Pat Smyth, a civil servant with the National Assistance Board in West Tyrone from the 1930's to the 1950's, recalls his memories, experiences and the larger than life personalities he encountered on the way.

In August 1993, travelling home from the North West our arrival at Lifford brought a cosy 'near home' feeling. The prospect of better roads ahead was heartening. The village that we had known so well during the war was quite unrecognisable. Half a century of progress and twenty-five years of border warfare has transformed the former small sleepy hamlet.

A single filling station, Hugh McGrane's village store, and very little else in the way of shops were all that we could remember from the nineteen-forties. In the war years with nearly everything rationed and blacked-out in the adjoining Northern Ireland town of Strabane, Lifford has experienced a mini boom, and the primitive wooden shed which housed the Irish Customs men became endowed with an aura of importance.

The vacillations of Customs officials meant that petty smugglers who thronged the border crossing never knew what to expect. Some days most travellers were ignored, which emboldened many. Then the tide would turn. Everyone heading for the North would be herded indoors and ordered to produce all their purchases.

Most of those would have been rationed goods, and they were confiscated. Dutiable goods, like tobacco and spirits, were the main hazard. If the boyos were in a good mood, small lots might have been let pass, but they had to be very small.

I remember my first encounter with the Customs. Through their headquarters I had got a briefing on how to bond a car for temporary importation into 'the Free State' and I had the three prescribed forms meticulously filled up in impeccable civil service style. All I needed was a signature of a bondsman resident in the State.

Big Barney Lagan, Omagh's beloved family doctor, had come to the rescue. Barney was big in stature, big-hearted and big in generosity. I had discovered that he was going to Lifford to bond a new car and he had allowed me to tag along with him, bringing my own old banger - an Austin Ten saloon.

He had assured me that Hugh McGrane, a Lifford shop owner, had already gone surety for half of County Tyrone and that he would fix me up on his, Barney's, introduction. A local lady farmer, Molly Hughes, who knew McGrane well, came along too
   
I vividly recall how the official on duty at the Lifford customs hut recoiled when I presented my papers. 'Those are no bloody good to me,' he said. Then he dragged open a filing cabinet, grabbed one of each of three forms, rumpled them together and impatiently grunted 'Here take them over to Joe in the hut.'
   
He also handed me back my papers. I duly did what I was told. Joe was sitting in a watchman's type of wooden hut about twenty yards away. He took my completed forms, rapidly filled up the ones the Customs man had substituted and said 'Two bob, please! Take these back to yer man.'
   
Again I did what I was 'bid'; only pausing to glance at the newly completed forms. I never in my life saw the like of them. The identification data for the car were readable but almost every other entry was totally illegible.
   
The Customs official merely checked the registration number, engine and chassis numbers, colour and type of vehicle. Then he rapidly prepared the passbook or whatever it was.
   
'Who's signing it for you?' he asked. 'Mr. McGrane?' When I nodded assent, he said 'Take it over to him, then.' Barney, Molly and my wife were already in McGrane's by this time. Hugh just said 'Hello!' reached for my passbook and signed it while customers milled around him.
   
In a few moments, I was cleared by Customs and we crossed into the State. Barney had lunch ordered at Miss Snodgrass's restaurant, a mile or so distant. A lovely meal it was and the good man declined all offers of payment. When we had dined he went his way, and we went ours, well fed and well treated.
   
Next, I got a fill of petrol, which was un-rationed in the State. Then we loaded up with rationed goods at McGrane's - butter, sugar, sweets, etc, and a few cigarettes. Hugh kept us right on what they (the Customs) were letting through that day. At the post we were only asked about tobacco, cigarettes and spirits. When we showed what we had, my passbook was stamped and we were cleared.
   
It was a very different scenario on this particular fine summer day in 1993. As 'the camel's hump' near the border had been the scene of many serious attacks on the security forces in the seventies and later, I had carefully avoided the area for years.

Today, I was to see at first hand the 'Fort Knox' type fortifications, and experience the most senseless, frustrating, traffic jam that I had ever been in for fifty years. All was changed - changed utterly. The Siegfried line all over again, and no more effective as far as one could discern.

Pat Smyth, 2001