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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.
When mass unemployment broke the back of the unemployment insurance scheme between the wars, leaving destitute ex-servicemen and others with nothing to turn to but poor law relief, bitter social unrest followed.
Unemployment relief became a political hot potato all over the United Kingdom. Across the water, poor law relief, which had been administered on a union of parish's basis was replaced by local authority public assistance but the struggle between local councils and the government intensified.
In Northern Ireland poor law relief continued concurrently with local authority public assistance. In 1934 the Westminster government was forced to introduce a State scheme of unemployment assistance.
In a vain attempt to take unemployment relief out of party politics an autonomous board was set up to administer unemployment assistance. The Stormont government had to follow suit and a limited scheme of means-tested benefit was introduced as an extension of benefit for persons who had exhausted unemployment insurance benefit.
A second appointed day was set to extend the scheme to persons normally in insurable employment. That excluded agricultural workers, domestic servants and the self-employed.
By that time unrest was widespread, with the unemployed on the march and rioting an everyday occurrence. In Northern Ireland, Orange and Green workers were united for the first time. Fortunately for the government, a resurgence of sectarian strife saved the day.
Serious rioting broke out in the York Street area of Belfast following an alleged attack on marchers returning from the field on the 12th July 1935 and continued for weeks until the Border Regiment was called out and the trouble petered out almost overnight.
On the morning after the night of mayhem we made our way to Frederick Street office in Belfast through deserted streets littered with granite pavers, broken glass and bottles.
Many burnt-out premises were still smouldering and eight policemen stood guard at each of the various street junctions from Castle Junction to York Road railway station. For a week, we toiled behind closed doors at 5A Frederick Street with a police armoured car guarding our premises.
On the 13th forenoon, every time a few local men in navy-blue suits and flat caps emerged from the back streets to loiter at a street corner the police with batons at the read scattered them. That was my early experience of working for the Unemployment Assistance Board.
For me, history repeated itself to an extent on 6th May 1941 when I made my way through a shattered city to the Frederick Street office to resume the task of organising cash relief for homeless victims of the German air raids.
We had been struggling with a workload connected with the mid-April blitz when the Germans struck again on 5th May. This time our office had been almost wiped out by incendiaries. It was left without glass, gas or water and had a punctured roof.
By mid-day a crowd of more than six hundred destitute people were clamouring for admission. The city centre was ablaze from City Hall to York Road and a pall of acrid smoke enveloped everything.
We doled out cash relief as fast as we could. Many applicants were in night attire. Some hadn't anything but what they stood up in, as whole streets of houses had suffered direct hits. Some of our clients had come from the public baths, which had been converted into morgues, where they had sought missing relatives.
On York Road bodies were being uncovered in bombed-out houses. Washington Street opposite our office was totally demolished except for one house.
I was to spend the next two years as departmental auditor unravelling the mountain of financial records relating to wartime relief, which accumulated at the Board's various offices. The greater Belfast area had the bulk of them.
In these circumstances, my appointment to the Omagh office was a welcome relief. I was young and it presented a challenge to put the theory of public administration, which I was reading, into practice.
Pat Smyth, 2001
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