desire for vengeance can last many generations.
The VE Day commemoration triggered – to use an ironic euphemism – a day for reflection, humility, for appreciating the importance of peace, of talking to one another, learning from one another and trusting one another, despite humanity’s irrationality over perceptions of difference.
Taking time to join villagers and neighbours, to sit quietly in the sunshine and try to imagine myself witnessing what was happening 79 years ago was human and humbling.
France may not have been involved in the war in the Far East, so the 80th anniversary of VJ Day on August 15th, 2025 may be more appropriate for those affected by war in the air and war at sea to commemorate the end of that conflict. Stopping to think about occupation and all that means nevertheless remains a worthwhile way to mark May 8th next year.
Collective forgetfulness and individual liberty
WAR breaks out when politics fail.
Standing beside the graves, thoughts of Gaza, Israel, Ukraine and Sudan crossed my mind.
I rued the cult of ego, common to so many contemporary conflicts and the desire for simplicity when life is complex and the self-serving deceit of the political right that we can abdicate the obligations of citizenry.
After the ceremony at the cemetery, I found myself walking back to the mairie with Monsieur Lafaurie.
He had spoken very gently but powerfully about the importance of young people learning about the war, about the victory, about the peace, the liberation and the liberty.
We chatted about the need to learn about politics, about government and governance, about democracy and the constitution.
I told him I was slowly trying to read more and learn more about the history of France, and that I was intrigued by how – towards the end of the 18th century – a ‘Brit’, John Stuart Mill, had influenced the Declaration of Human and Civil Rights that is still part of France’s constitution, how Benjamin Franklin and other Founding Fathers had come to France, to talk, to listen and to learn, and how Frenchmen such as Pierre Charles l’Enfant, Alexis de Toqueville and Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette had contributed to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of what became the United States.
They knew that governance based on distrust, designed to confound despotism, was essential to protect us from ourselves and our desires to impose tenets upon others without their consent. We must protect, forever maintain and improve and respect the institutions we create in the interests of peaceful co-existence.
Being maire of a commune of about 1,500 people may not be the greatest political position, but I like and admire Monsieur Lafaurie’s beliefs and the sincerity with which he holds them.
I also believe strongly that, whatever the European Union’s shortcomings as a still nascent institution of governance, having its flag flying beside the Tricolour of France is infinitely better than the Swastika that was there 79 years ago.