In my teens I read the old tomes of biographies that told tales of missionary doctors like David Livingstone. Maybe I should be a doctor and get serious about the biological sciences (after all I had attempted to breed newts, found in a nearby quarry, in a makeshift aquarium under my bed). But it was not to be. My parents’ instinctive intuition woke up and advised me that being a doctor was too much for me to aim for.

Meanwhile there was a simple realisation hurtling towards me – how authentic would any kind of fancy mission work be if it didn’t work right there in Strabane, let alone on the far side of the world? But how would one address oneself to Strabane collectively? The solution was hiding in plain sight. There was one occasion per year when Strabane gathered itself together, despite any tribal differences – the Carricklee Races.

This was a point-to-point event held every St. Patrick’s Day just outside the town. You could have a nice cup of tea in the marquee, maybe a wee drink and, let’s not forget, a flutter on the horses from stables all over Ireland. The chairman of the event was one Dan Smyth. Dan occupied three positions in our firmament. He was the owner of Smyth’s Mills in Strabane producing animal feed (a treasured commodity) and he was the chair of the Carricklee Races and he was a director of the Electricity Board for Northern Ireland – that very Board who employed my father (and the rest of the family, as we saw it).

I was advised that only Dan Smyth could give the go-ahead for my scheme to occupy one of the stands at the races for the sale of high-quality, low-price copies of the Gospels. On the appointed day I went to his office in the mill to hear the verdict. It wasn’t the verdict I was looking for. He thought he knew more about racing than I did – and he wasn’t wrong! ‘It’s not exactly a Bible-reading moment,’ was his final word and despite my positive assurance that any moment could be a Bible-reading moment, he wouldn’t budge.

My gallant father, who had fully supported my approach to his boss’s boss’s boss, then also complied with my Plan B. The key to this plan was that he knew every lane in the Strabane district because he worked for that self-same Electricity Board – and that included the one that led to the Racecourse entrance. I had a (fresh new) driving licence, so he drove me to Derry, we hired a small van, I drove it back, stocked it with the aforementioned Gospels and parked it on the grass verge beside that entrance. The public had a great day at the races that 17^th March because they had unfettered access to great reading material on the way in and out, without the clutter of those other pesky stands.

What next?! the electrician’s children (electricianschildren.com)