50 years today since the Birmingham pub bombings

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

No, you’re right Kate, no one has ever been brought to justice. I suspect no one will now.

I have a friend who grew up in Brum. Her dad was Irish and had a terrible time after the bombing from people who assumed that ALL Irish were responsible

Yes eddiecat. My parents were Irish. It was very frightening.

We were regulars in The Tavern in the Town. We had a knock on our door late that evening - it was our sister checking all was okay as we'd no phone or tv, so didn't know what had happened. Luckily we'd stayed home that evening. I also worked with a couple who were caught up in the bombing. They were both injured, but survived.

So sad and frustrating for families of those killed, my thoughts are with their loved ones today though I fear many will have died by now.
In simply punishing the wrong people at the time to get a result the real culprits got away free and clear.
😞

Thinking of those involved

I remember it well. I had visited the Tavern in the Town the previous weekend with a friend so I knew where it was and the basement bar. The next morning sitting in our staffroom waiting for people to come in; one was Irish; she opened the door and said,very emotionally, 'For the first time in my life I am ashamed to be Irish' which relieved the tension. No one we knew was involved, but many of us were in the habit of visiting B'ham town centre regularly and people were justifiably nervous about going back.
Such an atrocity.

It was an atrocity, as were other IRA bombings and murders. Thank goodness for the Good Friday Agreement, imperfect but good enough?

I remember the bombing, it’s hard to think it was 50 years ago, they pwere scary times,

I worked in a building opposite The Tavern. We had to look at it every day. It was an underground pub.

I was at uni in Birmingham. One day I was in the city and went into a shoe shop around lunchtime - it was very quiet thankfully and few people around, as the shop blew up behind me after I left and was walking off down the road - just horrifying. No-one killed thank goodness. Dreadful times.

I remember this very well. I lived about 4 miles from Birmingham City centre and we heard the thumps of the explosion from the street. I was just 10 years old and it was a terrible time. There were a lot of reprisal attacks against innocent Irish in the aftermath, too, which were just awful.

Hard to believe it was 50 years ago

There is a BBC documentary on this. I remember those times too but I'm not from Birmingham.

I haven't watched it yet but will now having seen this post.

I was commuting from New St Station at the time, there were always police and sniffer dogs around.
I used to go down to the end of my platform and wait for the train. I reckoned it was safer than inside the station area.

I can remember another cowardly attack by the IRA in 1990 when three off duty soldiers in Lichfield were followed by a so called active service unt of the IRA and gunned down in a railway station in front of terrified passengers. Also around the same time, a Royal Navy recruiter in the Midlands was killed by a car bomb. Like the pub bombings in Birmingham, these were typical of the cowardly attacks by the IRA.
I've never ever seen the IRA as freedom fighters or some kind of romantic Irish thing. To me, they're terrorists and cowards who tended to attack innocent civilians and off duty servicemen. When the SAS blew them away in Gibraltar and at a roadblock in Northern Ireland the same year, it was like killing off a mad dog.

My husband was in the Odeon cinema nextdoor when he heard the bomb. He left his then girlfriend there and went and started to get people out. I think he had PTSD, he was watching Planet of the Apes at the time and he couldn't even listen to the opening music from it without demanding the TV was turned off.

He said it was pitch black and the people in the pub couldn't hear him when he was trying to help as the blast had blown their ear drums.

I was in primary school in the West Midlands at the time and remember this. I also remember being regularly evacuated from our C of E school regularly due to bomb scares. The teachers actually used to go in the buildings and have a scout round for anything suspicious.

Also those two little boys killed in Warrington after those cowards put a bomb in a litter bin.

My friends and I were in town that night as we quite often went into Brum. We started off at the Mulberry Bush which was at the bottom of the rotunda, we went on to the Tavern in the town, but got a bit fed up and went on to a pub called The Royal Mail. Thank God we did as about half an hour later the bombs exploded. We didn’t hang around as we knew our parents would be worried sick. My mum was waiting at the bus stop and she was so relieved to see us. I was also in town when the front of the shoe shop Freeman Hardy Willis blew up. I was coming down the ramp from New Street Station and it was most peculiar as the glass seemed to get sucked in before it all blew out.

I was heading off to take my three oldest children to Harrods toy department at Christmas when the car bomb there went off in 1983. We weren't that far away and did hear a distant boom. We could so easily have been there and the store was not fully cleared before it went off.
It wasn't at all unusual to be evacuated from a store in those days, or to be stuck in an Underground tunnel for ages whilst a suspicious package or a telephone warning was investigated. It went on for so many years that we became used to it, possibly too used to it for safely.

I was studying at Sheffield Uni and went with my boyfriend visit his parents. We were in The Tavern in the Town a few days before the bomb. I remember having my handbag searched on the way in. Why did Tony Blair's government give the IRA terrorists protection from any further prosecution? Why are British soldiers still being considered for prosecution for doing a very dangerous role during the 'troubles'? Sorry my wording is clumsy. but hopefully some will understand what I am trying to say.

I was in the Army then in Aldershot.My future husband lived in Birmingham.The day after the bombings an Army friend drove me up to Birmingham,she dropped me off by the now Holiday Inn,the city centre was deserted.

Scary times to be in the Army,will never forget all the bombings.