Bloody Friday: The tale of nine-year-old schoolboy Philip Gault’s bizarre escape from death when bomb detonated ‘inches’ away from his body in north Belfast during IRA blitz of civilian targets

It’s a question upon which all of Philip Gault’s life hinges, yet to which he has no answer.

Today, the father-of-three is preparing for retirement after over four decades as a health-and-safety officer with the Civil Service.

But on this day exactly 50 years ago the IRA very nearly cut his life short, alongside hundreds of other bystanders.

He is one of the many victims of the Troubles whose names do not appear in books like Lost Lives or research projects like CAIN, by dint of the fact he survived.

But he still bears the scars of Bloody Friday, and here he recounts his experiences of that day to the News Letter.

On July 21, 1972, it was the school holidays, and Philip –a nine-year-old Holy Family pupil – had been hoping for “a day of adventure”.

Instead, to his chagrin, his mother Geraldine (39 at the time) took him grocery shopping in north Belfast, alongside his sister Denise (6) and cousin Helen (also 6).

As they walked along they became aware that there was a bomb alert at the Brookvale Hotel, just off the Antrim Road, with the authorities diverting people away from it.

Shortly afterwards, the family were stood at a pedestrian crossing, perhaps a couple of hundred yards away from the security alert, when a different device detonated.

They were at the corner of the Limestone Road and Antrim Road, outside what was a branch of Ulster Bank branch, and is now Cassidy’s Pub.

Philip remembers the sun shining.

He was wearing a t-shirt and shorts.

He remembers a neighbour across the street waving to her husband as he passed on a bicycle.

He remembers leaning against a car.

And then he recalls a bright light appearing above his head.

“It was just like a big flash of lightening, a massive flash,” Philip said.

“And it just went very dark grey, and there was just confusion.

“It’s weird. You’re sitting on the ground; that’s just where you find yourself. There’s a lot of blood and stuff, and you don’t know what’s yours.

“It’s hard to put a timescale on it, how fast you do start screaming.

“My hearing was weird. You didn’t hear an awful lot. There was like a buzz – like, muffled.

“You hear a load bang because you’re standing away from it at some distance. When you’re there, that’s not what you hear.”

Asked how far he was from the device, he said: “Inches I suppose. The bomb was in the boot, I was leaning against it. It was in the car I was leaning against.”

As to how he survived, he said: “I’m not a scientist. I don’t know much about bombs. But I’d say it’s just luck.”

One of the car wheels had flown across the street, hit the neighbour, “and took her leg completely off”.

Philip did not escape unscathed either.

His right leg below the knee was “hanging off, basically”.

He remembers being picked up by an unknown person and brought to an open-top jeep where an army medic put field dressings on him.

“His attention to the wound gave the surgeons a fighting chance,” said Philip.

His leg injury meant he couldn’t play football with other boys, ride a bike, and had to use callipers and crutches.

He’s had several operations since then, but it’s still “not what you’d call a functional leg”.

No-one died in the blast and, remarkably, the rest of Philip’s family group avoided major physical injury (though his sister went temporarily deaf, and his mother’s nerves were “shredded”).

Philip added: “I get this phrase quite often – ‘you are lucky you were not killed’.

“No. I wasn’t lucky. I don’t call it lucky. You win the lottery, you’re lucky. You get years of pain... that’s not luck.”

He recited a quote, attributed to US historian Howard Zinn: “There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”

He said: “I always remember in the 1970s, before [Bloody Friday] ever happened. I was sitting in the car with my dad.

“I was only about seven or eight, and I asked the question: ‘Dad – which side are on?’ And my dad’s answer was: ‘Son, we don’t take sides. We stay with the side of right and good and do nobody any harm.

“I would definitely never call myself a republican.

“I was a Roman Catholic and was brought up in that tradition... to this day I still have [the attitude that] you don’t lie, you don’t steal, and you do no man no wrong – the principles of life.”

As to whether he would forgive the bombers, he said: “Do I hate the people who did it? I can’t say I like them. Let’s be honest about it – it wouldn’t be the first person I’d invite to a party. But do I forgive them? I don’t think it’s for me to forgive them, to be quite honest with you.

“I’m not looking for retribution. But I don’t think it’s up to me to forgive them.

“They know what they did. They were in the community I lived in. They know the pain and suffering, not only to me but to others.

“There were no political, military, or strategic targets there. It was women and children mainly.”

He still marvels at how the ambulances managed to take so many people through the cordons and traffic chaos to hospital, preventing the death toll rising further (and all this before the Westlink motorway was built).

“The pandemonium was everywhere,” he said.

“It’s funny – I couldn’t tell you a single thing about the day before. But I can remember that day. You never forget that day, no matter what age you are.”

For the stories of more such lesser-known Troubles victims by this reporter, see here:

WATCH – IPLO murder 30 years on: Random Protestant victim Billy Sargent had survived Nazi machine gun attack only to be shot while having a pint

50 years of silence broken: sisters tell of anguish over IRA murdering their brother in bed

DUP brother of UDA sectarian murder victim Gavin Brett breaks 20 year silence

Police family speaks out for first time 35 years after IRA murdered their brother and three other young officers