Northern Ireland in the 1970s was very different to the Northern Ireland of today.
The Troubles – the 30-year conflict that tore communities apart – was raging.
Londonderry was at the heart of many of the most infamous moments of those years, not least Bloody Sunday in 1972, when 13 people were shot dead by the Army after soldiers opened fire on civil rights demonstrators.
A city and a people – like the rest of Northern Ireland – split apart by bloodshed, where hope was in short supply.
In 1975, almost 260 people died in the Troubles.
But, for two young boys from Derry, one Catholic and one Protestant, that fateful year of 1975 was the start of an unlikely journey of friendship – a friendship that has come to light just as Northern Ireland is set to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, the peace deal that brought the Troubles to an end.
Patrick O’Doherty and Raymond Hamilton were each from ‘the other side’.
But they came together, aged just 10 and 11, to travel to the Netherlands as part of an initiative offering vulnerable Catholic and Protestant children the chance to share an adventure away from the silos of hatred and bigotry that surrounded them.
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What is the Good Friday Agreement?
Their hosts were Donna and Danny De Vries, a couple who signed up to the cross-community initiative after reading about the scheme in a local newspaper.
Donna knew this was something she and her family could take part in – and Patrick and Raymond were the first children to visit.
Donna also thought they would be a good match because the family all spoke English, but as Danny says: “Boy, did we have a hard time in the first days to figure out their heavy accents.”
Tears, pen pals and fate
Almost half a century later, Patrick and Raymond have come together to reflect on that journey – a trip that Raymond describes as “going from a world of black and white to a world of colour”.
It’s a story that emerged through a twist of fate.
In 2015, I made a radio documentary called Lacrimosa, in which I looked for a piece of art – a song, book, movie, poem or anything in between – powerful enough to make me cry.
This was how I first met Donna.
She was listening to the documentary in Belgium and, a few weeks after it went out, she contacted me to tell me about a piece of art that always brings her to tears – a sculpture in Rotterdam called De Verwoeste Stad, which commemorates the bombing of the city during World War Two.
Donna was terminally ill with cancer – coincidentally, the same type of cancer I had the previous year.
We became friends and I visited, making another documentary, Pen Pals, about how our friendship had come about via the power of storytelling. We took a trip to the sculpture to see if it would bring me to tears.
It was here that Donna told me about her strange connection to Northern Ireland – that in the 1970s, when she lived in the Netherlands, two young boys came to visit from Derry.
And that her husband Danny, a sound engineer, made archive recordings of Patrick and Raymond during their visit.
Donna, who has since died, was a remarkable woman.
She had a big heart and a lot of love to give, and it was suitably remarkable that it was via her – an American woman living in Belgium who happened upon a documentary – that Patrick and Raymond’s unusual story came to be known.
All that was left was to track down the pair.
Patrick was relatively easy, as he still lives in Derry.
Raymond, however, moved to Australia in the 1980s and was rarely home.
Having found him on social media, I messaged him in the hope of reuniting the pair but Raymond hadn’t been home in years and with Covid lockdowns, this delayed any chance of bringing Patrick and Raymond together even further.
But fate smiled once again – Raymond returned for a family wedding in February this year.
The opportunity was too good to miss, and it was possible to bring the Dutch travellers back together for the first time in nearly a decade.
After listening to the archive recordings – laughing in parts, cringing in others and getting quite emotional at the memories that came flooding back – Patrick and Raymond are transported back to the 1970s, describing what Derry and the Netherlands were like at the time.
‘Noise of bullets’
Reflecting on life almost five decades later, Patrick describes a memory of going to the shop at the top of the hill overlooking Derry.
“It’s like slow motion in my mind,” he said.
“This blue Escort driving past the shop quite fast.
“And there was someone with a submachine gun.
“And I remember the noise of the bullets and diving into the front door or the shop.”
Talking about the difference between the Netherlands and Derry, he said: “You were always cautious, always watching where you are going, watching where you were walking.
“Whereas in Holland, there was nothing like that. It was total freedom.”
‘Debt of gratitude’
Thinking about his time in with Donna and Danny, Raymond said: “Now looking back, I think it had quite a profound impact.
“Going away, going out of your normal everyday environment – from a housing estate to this family who were the ultimate, caring, loving, sort of Brady bunch of a family.
“And I feel a great debt of gratitude to Danny and Donna.
“Taking two kids from roughish areas and giving them this chance to experience a different kind of lifestyle.”
Through geography, history and circumstance, these were schoolboys who were never meant to be friends.
One trip changed all that.
Years later, this is a fascinating insight into how opening doors can open minds.
Derry Boys will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Monday 3 April at 11:00 BST and repeated on Wednesday 12 April at 20:30 BST.
Source: BBC