Article submitted by Alison Kane

Dick has lived all his life in Larne

3,500 children - 500 of them from rural schools, paraded to the Town Park in the afternoon of the Coronation. Eight local bands led the children from the assembly point at Victoria Road to the Park. Then the schools were organised into various positions on the football pitch before the proceedings were opened by the Mayor of Larne, Alderman C Ross. Dick remembers:

"I was at Larne Grammar School and we had to walk through the market yard up to the town park. We had union jack flags and we were singing songs"

Worked in Dumigans

American soldiers stationed in Larne worked in Ballysnod

Linen factories at Mornes, Inver, Browns and a paper mill

"We used to get a lot of visitors to Larne who stayed at McNeills Hotel and the Laharna Hotel"

"There were street parties in Larne held along the Bank Road. There was a real sense of community"

Special thanks goes to the Larne Millennium Initiative for its help in sourcing this story.

YOUR RESPONSES

Clark Nelson - Oct '07
Many drug users and illicit drinkers celebrate in the Town Park on a Friday and Saturday night, and what do the PSNI do? Guess.

Alan Kane - April '06
But are we related?

Alan Kane......and my mother is Jeanie Dumigan.

Been living in England / Wales since 1982