Sheila Hughes was born in 1928 and Albert Haslett was born in 1926. They both talk about growing up in and around Belfast. Sheila comes from a ‘theatre family’, and her experiences of growing up are far from typical. Albert describes the entertainment that poor children enjoyed.

Sheila was born into the theatre: her father was the manager of the Empire theatre in Belfast. She first performed on stage at the age of 12 in a show called Goody Two Shoes. By the age of 15, she was a dancer. During the Second World War, her parents sent her to tour with a company in the Irish Republic, a neutral country, so that she would be safe. Belfast was bombed heavily during the war because of its shipyards.

Sheila would regularly play to packed houses. The theatre was then the main form of entertainment. Sheila retired from the theatre in 1951.

The Empire theatre, where Sheila worked, has now been pulled down — a sign the impact of television on the entertainment industry.

Sheila said that when she was growing up, teenagers were under strict parental control. When Sheila performed for the US troops during the war, she and the other dancers were closely chaperoned. (A chaperone is an older person who accompanies young people at a social gathering to ensure proper behaviour.)

Albert was born in a two-up-two-down house on the Shankhill Road. He described the period as the ‘Hungry 30s’: there were high levels of unemployment and many people were very poor. His mother and father, five brothers and four sisters shared two bedrooms. He remembers a childhood with very little money for sweets or toys. Albert describes the games he played in the street during the 1930s. He played with cigarette cards, a ‘gaitor’ (chariot) made from junk found in the street, and a ‘piggy’ (carefully shaped pieces of wood) which was hit with a stick.