" Company name had a tragic history "

When Cedric Blackbourne says he knows what the Teebane relatives are going through, lie speaks from the heart.

His own son, Karl, a 19-year-old policeman, was sitting in a stationary patrol car in Newry's Market Street on July 36,1986, when he was shot dead by the IRA. That bitter blow for Cedric and his wife Frances would have been enough tragedy for any family: but not in the twilight world that was Ulster in the '80s.

Six years later, the managing director of Karl Construction, who named his firm after his son, was driving down the Ml from Coventry on a wintry January night when his mobile phone rang.

The news could hardly have been worse: one of the firm's minibuses had been blown up on the way back from a job. killing seven of his workers and fatally injuring an eighth. "It was horrific. I was in England on business, and couldn't get back that night. I'd interviewed many of the men personally for their jobs, and knew them well, and of course, in the years since then, I've got to know their families very well.

"We had our annual memorial service at the site of the blast on Sunday, and it was made doubly sad this year by the fact that Cyril Harkness (the father of 23-year-old David Harkness, who died in the blast) had passed away a few months ago, leaving his wife Annie alone. "It's a sad occasion every year, to be honest. Sometimes I look back and think that 1 don't remember the summers, that it was always wintertime, always dark.

"The tragedy is also that the men who did this are still running around free, and their former masters are now at Stormont.

"I know we have to move on, and 1 accept that, but it must be very difficult for some of our politicians to stomach that. I admire them for that, for I couldn't do it.

"It is important, too, to keep atrocities like this in the news, so that we don't forget them, and so that we don't forget that these were just innocent men doing a day's work for the Government.

"You see, we felt duty-bound to play our part with the government forces in defeating terrorism. No one ever said that we should stop. "As I say, we have to move on, and hopefully some good will come of all this for the future, and for our children and our country, which is a great place, and deserves-a future." News Letter 17 th January 2007