Springtown Camp: New beginnings and forever friends in Bradford
Derry playwright and Springtown Camp born and bred, Willie Deery met up with members of a former Springtown Camp family during a recent visit to 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.