Springtown Camp: New beginnings and forever friends in Bradford

As the people of Springtown Camp said goodbye to the 1950’s and if truth be told good riddance. 

Now, starting their second decade living in depleted tin huts, they hoped the beginning of the 1960’s would  be the beginning of a new dawn. Surely, they thought the offer of a new house must at long last be close to hand. 

Every mother and father eagerly waited for the sight of the postman to see if he would bring that much sought-after letter confirming they were being offered a new house. 

The postman came and went for months on end, no such letter came. It was obvious to all now that their wish was now looking like a forlorn hope.

Word began to surface once again of a former neighbour Alex Hasson who got some residents a job in Bradford and that they also found that a house was more easily obtainable there. 

Several families followed him in the 1950s and settled in Bradford. Now more families aim to do that very same thing.  

One such family was that of John Moore and his wife Annie aka Cissy and their three children.

Children of the camp. Lornie McMonegal, his sister, and brother Charlie in 1952/53

Through my Facebook page “Springtown Camp Derry” I started to correspond with the children of many Springtown Camp families now spread across the globe. 

Just a couple of weeks ago while in Bradford for a musical festival I met up with Kathleen Krol (née Moore) and her brother John and his wife.

We had a lovely afternoon chatting about our antics while growing up in Springtown Camp. 

Johnny 'Cuttems' McLaughlin well known character of Derry's past.

As they say, every day is a school day, as I was about to find out that their mother’s brother and their uncle was one of Derry’s best loved characters Johnny ‘Cuttems’ McLaughlin.

 Just as we were parting after hours of reminiscing, they said they  always wondered  what life would have been like for them now, if their parents hadn’t left Derry.

When I explained to them that  in the early 1960s there were close to 300 new homes built just a few hundred metres from Springtown Camp in Belmont. Yet still not one single house went to a family living in the camp. 

The Porter family on the bridge at the bottom of Springtown Camp 1956

That was the backdrop in which so many families like your own left the city of their birth back then. The expression on their faces said everything.

When I further told them, Derry was now a vibrant, modern, dynamic city which attracted many visitors and tourists from around the world. A city known for its teenage kicks, banter and craic; the smile returned to their faces. 

Springtown Camp in 1946 just as the first squatters moved in after the Yanks left.

They have been left Derry for over sixty-four years now but still regard Derry as their hometown.

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