'˜They want us all to move on. What they mean is we should forget'

The final was taking place between Argentina and Holland, and in rural west Fermanagh a UDR border patrol had been given permission to head back early to watch the match.

Among those on patrol that day was Alan Ferguson, a young farmer and part-time member of the regiment.

However, he never made it home.

Instead he and his fellow soldiers were hit by a bomb and a colossal hail of bullets at a place called Scribbagh townland.

He died at the scene, and the pain of that killing – 40 years ago today – remains acute for his brother Robin.

Now, as part of an occasional feature the News Letter does on lesser-known victims of the Troubles, Robin has decided to speak in detail about those events – something neither he, his parents or siblings have ever done before.

Recalling the moment he heard of the attack, Robin said he had been visiting a house about half-a-mile from the scene, when a woman ran in saying a patrol had been hit.

“One is shot and badly injured, but the other one is dead,” she announced.

Robin asked who the dead man was, and she told him his name – Alan Ferguson.

“I knew I had to get back to my home,” Robin said.

“My father and elder brother were preparing to milk the cows. My mother was preparing dinner for her son when he came off patrol.

“I delayed telling them. It seemed like a lifetime.

“I kept looking out the window, to see would anybody come down the street – whether a police officer or his commanding officer – to break the news.”

But nobody came.

Instead Robin eventually told them himself – “a hard thing to do for a lad of 19”.

He said: “The next few days are a haze. Lots of neighbours in, both Protestant and Catholic, with their sympathies.

“I remember shiny open-top Land Rovers with Alan’s coffin draped in a Union Flag, soldiers doing the guard of honour, and the volley of shots over the grave.”

The details on his coffin (and indeed many accounts of his death) list him as being 23.

In fact he was 22, having falsified his age so he could sign up to the UDR early, such was his eagerness to join.

One of the things which had spurred Alan to join was the murder of Johnny Fletcher, another Protestant UDR man who had been killed by the IRA in west Fermanagh in 1972.

In addition, he was part of a line of Fergusons with military roots. One of Alan’s grandfathers was shot and wounded at Ypres in World War One; Alan’s father Loftus ran away from home to join the Irish Guards before being found and brought back; and both Alan’s brothers joined the military too – Robin himself was in the UDR for 32 years.

Even Alan’s girlfriend of the time later went on to join the UDR, and ended up shot by the IRA in a raid on her family home (she survived).

She was not in uniform, and it is not clear the IRA knew she was a member; Robin said it is believed the gunmen had come for her father, and shot her when she raised the alarm.

Reflecting on the fact so many people from the area had signed up to the security services, Robin said: “I believe the UK government wanted to know had people in the community the will and the nerve to pay the price of standing up to the evil, and staying part of the UK.

“And that price was paid by Private Alan Ferguson on June 25, 1978.

“Because people joined and kept joining, stood on and stood on, the British government was given the proof these people really want to stay part of the UK. They’re paying the price with their lives.

“I believe that’s the bigger picture.”

When it comes to the aftermath for his parents (both of whom are now deceased), he said his father Loftus “was never the same man again” but managed to “soldier on”.

“I could’ve become angry and had hatred,” said Robin.

“But the guidance and vision from my mother was so strong. She never showed any hatred to her Catholic neighbour, never, never.”

He recalled that his mother, Betty (nee Robinson), had been approached by one of the surviving members of the patrol after the attack.

“He apologised, saying: ‘I swapped seats with Alan that morning because Alan decided to carry the machine gun. I was supposed to be sitting there. It should’ve been me’.

“My mother said to him: ‘No – you’re married with two children’.”

Robin added: “Terrorism cannot be defeated militarily. We tried. You can suppress it, but you can’t defeat it.

“[It just takes] one man – the Manchester bomb, the London bomb.

“But what terrorism does, it creates hatred and division in the community. That’s what the main aim of terrorism is.

“But my mother, she defeated terrorism, because she did not hate. She did not divide.

“And the way she lived her life, she on her own defeated all the purposes of terrorism.

“If there was medals for doing that, she’d have a breastful of them.”

He said she had carried her pain with dignity until her death.

When it comes to the movement which claimed Alan’s life, he does not believe “it is in the republican ethos to own up and face justice for what they have done” – though a “genuine apology” would be a welcome development.

The last fortnight or so in particular has been characterised by frequent remarks from the Sinn Fein leadership about abortion. The party supports a significant relaxation of the law, and has stressed that this is on the grounds of showing “compassion” to women.

“When they talk about compassion, deal with the ones they’ve murdered first,” said Robin.

He added: “What hurts me is when people say ‘move on, move on’.

“My mother can move on by showing resolve, pride in her son, and no hatred. Not moving on and forgetting.

“That’s so wrong. They’re basically telling us to forget.

“We don’t forget. Never forget.”

HOW THE ATTACK UNFOLDED

Robin said the attack itself began with the detonation of a landmine in a culvert.

It went off between two Land Rovers, but left them unscathed.

Then, Robin said, came the gunfire. A survivor of the attack described it as so fierce it was “like hailstones”.

The Land Rovers drove out of the “killing zone”, but not before Alan was fatally hurt.

An examination of the scene afterwards indicated that two M60 machine guns, as well as rifles, had been used in the attack, said Robin.

The M60, often mounted on a tripod, is capable of firing hundreds of shots per minute.

In addition, investigators found discarded food tins at the scene and bottles of booze.

He said no-one was ever arrested in relation to the attack. In addition, he has been told the items like bottles found at the scene have been lost.

The front page of the New s Letter carried news of the attack the next day.

In addition, a front page in April had been about the recovery of an M60 in west Belfast. It said the IRA were believed to have obtained six of the guns, which the paper described as “one of the PIRA’s most deadly weapons”.

THEY SECURED BORDER FOR CATTLE, NOT KILLERS

Contrary to what has often been reported, Robin said firing did not come from Co Leitrim but from positions within Northern Ireland, perhaps 500 metres in from the border.

However, straight after the attack the assailants “fled back over into the safe haven of the Irish Republic”.

Robin said: “There was absolutely no appetite among the authorities in the Irish Republic to quell violence. They’d never have openly supported terrorism, but they definitely turned a blind eye to it.”

He met then-taoiseach Enda Kenny in 2012, and told him the Republic’s response to the violence had been “immoral”.

The taoiseach had responded by saying “you’ve no idea the arguments we had behind doors in the Dail – very heated arguments on how we should have dealt with republicanism from our side”.

Robin added: “There was elements of the Irish government who wanted to clamp down heavily on terrorism and others didn’t.

“I felt he [Kenny] was on the right side.”

Robin said that whilst the UK government has apologised for things such as Bloody Sunday, “there’s no movement to push the Irish government on their responsibilities during the Troubles – it does seem so one-sided”.

He said: “They should have secured the border better. They’d no problem securing the border when there was foot and mouth, yet they couldn’t put any resources towards their land being used as a staging post for terrorism.”