A Belfast Child by John Chambers

Author:John Chambers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Blake

CHAPTER 11

M

OD! The very word sent a thrilling shiver up my spine. I was already wearing some of the clothing that eighties Mods were fond of – boating blazers, Fred Perry shirts, Lonsdale T-shirts, badger shoes (so-called because they were striped black and white), Union Jack T-shirts and the iconic parka – a proper one – which I got in the army surplus shop in the Shankill.

As I developed as a Mod, I started wearing sixties’ style clothes and we often visited the charity shops as they always had loads of original Mod clothes for sale. Also, my taste in music evolved and I started getting into soul and Northern Soul, spending ages trying to learn to do the soul step. I remember once trying to do this while on acid at the Delta club. It wasn’t my greatest moment, I have to say, and my cool image took a hit that night.

I could hardly wait for the day I turned eighteen, because that was when my compensation money would arrive and I had my eye on a Vespa scooter that would turn every head on Glencairn.

In a way, being a Mod suited my conflict of identity. My life had always been full of contradictions. I was part-Catholic, although that religion had never played a part in my life, yet I’d signed up for a Loyalist paramilitary organisation. I was a fierce Loyalist, yet a pacifist. I couldn’t envisage killing anyone. If Gerry Adams himself had walked into my line of fire I couldn’t have pulled the trigger. That kind of thing wasn’t me at all.

Just like Jimmy, the central character in Quadrophenia, the best film about Mods ever made and the soundtrack to my Mod lifestyle, I was pulled in all directions. Who was ‘The Real Me’? Like many youngsters, then and now, I was trying on all sorts of guises to see which would fit best, but in the heated political situation of Northern Ireland in the early 1980s you needed to decide pretty damn quick whose side you were on.

Mod gave me an identity. I loved looking cool and sharp, which did me no harm at all when it came to the girls. I found I could walk the walk and talk the talk, and I had no problem turning female heads on Glencairn and up the Shankill – anywhere pretty girls hung out. I started to spend time in the Ballysillan area, just above the Shankill, and met fellow Loyalist Mods, many of whom were also signed up to or had family in the UDA or UVF. The paramilitaries were quick to spot the growing trend and started to put on Mod nights in their clubs and shebeens. We’d turn up in our parkas, loafers, Ben Sherman shirts and Sta-Prest trousers, looking the dog’s bollocks and ready to party. We went to Friday night paramilitary-run discos in the Silverstream community centre and Ballysillan leisure centre. This is where I met Sonya, my first serious girlfriend and a fellow Mod.

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