Former RUC officer Jim Wilson talks about his life

There is a natural fear of offending, and a fear of alienating, and these are understandable feelings, given the nature of the conflict.

There is no doubt that the RUC suffered considerably during the many years of unrest, with so many shattered families and lives.

It is seldom that any of the former RUC officers have spoken about those torrid times – but Florencecourt native and ex-RUC officer Jim Wilson is a man of clear character and courage, and he speaks eloquently, openly and compassionately about some of the horrors he witnessed up close in a career that began in 1972 and ended in 2001.

Jim has been shot at, narrowly missed being blown up on a number of occasions, and has gone to a considerable number of funerals of his comrades.

He speaks with great clarity and empathy of horrendous incidents he witnessed at first hand while he was stationed as an officer in Bessbrook in South Armagh from 1973-74, and in Lisnaskea for the rest of his career, which continued through to 2001.

For many, that would have been a hard and embittering time – yet he bears no ill to anyone, and tells The Impartial Reporter that he believes that a united Ireland is coming, but “maybe not in my lifetime”.

He adds, tellingly, in a quote from his highly-esteemed stepfather, George Sheridan, that every shot fired puts back the prospect of a united Ireland.

On the mild Spring morning in Enniskillen when he spoke to this paper, Jim recounted an action-packed and at times tragic life, where he witnessed another major tragedy when his beloved father, Jack Wilson, was killed by debris from the roof of a shed in Storm Debbie in 1961, and an eleven-year-old Jim could only watch in horror as his badly injured father lay on the ground.

Those were terrible days, and he recalls, with forensic accuracy, the thud of the clay sod on top of his father’s coffin at his funeral feeling like a shot in the heart, telling him he would never see his dad again.

That was tough on Jim, his widowed mother and siblings, but a combination of great genes, determination and hard work saw him through some really dark times, and he went on to become a foreman in Kent Plastics before joining the Force in Enniskillen in 1972.

But this super-fit 73-year-old has not been idle since his retirement, as he immersed himself in his own community and joined the Killesher Community Development Association – a strong cross-community group in the area, and the local history society that awakened his interest in the past, and how a vanishing way of life needed to be recorded.

He began to write about his life and some of the characters he grew up with, and sent a piece to his second cousin, Marion Maxwell, an historian, who was so impressed with Jim’s natural writing skills that she suggested he should put his flowing reflections into a book.

And so, ‘Minding The Coppers’ was born, and then launched in November, 2022 in the Larganess Community Centre in Florencecourt.

The bestseller was written during the Covid-19 pandemic, and is a valuable social history of the place that Jim holds dear.

In the well-written book, he captures the sights, sounds and smells of rural life in the 1950s and 1960s, and also some of the carnage he encountered as an RUC officer in a period from 1972-2001.

Jim had heard some great stories from an 87-year-old man – George Elliott, from Marlbank – who clearly remembered Jim’s grandfather, who died in 1928.

He absorbed everything like a sponge, and there are some lovely vignettes in his memoir.

Jim was born in Wheathill, Florencecourt in 1950, at 7am, in a great hurry. He says in the book that his mother, Edith Wilson (nee Thornton), said “he never stopped”, and his siblings are John, Muriel and David.

His people came to Wheathill first in 1785. “It was wonderful, growing up in Wheathill, and we were so lucky that we had great neighbours on both sides of the community, and my father was great friends with both sides of the community.”

Jim was lively, and always up to something, and his mother used to say “he was the best cub in the house – and the worst cub in the house”.

The first tractor came to Jim’s home in early 1958 – a brand-new T20, with the registration IL 7305. He had a Harry Ferguson mowing machine on the back; land work was previously done with horses.

Jim’s father, Jack, bought and sold cattle for people in the area. He got a lorry and a trailer and would round up about two dozen cattle, put them on the trailer and bring them to Belfast.

“At that time, you might have got £1 a head, or maybe £2 more in Belfast than you would in Fermanagh.

“He might have got 10 shillings for himself, which was quite an amount in the 1950s.

“I remember he bought four cows at £4 each in the 1950s in the Enniskillen mart, and an hour later a dealer approached him and dad sold them to him for a £1 more [a head], which was quite something.

“£4 was a week’s pay, and we had two workmen on the farm, and they got £3, and it was increased to £4 for a man who asked it.

