June 1966. I was 14 years old. It was still three years to the outbreak of the Troubles, although one man had been killed a few weeks prieviously..

On a Sunday morning, news started to spread around the Falls Road in Belfast that a young Catholic man, drinking with friends in an after hours drinking session in a pub called the Malvern Arms on the Shankill Road had been shot dead. And two others (Catholics) injured.

Peter Ward, the 18 year old who had been killed lived a few doors from my aunt in Beechmount. I heard the news on a minibus to go on a (junior) Legion of Mary outing to Bray in County Wicklow. Later that day, I recall buying a headscarf for my mother from a street trader and he sympathised with us…. coming from Belfast.

Peter Ward is wrongly described as the first victim of the Troubles. That distinction goes to John Scullion who was shot dead in the Clonard area. He was shot dead as the intended target, a known Republican, Leo Martin who had been involved in the 1966 Fiftieth Anniversary Commemorations in (West Belfast) was not spotted by the Ulster Volunteer Force Murder Gang. Although Gusty Spence was not actually involved directly, he ordered Leo Martins killing. Curiously and ghoulishly the police and pathologists never even noticed that Mr Scullion had been shot. It was only noticed when his body was exhumed some weeks later. Spence had also led a petrol bomb attack on a Catholic owned bar in the Shankill area which killed a 77 year old Protestant woman.

The 1966 UVF Campaign was an odd thing. Four years after the risible IRA “border campaign” (Operation Harvest) and three years before the start of the Troubles in 1969……a Prequel to the latter…..but set in the context of tensions within unionism at the “liberal” unionism of Norn Irons Prime Minister Terence O’Neill. The UVF was reformed probably in 1961 and it is known that a unionist politician was involved in its reformation. Gusty Spence was the Leader on the Shankill Road.

To the credit of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the UVF gang responsible. Spence and his associates were jailed for a long time. Spence himself served 18 years in prison. Although he missed most of The Troubles, he was something of a guru to the young UVF men who came into prison. And he was the UVFs commanding officer. Oddly credited with being the man who led fellow prisoners, David Ervine, William Smith and , Billy Hutchinson to embrace a political philosophy of sorts…the actual UVF campaign of the 1970s and 198s was nakedly sectarian.

When the UVF and UDA announced their ceasefires, Spence was the spokesperson. And essentially this is his second reputation…..the image presented on a TV screen as I write this……rather than the murder of Peter Ward in 1966.

The reaction to his death is interesting….
the tributes from other paramilitaries of a republican nature refer to him as a soldier……..and indeed he was among those to recognise the “soldier” in them.
Of course it was all a bit self-serving as both these kinds of “soldiers” need to recognise the “soldiery” in the other side to validate their self image (fantasy) as soldiers.

Paramilitaries are I suppose the underbelly of two honourabe philosophies (nationalism and unionism) so a particular venom is reserved for them by those who are “constitutional”. Obviously this is dependent on how valid a constitution is deemed to be and to some extent constitutional nationalists have validated republican paramiliarism in a way that constitutional unionism has not done. Nationalists have always accepted that the IRA had a “cause” even if violence was (at best) misguided.

And yet the Golden Rule for getting a “tribute” is not to be successful. David Ervine, the verbose leader of the PUP (the political party associated with the UVF) led a one man party and in the eyes of the Great and the Good in the Media……he is safe to laud because he was marginalised and no threat to the status quo.
Had Mr Spence or Mr Ervine led a bloc of say ten, twenty or thirty MLAs in the Assembly, the reaction would have been different.
Men of War (like Spence and Ervine) becoming Men of Peace and becoming marginalised and ineffective where real power resides is somehow acceptable to our Journalists.

On the other hand….a Man of War (Martin McGuinness) becoming a Man of Peace is not accepted because he is not a marginalised figure. As the saying goes “old soldiers simply fade away” and Martin McGuinness has not gone along with that. To the annoyance of the liberal dissdents.

The alternative to be lionised is to be demonised.

Gusty Spence wasn’t even a Terrorist. His crimes came at a time when Murder was simply Murder. He was a ….pre-Terrorist.