The Ulster conflict has touched the lives of many people in Yorkshire over the past three decades. On the first day of a new era MIKE LAYCOCK looks back

It was on February 4, 1974, when the grim reality of the Troubles first hit home in Yorkshire with the first in a shocking wave of terrorist attacks.

A coach taking Servicemen and their families from Manchester to Catterick Garrison and RAF Leeming was blown up on the M62 at Batley, killing 12 people, including several little children.

The rear of the coach was blasted apart, with bodies thrown on to the road and wreckage strewn for 200 yards. The outrage came eight days after the Provisional IRA had announced it would be stepping up its terror campaign in England.

Less than two months later, on March 26, the terrorists struck at dawn in the heart of North Yorkshire when the Claro Barracks at Ripon were hit by three bombs.

Two stores and the main NAAFI building were damaged, and another device was then destroyed in a controlled explosion by army bomb disposal experts in the main barracks, where 100 soldiers had been sleeping. A 49-year-old person suffered facial cuts from flying glass during the attack.

Three months later, on June 11, the barracks at Strensall were the next to be targeted by bombers.

Most of the Green Howards Band's musical instruments were destroyed in the blast.

While North Yorkshire subsequently escaped the worst of the IRA's mainland bombing campaign, it was not immune to the chaos triggered by attacks elsewhere and local bomb alerts.

In December, 1991, when a bomb went off near Clapham Junction in London, rail passengers from York faced double chaos, with trains to Kings Cross cancelled and York Station evacuated during the rush-hour because of a hoax bomb scare.

Then, one night in June, 1992, came an outrage that shocked the country.

Constable Sandy Kelly was out on patrol with Special Constable Glenn Goodman when they followed and stopped a suspicious vehicle on the A64, near Tadcaster.

Glenn was shot dead, leaving his widow, Fiona, to bring up their son, Tom, alone, while Sandy was hit by four bullets, but somehow survived.

A massive manhunt across Yorkshire followed, involving hundreds of officers, and IRA terrorist Paul Magee was arrested several days later and subsequently jailed for life at the Old Bailey.

Soldiers from North Yorkshire also suffered deaths and injuries while serving in Northern Ireland over the past 30 years.The Green Howards, based at Catterick Garrison, faced some of the worst violence.

They had numerous tours in the province, the toughest of which probably came when they were posted to the strongly Republican area of Ardoyne in 1971, when the introduction of internment sparked major riots and street battles.

On August 8, 1971, Private Hatton became the first Green Howard to be killed in Northern Ireland and four more were to be killed during the tour.

Casualties during other tours included four deaths from an IRA landmine in South Armagh in 1974 and a soldier died when the Howards were based in Londonderry in the late 1980s.

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