Young and old…John Hume the graduate, and John Hume the peacemaker. Pic by Donal Dunn/Northwest Newspix
Back in 1994, he sat down with BBC Radio Foyle’s Sean Coyle to reflect on his childhood and recalled how his love of the beautiful game ended up with a brush with the law.
“I often tell the story that my one criminal record of my life when Liam Kitson and myself – Liam lived at the top of Argyll Street – were playing a heady ( a game involving two players repeatedly heading the ball back and forth) in the street, and we were arrested for playing football in the streets.”
John, at the age of 12, was taken to court.
“Because my parents couldn’t afford it, we didn’t have a solicitor, I defended myself and pleaded not guilty.
“The policeman got up and said’ ‘but sure I caught you’.
“I said I wasn’t playing football I was playing a heady”.
John was fined two bob (two shillings).
But his foray into the legal profession earned praise from the magistrate, who said he had defended himself very well, John recalled.
He told the programme there was a real sense of community to his childhood.
His formative years were characterised by “a lot of rationing, you couldn’t get sweets or chocolate,” he told Coyle and Company.
US soldiers were based at Springtown camp in Derry
He also saw them play baseball, a game they would teach him, and their illegal greyhound racing track – a young John Hume would become “well known as a tipster”.
You can list to Coyle and Company: John HUme here https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000lw2r
