Roamer’s links with kangaroos, parrots and Prince William

With Christmas Day over and 2025 fast approaching, this last page of 2024 is revisiting the year of pages that’s ending.
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It lacked several months thanks to a fractured right wrist, and this serial right-hander found writing, and much else, impossible to do left-handed.

Encouraged by the Left Handers Club tip-off that kangaroos, parrots and Prince William favour their left paw/foot/hand, Roamer’s page restarted in March with a preview of Brian Willis’s book - ‘Painting Scenery for the Amateur Stage’.

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The 87-year-old retired TV producer is mentioned here regularly for his wonderful drawings and paintings, his seagull sculptures on a roundabout near his Bushmills home and his ongoing search for ancient ‘ley lines’.

Brian Willis with one of his stage designsBrian Willis with one of his stage designs
Brian Willis with one of his stage designs

“I have painted nearly 700 stage sets in my time,” Brian admitted in March.

He left his Dorset school aged 16 to work in the Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre where, at Christmas-time, he exercised six Shetland ponies on Bournemouth beach.

“They pulled Cinderella’s coach,” Brian explained.

Exercising is restorative too!

Quintin Oliver photographed Belfast street namesQuintin Oliver photographed Belfast street names
Quintin Oliver photographed Belfast street names

Amongst Quintin Oliver’s many accomplishments, the former NICVA Director is a lobbyist and Conflict Resolution Specialist.

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But when he was smitten with Endocarditis, a rare and potentially fatal heart infection - “I couldn’t read. I couldn’t concentrate. I began to shiver and convulse,” he explained here.

After a lengthy sojourn in Belfast’s Mater and RVH he emerged with “a repaired heart valve and a brand new valve.”

He rebuilt his strength by walking various Belfast itineraries photographing architectural features for Facebook.

Belfast's High Street blitzed, May 1941Belfast's High Street blitzed, May 1941
Belfast's High Street blitzed, May 1941

Quintin described his three favourite photos. “One is the tree winding around a brick gate post and I wondered ‘which came first, the tree or the gate post?’ The second was a very odd, bright-red post box, facing a hedge very closely, so you’d have to lean round and squeeze your hand into the hedge to post a letter. And the third was some old Belfast street signs.”

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WWI and WWII stories are shared here regularly and 2024 was no exception.

Former fisherman Danny Cunningham was 80 years old when his childhood memories of WWII in Greencastle, County Down, were recorded some 17 years ago.

His voice is among hundreds in the oral history archives of the NI War Memorial Museum.

When Danny recalled returning home one day from Carlingford Lough shore he was whispering with emotion.

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“I was coming from gathering winkles when I met a brother of mine, he was working for a farmer. He says to me, ‘Did you hear the news?’ I says, ‘How could I hear the news, me at the shore?’ He says, ‘War has broke out this morning’. And he started to cry.”

Embracing both world wars, History Hub Ulster’s Nigel Henderson recounted the WWI memorials in Belfast churches that were lost during the WWII blitz. He’s trying to retrieve the missing information from various sources.

Altogether 68 Belfast churches were damaged: five in the city centre, three in the Shankill area, 28 in East Belfast and 32 in North Belfast. At least nine of the churches’ WWI memorials were completely destroyed.

During the year Nigel’s poignant tours of the graves of blitz fatalities were reported here. Those accounts, and much else, are on History Hub Ulster’s Facebook page.

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For a very different guided tour, Roamer met Damien Lindsay at St James’ Community Farm in West Belfast.

Damien, the farm’s Community Engagement Officer, looked tired.

“I had a late night call to Jake and Murphy,” he explained, “they’d been strolling around in the darkness eating tulips.”

Jake was a Shetland pony and Murphy was a donkey, who (usually!) reside on the farm along with ducks, hens, a terrapin, pheasants, sheep, a tortoise, a parrot and a South African pygmy hedgehog called Bobby.

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The farm boasts around 50 animals. Roamer met them all and so can you; for opening times visit their Facebook page.

In celebration of Paris’s summer Olympics an exotic old archive photograph appeared here.

Taken early on 25 June 1952 on Mount Olympus in Greece by Mr Robinson from Fivemiletown it showed a procession of seven girls carrying the Olympic flame.

It was the first flame ever airlifted to an Olympic stadium (in Helsinki) and Mr Robinson just happened to be passing by when he snapped the historic picture. He was on shore-leave from his Royal Navy minesweeper.

There’s more 2024 nostalgia here next Saturday – Happy New Year!

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