Today was spent solidifying the basic structure I have set up for Derry, and it works nicely. It should accept any changes I make to deepen and expand upon the actions being taken in the story. There is a quiet flow to it that gives it a quiet surface...but like the Mississippi, the undertow is fierce.
It's not going to be easy to work in the details I need and keep them seeming normal and natural. I want this to read as a memoir, not an historical tract. No jamming of info, just Brendan's observations and thoughts at what he's witnessing. He misses a couple of big events because of various reasons and knows of them, second and third hand. Of course, he's in the middle of the Battle for Bogside and Bloody Sunday, but those are massive wide-ranging occurrences that no one could avoid becoming involved in.
What's helping work out the logistics of it all is the
CAIN website and its gallery of photos from 1968-1974. This one is by Eamon Melaugh, and its description is --
Two children sitting on the 'Roaring Meg' cannon. The cannon is located at the 'Double Bastion' on the City Walls overlooking the Bogside area of Derry. During the Siege of Derry 1688-1689 the cannon was said to have made the loudest noise of any gun, hence the name. The street in the background, Nailors Row, was demolished as part of redevelopment in the city.
He has hundreds on the site, and I have a couple of Willie Carson's books of photos of the time, not to mention several put out by Guildhall Press. What's driving me nuts, right now, is I used to have a large paperback of women's stories about being arrested by the British Army, during Internment, called something like
Strong About it All...and I can't find it. I'll have to dig through all my books, now, to see if I mis-shelved it...but I may have the title wrong because I can't get it to come up on ABEbooks, at all.
As a last resort, there's always Walled City Books, in Derry.
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