“So that one deal paid that man’s week’s wages.”

Jim Wilson.

Jim started to drive the tractor within a week, and he went to Claddagh School where he was taught by a kind schoolmistress, Agnes Deane. The headmaster was Robert Thompson, who was a strict disciplinarian, added Jim.

He had no interest in learning, but wanted to spend all his time on the land with his father. However, Mr. Thompson used the stick every day.

“You would get ten sums and ten English exercises, and for every one you got wrong, you got a slap. He had a big stick, and he would have bled hands, and it never stopped.”

But huge tragedy struck in 1961 when Jim’s father was killed in Storm Debbie. “It is drilled into my head, and I remember every single detail of that day,” said Jim.

“I was very close to him, and dad usually bought and sold cattle for an old man called Jack Crozier, who lived in the townland of Knocknageehan, about 500 yards from our farm.

“There was an old house there which used to be an Orange Hall, and Jack Crozier had some potatoes in a field, and asked my father to dig a few and bring them home.

“I hoked them out and put them in a bag. A blast of wind came, and I sat down on the bag.

“Another huge blast came, and the roof of a shed lifted up, and went back down again, and I got up to run and warn my father and the others.

“But then a huge blast came, and it [the shed roof] was 20 feet up in the air.

“Time stood still, and I was frozen in terror, and then another blast came and blew it off.

“My father was standing about 50 yards to the west of the shed, and the blast was coming from the east.”

Tragically, Jim’s father was struck hard and killed by the roof, blown straight at him by the awful, sudden winds.

“I could see my father on the ground, but you could not see much else as everything was flying through the air.

“It [the roof] missed Jack Crozier, and George Frazer said get down, get down, and whether my father was looking back to see me or not, but he could not get fully down.

“I was with my father within seconds, and Jack Crozier said: ‘Your father’s dead, your father’s dead – get help’.

“It was horrendous. His head was covered in blood, and George Frazer said my father was hit by the wooden part of the roof, going 100 miles per hour.

“I could not believe it. I just stood for maybe 10-15 seconds, and it seemed like an eternity.”

Jim Wilson, with one of his donkeys.

Jim ran home, but was knocked down by another gust of wind that lifted him clear off the ground.

“I was crying the whole way, and I just banged on the front door, and I could not speak as I was just terrified.

“My mother asked me if it was daddy, and I blurted out that he was lying dead, with blood all over him.”

His mother took him by the hand, and they went about 200 yards down the road. Jim stopped in fear and went into a neighbour’s house, and his mother went ahead alone, on a short but the saddest of journeys.

Edith was now a widow, with four young children, with the eldest being just 14. The neighbours were a great help in this period.

“On the day he died, my father had 100 head of cattle, and we owned 217 acres, and on top of that we had 40 acres of land taken from Lord Enniskillen – the Cole family.”

Jim has a vivid recollection of the funeral, which was a huge event, and 240 cars went past the Wilsons’ house and “there was not a house on the Marlbank mountain that my father would not have been in”.

Jim reflected: “He was a very forward-thinking man, and a great cross-community man. I remember that most of Enniskillen was closed for the funeral.

“At the burial, my uncle and godfather, Louis Thornton, comforted me at the grave.

“He had his hands on my shoulders, and when I heard the thud of the first sods hitting the coffin, I jumped.

“My uncle caught me and gave me a hug, and held my hand, and that was when it hit home that my father was gone for good.”

Jim then went to Enniskillen Intermediate School, and fondly remembers one of his teachers, Ronnie Kemp.

But Jim was totally committed to farming, and left school at 15. He went back to the farm and an uncle helped out, in “the old way of doing things”. “I remember us grass cocking, or lapping a seven-acre field.”

Jim stayed at it until he was 17, and then got work in Kent Plastics in Enniskillen – a job he loved, and he quickly rose to the rank of Foreman in the iconic plant in Derrychara.

Romance blossomed when he met his future wife, Linda, in the factory and they got married in 1972.

“I used to joke with her that, ‘Once upon a time, I was your boss’.”

He added that the money was really good as a foreman, and he was bringing home £45-£48 per week – a sum that was “serious money” in 1972.

But factories only last for so long, and as he was now married, Jim decided he needed something more secure.

