Ballygawley Bus bomb: Soldier gives horrific account of carnage caused by IRA attack 35 years ago

Now 53, Mike recalled: “​​I couldn’t see a lot of what was going on because my eyes were filled with blood from my face and head. I could only see what was directly around me, but the noises and the smell… the smell of the cordite and human flesh burning stays with you. The screams, the wailing, the moans – it’s just terrible.”

The bus had been carrying 36 members of the 1st Light Infantry Regiment from Aldergrove to their base in Omagh when the attack took place.

Mike, who is from Bristol, said: “I was asleep when it went off. The first thing I knew about the bomb was the bus had already come to a standstill, hanging off the edge of the road.

"I came to as I hit the ground, I must have fell out the back of the bus.

"I realised I couldn’t walk. A group saw me and carried me up to the road.

"I saw car headlights, that was the only light we had. That’s when I saw how badly injured I was.

"My left foot and leg was pretty smashed up, I’d a few holes in my left thigh. My hands were quite badly damaged, ripped apart, tendons missing. I needed approximately 500 stiches in my face, neck and head.

"It turned out I nearly died from loss of blood. I was told I lost nearly five and a half pints of blood. If there had been much more of a delay getting to hospital I might not have made it.”

Mike said that the actions of people on two buses who had been travelling behind the soldiers saved countless lives. On board the buses were members of Omagh Protestant Boys and Star of the Valley, Londonderry.

Mike said: “I can remember the girls helping me. I always wondered who there were, what happened to them. Kenny (Donaldson – SEFF director) helped me find them.

It was three or four members of the same family who were there on the night – a man, woman and two of her sisters.

"I managed to meet up with them. I went to their house just outside of Londonderry a few years back and we had a good old night, quite emotional that was.”

Kenny said that visits to Northern Ireland have helped him cope with the PTSD of the incident: “There’s hardly a day goes by when I don't think about what happened that night.

“To be fair I have calmed down a bit, I came back for the first time for the 30th anniversary in 2018, I spent the whole weekend in tears.

“I’m glad I did, things have become a little bit easier since. I was finally facing up to what happened rather than bury my head in the sand.

“Up until the night when that happened I was a young, pretty immature 18-year-old, just starting out in the Army. I never had a care in the world.

"After that everything changed, I was going downhill with PTSD, I was medically discharged from the Army just over a year after the bomb, one of the counts being PTSD, but I never had any help with it.

"Originally I had picked a seat in the middle of the bus, then we realised we’d a few hours to wait for another flight coming in so we went back into the airport to kill some time.

“When I got back to the bus that seat was taken so I moved down to the back. Unfortunately that boy was killed, he was a very good friend of mine. I’ve always struggled with that, that terrible sense of guilt for surviving.”

Mike, who lives on his own, has three children and four grandchildren.

He said: “My whole life has been affected by that incident. I’ve struggled with relationships, with my kids. When I was really bad with PTSD I was considering suicide, I just felt like I was in whirlpool going down the plughole.

“I ended up in quite a bit of trouble with the police on a GBH charge, I went away from PTSD assessment and it was confirmed I had very serious PTSD.

“The judge said unless I got treatment I would get two years. I got the treatment which was a relief. It was a massive weight off my shoulders, that was probably 10 years after the incident.

“But still the missing thing was coming back to Ireland and facing up to it, going back to the scene.

“That’s what I ended up doing on the 30th anniversary. It opened my world up a little more.

“I was able to reconnect with a lot of old friends from my Army days.”

He added: “I do find it quite a healing experience coming back over. It might sound silly but I love the place, I love Omagh, I love the people I’ve met.

"I’ve made great friends in the local Legion. I look forward to coming over.”

Mike was aware of the recent controversy at the West Belfast Festival when the Wolfe Tones led young fans in pro-IRA chanting.

He commented: “Obviously they have no experience of the Troubles, how bad it was. This wasn’t a little band of merry men freedom fighters – it was a dangerous, brutal organisation. “Perhaps if they could educate themselves a bit more about what the IRA did instead of succumbing to a bit of peer pressure, they might think twice about it.”