We look back at the stories that were making the headlines in the Andersonstown News this week in 1979
Black taxi fares go up by 5p
THE Falls Taxi Association have just announced that the Black Taxi fare will be increased from Monday next.
The new short journey fare will be 15p as opposed to the present 10p, and the longer journey will go up from 15p to 20p. Old age pensioners and children’s fares will remain unaltered at 5p. The Twinbrook fare which is 20p at present goes up to 25p. Children going to Twinbrook will be charged 10p as at present.
Coupled with this fare increase is a change in the Twinbrook route which will take in a wider section of the estate and make the Taxis more accessible to the Cherryhill and Summerhill residents.
It is three years since the taxi fares were last increased and even that modest increase was the first ever.
The Association explain that they have held off this increase as long as was humanly possible without doing irreparable damage to the service itself. Costs have escalated to such an extent over these past three years that most taximen were having to work 60 to 70 hours a week to make ends meet.
A gallon of diesel oil now cost £1 as compared with 68p three years ago. This alone added almost £10 a week onto the fuel bill. Insurance now costs £550 a year, more than double what it was three years ago. Most experts estimate that the general running costs and repairs have increased by a hefty 300 per cent in the same period.
No-one will be surprised by this increase in taxi fares. What will surprise informed people is the fact that the Association has succeeded in limiting the rise to 5p. The Association has been under severe pressure for some time to put up the fares substantially. The taximen have fallen further and further behind the inflation race of the past three years and a survey carried out recently revealed that it costs almost £60 a week to keep a taxi on the road before a man earns one penny of wages.
Looked at in this light the new increase can only be seen, at best, as a holding operation. The Association itself was reluctant to increase the fares because they realise that a taxi fare increase is felt more by the general public because far more people use the taxis, but the sheer economic facts of life have forced them to go some way to meet their own members’ demands.
BLANKETMAN COMES HOME: Watched by a good neighbour and by his young sister, Blanketman Brendan ‘Ned’ Flynn tucks into his first decent breakfast for two years. “I was starving all the time I was in the Kesh,” said Ned
Arrest after army raid on Milltown Cemetery
ON Monday morning before 10 o’clock, British soldiers arrested the foreman gravedigger, Eddie Conlon, at Milltown Cemetery and took him over to the back wall of the cemetery to Fort Monagh, hoping that the rest of the grave-diggers would not know about it.
When the rest of the grave-diggers heard about the incident they immediately downed tools and demanded the release of Mr Conlon. ‘Chuck’ McWilliams, the superintendent, could not get into the office because Eddie had the keys and a window had to be broken to gain admittance. He rang Monsignor Mullaly who contacted Fort Monagh and demanded the release of Mr Conlon. He explained that unless Mr Conlon was released the burials arranged for that day would not be able to take place.
The first funeral of the morning was disrupted and the relatives had to fill the grave themselves. They sympathised with the position of the grave-diggers and understood the action which they had taken. One girl who was making arrangements to have her mother buried, broke down when she heard about the dispute.
After a further phone call from the Monsignor Mullaly ‘Chuck’ McWilliams went over to Andersonstown Barracks to complain about the British Army’s attitude and sought guarantees that similar incidents would not happen.
Eddie Conlon was finally release at about 12.15pm and the men went back to work.
Altogether 14 funerals from Monday to Wednesday were disrupted to some degree and despite guarantees from the RUC, 16 British soldiers again entered the cemetery dressed in full riot gear hoping to start a confrontation with the grave-diggers. They did not succeed in doing so.
The barstaff at a charity dance at the Lake Glen
Editorial
THE bubble finally burst in the face of the ‘Peace People’ last weekend.
Since their inception they had depended on TV appearances, radio interview, Nobel prizes etc, to keep them going and not on the support of people in the affected areas.
This newspaper has always maintained that support for them was negligible because their appeal was a completely hollow, emotional one, and irrelevant to the problems besetting the people. This is obviously the case.
Where were the ‘big names’ last weekend? Canon Murphy, Jane Ewart-Biggs etc. Perhaps they aren’t concerned about housing? Last Saturday’s non event was an attempt at reviving a dead, discredited organisation – they needed an issue, any issue, and housing seemed a good ideas.
It backfired on them as everything they do will backfire because, without the backing of the ‘big people’ (who have no further use for them) the ‘Peace People’ are nothing.
Compare their rally with the magnificent turnout to welcome Ciarán Nugent just a week previously. Those people had a reason to gather and to celebrate because Ciarán Nugent had ‘stood’ for something he believed in, something that wasn’t easy to do and for which he could expect no accolades from Westminster ‘godfathers’.
The Nobel dreamers, or any other groups who will do anything, and spend any amount of money, sooner than take a hard look at things and try to find a solution. Despite the enormous sums spent on projecting images, the ‘Peace People’ are largely forgotten; but the message from the H-Blocks endures and is being heard all over the world because it is a true statement of the situation in Ireland, and despite all the official efforts to keep things quiet.
The H-Block men have embarrassed Britain – something the ‘Peace People’ will never do.
Traditional music class at Clonard Hall with Mark Kane, Tony Sands, Desmond McCabe and Thomas Garland