His brother John was already in the RUC for 30 years, and Jim had six cousins in the Force from his granda Thornton side, and one of his cousins married an RUC man, so “we had seven people in the Force, and thankfully none came to any harm”.

Jim Wilson, receiving his long service medal.

1972 was one of the worst years of The Troubles. Jim’s lack of education did not deter him, and he studied hard and was very fit from working on a busy farm.

There were 72 RUC recruits in Jim’s group, and he was one of only four recruits who passed the fitness test and came second overall in it, and 23rd in the exams, which was a testament to his natural ability and determination.

Jim went to Belfast for training, and that was to provide his first narrow escape. When he was coming out from training at the Old Rope Works on the Newtownards Road in Belfast, he and a few other recruits were shot at by a UVF unit, which was firing from higher ground.

“It was a Friday evening, and I was heading home. The RUC had been giving the UVF a hard time, stopping and searching them.

“It was bang-bang-bang. I did not have time to be scared, and we ran across behind a wall. I would say we were half an hour there, and then the British Army came.

“There was an exchange [of fire] and thankfully we stayed behind the wall. There were seven gunmen, and they escaped.”

He added that he was “shot at twice” in his long career in the Force.

Jim was then sent to a real hotspot – Bessbrook, County Armagh – in early 1973, and it was here that he saw the real horror of the conflict for the first time, and also in neighbouring Newry.

“We were only a mile and a half from Newry, and on this day we were sent to a call in Monaghan Street, that somebody had a problem.

“I and a few others went to a house, and were told that they did not call us.

“Then I heard the whizz of a bullet, and it just went past my foot. It was an IRA unit shooting at me, so I ran to the jeep, and we got away.

“Luckily enough I was not shot at again, although I was very close to a number of explosions.

“You did not get time to be frightened. There were so many different things happening that you just had to get on with it.

“When I look back, if I was doing the job now, I would be worried, but when you are young it is different. Maybe it’s adrenaline, but you just get on with it.”

Jim was in Bessbrook until December 16, 1974, and he lost up to 15 comrades from Bessbrook over time in those dark years.

“On one day alone, two of my ex-comrades were killed when they were blown up in a landrover.

“There was a man called Mervyn Robinson who was shot outside his home just outside Bessbrook.

“You had to check under your car thoroughly every morning, and if you went out to a party, or even a pub, when you were in a pub you always got yourself into a position where you could see the door, and would always have the wall behind you.”

Although Jim still socialised in Bessbrook to a degree, “it was horrendous, and the threat was there everywhere”.

Jim was on duty on Christmas Eve, 1973, when he was on a mobile patrol, and was told that a bomb had gone off in Newry. He was the first policeman to attend the scene.

“A car had pulled up with three members of the Provisional IRA in it. One got out with a rifle, the other got out with a bomb, and the other remained in the car.

“One of them headed into a pub. They took a man who was standing there, waiting on his mother in a butcher’s, and they took him, and pushed him into the pub in front of them, and they had a rifle on him.

“The man who was carrying the bomb put it down on the counter, and as he did so, it went off and blew off half of his face.

“It killed the man with the rifle, and it also killed the man they had pushed through the door.

“But in some ways, they were the lucky ones, as there were 43 people in the bar, and many of them had unspeakable injuries.

“I went on autopilot. This thing about ‘the hairs rising on the back of your head’, it does happen, and we had to gather up four black plastic bags of flesh, bones, and bits of bodies.

“I brought the bags up to the morgue in Daisy Hill. I knew one of the dead men, who had certain pronounced teeth, and he was from Drumbeg Estate.”

Jim added: “There were just so many incidents. I remember, I was going to work in Bessbrook one morning in early 1974, and a man ran across in front of me with a handgun.

“You always had your pistol strapped to your leg, and he went into a hedge. I had the gun aimed, and I did not know if he was coming for me or not, and he disappeared, so I went into the station.

“They said there was a bomb in a housing estate where two policemen were living, so I and a few others went down to clear the area.

“Immediately beside the car was an entry into a house, and there were two old ladies there. One of them had not been out of the house for seven years, and the other one was very infirm.

“Another policeman and I did not think about it at all – we just ran in, past the car, and he grabbed one woman, and I put the other woman over my shoulder, and ran like the divil past the car and got them to safety.”

Shortly after this brave act, a 500lb bomb exploded in the car, and that “was another lucky escape”.

