{"id":1738,"date":"2022-04-30T05:41:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-30T05:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/?p=1738"},"modified":"2022-12-15T15:36:02","modified_gmt":"2022-12-15T15:36:02","slug":"30-april-1941-wednesday-belfast-1941-blitz-diary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/30\/30-april-1941-wednesday-belfast-1941-blitz-diary\/","title":{"rendered":"30 April 1941 (Wednesday) \u2013 Belfast 1941 Blitz Diary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the Belfast Telegraph, a naval officer who had been posted to Belfast for a year gave an anonymous \u2018unsolicited testimonial\u2019 about his experience in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"section-gc768d6\" class=\"wp-block-gutentor-e6 section-gc768d6 gutentor-element gutentor-element-image\"><div class=\"gutentor-element-image-box\"><div class=\"gutentor-image-thumb\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"normal-image\" src=\"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/BT-30.4.41-p.4.jpg\" \/><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The article provides an interesting view of life in the city and how outsiders experienced the people and the town.<a href=\"#_ftn1\" id=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The officer said that when he arrived he was greeted with an \u2018unusually wet slap in the face\u2019 but his farewell was \u2018some moist but friendly pats on the back\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On meeting Belfast citizens he thought that the \u2018soft Ulster speech\u2019 was people \u2018trying to be funny by giving an excellent imitation of an Irishman\u2019. His \u2018most vivid impression\u2019 on arriving was the \u2018friendliness\u2019 of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was a \u2018delight\u2019 to have a baker \u2018produce biscuits, and even cakes\u2019, probably reflecting the rationing situation in Britain. He noted that there was no 30 mph speed limit and it was \u2018live and let live\u2019 on the roads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He concluded that \u2018life apart from blitzes is happy in Belfast because you live happily\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The naval officer&#8217;s most negative comments were for the trams. He said that \u2018this may seem like a hard knock, but we have often wondered why some of your trams are not arrested for loitering, especially when a number loiter together, which reminds us of the main who told us that since the tramways had adopted the convoy system they had not lost a single tram\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He felt that Belfast was a city of contradictions. Among one of these was \u2018the enthusiasm of your ARP organisation, and the rudeness householders accord your hard working wardens\u2019. He concluded that Belfast\u2019s \u2018contradictions\u2019 were its \u2018charm\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" id=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> Belfast Telegraph, 30 April 1941, p.4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the Belfast Telegraph, a naval officer who had been posted to Belfast for a year gave an anonymous \u2018unsolicited testimonial\u2019 about his experience in the city. The article provides an interesting view of life in the city and how outsiders experienced the people and the town.[1] The officer said that when he arrived he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-34"],"blocksy_meta":[],"gutentor_comment":0,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}