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Today, the spin doc's including our MLAs, Ulsters enemies SinnFeinIRA + the dogs on the street are asking us to look at the new agreement in a "positive light". The upshot is that no matter how many floodlights we shine on this it can be en-capitulated in a sentence. SinnFeinIRA beat down the DUP and got what they wanted yet again, irrespective of what anyone else thought, the next election will tell its own story. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Over the last few weeks as our family united and sat without mother we have had a chance to talk and reflect on her life and the events of the past decades. Talking together with uncles and cousins and the entire family circle I realised just the years of accumulated service we had given to this country. It was always a source of pride for my mother who instilled loyalty and a sense of duty in each of us. Throughout the worst years of the Troubles in South Armagh she was one of the main features which kept us together and she represented what the family was all about. In her lifetime she saw more tragedy and felt more pain than any person should losing her husband, a brother and two nephews not to mention a number of in-laws and close friends. She grew up with and was friends with dozens of those innocent people murdered by Republicans and knew the very real threat to her own life and that of her family. Yet in all that time her courage and determination led her to give unwavering support to her husband, and then her children, as they donned the uniform, in defence of others. She worked in Glenanne Factory from where those murdered at Kingsmills made their final journey, she herself was attacked as Republicans bombed our home and tried to force us from it. When the army came to South Armagh she saw it as her duty to support them and many a patrol was fed from our table. This civic duty brought us to the attention of local Republicans who bombed our home, the first time they came to threaten her she put them to flight breaking a brush over one of the coward’s heads. I will never forget after one bomb which destroyed our home, seeing her make her way through the debris and dust gathering us children and carrying us to safety. Speaking with her before she died we remembered the good times and the bad, we laughed and we cried over absent friends and happier days. She told me her only regret was the sense of betrayal left as successive unionist parties allowed the same Republican terrorists into Government. She regretted ever letting them into her home to make her promises they failed to keep, like Rev Ian Paisley who used victims’ homes as a platform to declare that Sinn Fein/IRA would never be appeased or allowed to win. She took to her grave a painful sense of betrayal having believed that man only to watch him and his party’s clear affection and appeasement of Republicans in recent years. She took hope however in the work of FAIR, a group she helped to found, and a group established to carry on the courage, dedication to duty and vision of such men and women. While I and other continue our work her words and wisdom will never die. She made me promise never to give up, and to fight on for justice and a real peace based on truth and righteousness, remembering the price she and men like my father paid. She was disgusted by the charade we see now unfolding with yet another concession to Sinn Fein/IRA. Any of the politicans now considering doing a deal who knew her would know exactly what she would tell them to their face if she were still alive – she would tell tham that country comes before party! In the end my mother died happy surrounded by her family sure of her eternal resting place. It was poignant than on the day she died another addition to the family made its way into the world. With 48 grand children and great grandchildren she has left her mark on the world. Through them and the work of FAIR we are happy that her memory lives on, and as she joins my father I know that she ran a good race and stayed true to her principles until the end – I trust that her life will inspire others at this time. ---------------------------- Mrs Margaret ‘Peggie’ Frazer
Today the FAIR Group would like to mark the passing of one of our founder members and dearest friends Mrs Margaret ‘Peggie’ Frazer. Mother of our Director William Frazer, she was the embodiment of a true Ulster-woman. Our thoughts and prayers are with the entire Frazer and Bell families, and we trust that they are comforted in the knowledge that we continue the work she believed so passionately in. Born in a newly created country of Northern Ireland, she came from a family whose history of service for Crown and Country she instilled in her own children. Of sound Ulster Scots stock, she had inherited the courage and resolve of a frontiers people living in South Armagh. Those traits would stand her well in later life as tragedy struck her own life. She was reared in a home where the 1920s Troubles as well as the Home Rule Crisis and the Great War were living memories, she had lost brothers in the Bloody Fields of Flanders and retained a pride in their Service and Sacrifice. She was a strong wee woman whose wit and mind were sharpened by her tongue and a great sense of humour. She married James ‘Bertie’ Frazer and raised a large and loving family, through good times and bad. She epitomised the spirit of many Ulster women, an intelligence and industry needed to see out dark economic times, a pride and sense of decency that was instilled in her children, and a courage that was needed to stand by her man as he stood by his community. The Frazer family made their home in South Armagh, where countless generations before them had. However despite living, working and playing alongside Roman Catholic neighbours the present Troubles marked an end to happier carefree days. Her husband was a sextan in the local Church, a part time farmer and council worker; Peggy kept the house in Whitecross and a growing family. She literally kept the home fires burning, as her husband and his colleagues in the UDR went on patrol. She literally defended her home and her children against Republican attacks and bombs. Her spirit of defiance, courage and resilience in the face of adversity that broke many a man is what she will be remembered most for. It is the same spirit we see in many of her children and grandchildren. In this regard Willie Frazer is very much his mother’s son. She needed all her strength when on one dark day in August 1975, her husband was killed by the PIRA. She worked tirelessly since that day to keep a family together despite losing other close relatives.
Her legacy is carried on in her children many of whom have risen to the highest levels in their chosen professions, her legacy also lives on in FAIR a group shaped by the experiences and expectations of victims like Peggy Frazer. We cannot pay high enough tribute to so fine a woman, and trust that as she finds rest her desire to see justice will go on. It is to the eternal shame of politicians that the men who widowed this women have not been brought to justice and that rather their reward is government office.
Mrs Frazer’s hopes and principles will live on through her son and her family; they will see fruits in the ongoing work of FAIR and the most lasting memorial we can hope to erect for her is that we make her beloved Ulster a place fit for her memory and that those who wrought such pain and destruction will see justice done. ---------------------------------------------
Deaths threats, Policing and Justice While our government continues to try and make an unworkable situation work we can’t help feel that the people are suffering. Not only have we massive problems such as the economy, jobs and education which are in disarray but the security situation is worsening. We also have the issue of deaths threats and the active targeting of ex security force members. Its somewhat ironic that those wanting to get their hands Policing and Justice have brothers in arms attempting to kill at an increasing rate. In the last week alone FAIR has been contacted by 4 individuals who are currently being targeted by Irish republican thugs, one even has to leave his job the threat is so serious. Another has been out of the security forces for over 12 years, yet he now finds himself on the hit list of murdering thugs who simply can’t move away from the past. Unfortunately the targets are getting very little support from the security forces which makes us ask just how much less they would get if unsympathetic Irish republicans and anything to do with Policing and Justice. Irish republicanism is not ready for Policing and Justice powers, it has clearly demonstrated over the last few years and months that it is not content and will not be, until every last bastion of Britishness has been removed from Northern Ireland. Anyone who thinks letting Sinn Fein IRA get their hands on Policing and Justice will help us down the path of peace needs their head examined. We must secure the safety of everyone in Northern Ireland and in order to do that we need Policing and Justice powers to be in the hands of people with our citizens and country’s well being at heart. It’s incredible that anyone would even consider giving such powers to people who’s only aim is to wreck Northern Ireland and who in the past have shown such a willingness to murder members of the very same security forces they now wish to control.
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