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As JD Salinger wrote in Catcher in the Rye:
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap ….”
So, I was born in north Belfast, just off Somerton Road, in 1957. Mum worked as a mother and housewife, Dad and his brother ran their father’s linen business. (It was fire bombed in 1972 – that was the last day Dad got out of bed with a real sense of purpose in his life). I have one sister and a brother. When I was five, we moved to the east of the City; Mum has lived in the same house for 48 years.
Here’s what Salinger might have called the education “crap”:
- Bloomfield Collegiate School [yes, it's a girls' school, but they took boys in the prep department in those days]
- Campbell College, Belfast
- Jesus College, Cambridge (MA, English Literature)
- Queen’s University, Belfast (Diploma in Business Administration)
And the employment:
- Binman, Ards Borough Council [first paid job]
- Sports Reporter, BBC NI (FIFA World Cups Spain, Mexico; Commonwealth Games, Bribane, Edinburgh;Barry McGuigan winning WBA World Featherweight Championship)
- Presenter, Good Morning Ulster
- Managing Director, Anderson Kenny Public Relations
- Presenter, UTV
- Commissioner for Victims and Survivors