“We had to try and rescue the elderly ladies, and you could not live with yourself if you did not do it.

“The two old ladies would not have had a chance if they had not been rescued.”

Jim added that his unit had been called out to Newtownhamilton and were sent to relieve other officers, and he noticed a car that had crashed into a bridge.

He got out to investigate, and when he looked over the bridge, he saw two wires of a bomb, and the car had been crashed into the bridge to draw the police to it.

“It was not reported, so maybe we arrived too soon. I did not wait to see if there were any men under the bridge – I was just glad to get away.”

Jim then recounts the story of “poor Willie Turbitt and Paul Grey”, more ex-comrades of his, who were out on patrol in Bessbrook and were ambushed.

Paul Grey was shot dead, and Willie Turbitt was injured, and he was taken away and his body was dumped just inside the Border from the South and the North.

“The same Willie Turbitt got me out of a tight situation in Newry some months previously.

“We were called to an estate in Newry and were told that we were not needed, but when we turned back, the street was blocked with people.

“I got a bit apprehensive, but Willie just revved the car up and drove it at the crowd and they scattered.

“That was the only way we were going to get out alive, and if they had got us we would have been murdered, just like the two British Army corporals in West Belfast in 1988.

“Newry covered Warrenpoint, and a bomb went off in front of us and there was debris flying past the landrover.

“I do often say that all the bad luck was taken away from me on September 16, 1961, when my father was killed in the storm.

“I had a brother and six cousins in the Force, and we all came through unscathed, so it was a miracle really, and I am very grateful for that.”

Jim was stationed in Lisnaskea from 1974 until 2001, and he “loved it.”

“I tried to treat everyone the same, and that was not always the case with some of my colleagues in the security forces.

“But we were blessed to have great Catholic friends at home – especially the Corrigan family.”

However, there were some more traumatic events in his native county. “Constable Billy Brown – he was just 18 years old, and he and Robbie Henderson and a policewoman were driving just outside of Donagh.

“Billy was shot through the heart, but he managed to steer the car around the next corner, and Robbie fired back, and he and the policewoman survived.

“He was the first policeman to be shot in Lisnaskea, when I went to it, and the second one was Detective Norman Prue, who was shot outside of the Roman Catholic Church in the town, along with an Army Intelligence Officer.

“The third one was Detective Constable Derek Breen, who was shot in The Top Of The Town pub in Maguiresbridge, and both communities would have socialised there, and the barman in the pub was shot as well in 1986.

“I have lifted dozens of dead bodies, and many UDR men were killed in Fermanagh, and of course, the three Graham brothers, whom I knew well, Ronnie, Jimmy and Cecil were all killed.”

He added: “All murder is senseless, and it advances nothing, and my stepfather, George Sheridan, who married my mother Edith in the 1960s, who was also a great historian, used to say: ‘Every shot that is fired puts back the day that we will have a peaceful, united Ireland’.

“He was a Protestant, and I often repeat that to people.

“George also wrote a great local history book, called ‘When Turkeys Chewed Tobacco’. He makes perfect sense, as ‘If I want something off you, I don’t antagonise you. I will show you how good things could be, if you can see my view’.

“People fight back, and there are bigots on both sides. I am so glad that my father’s best friend was his next door neighbour, Paddy Corrigan, and that friendship with the families continues.”

Jim continued: “My own view is that things have changed dramatically since I was young, and the Ireland that I was reared in is not the Ireland we have now.

“The Unionists were in control, and it was totally unbalanced, and part of that was driven by fear – and maybe justified, at that time.

“But the South has changed totally, and the Roman Catholic Church is not controlling things like they used to.

“The North is way behind, in many ways, but there is a lot of hope.

“There was a lot of discrimination in Northern Ireland – but there was quite a lot in the South, too, which is not talked about.”

When asked if he could see a united Ireland, Jim said: “Yes, I can see it – absolutely, but maybe not in my time, and it is not because of what the IRA did, but the South is now a much more open place.”

And that maybe says it all, about Jim – here is a man who was dealt one of the harshest of blows as a child, and then lived a life full of dangers and horrors, yet still emerged on the other side as a tolerant and thoughtful cross-community figure, a man of quiet peace and respect, and one who is himself a highly-respected figure – someone that his father, Jack, would no doubt have been proud of.