"people would’ve had maybe four or five coats on them to bring sugar and butter and all that kind of thing"

Interviewer: Omagh would’ve been quite a rural community back then, was there anything you father or mother would’ve talked about, or grandparents about living here at that time in the 1910s 1920s in a rural setting, about crossing the border?

Hazel: Of course, there were the Sugar Trains going to Bundoran and people were coming back with sugar in their coat pockets and everything else.

Interviewer: They were called the Sugar Trains?

Hazel: Yes, because they were bringing sugar back and butter and all that kind of thing. 

I think my mother was of a nervous disposition because she would not talk about Home Rule or any of those things at all at that particular time. I suppose my father thought plenty and said very little because he just lived his life helping people where he could and if he couldn’t well he wouldn’t harm them anyway.  He was very interested in meeting all our friends and as I say he lived with me for sixteen years after I got married. I don’t think he would’ve been alive if we hadn’t stayed with him because when my mother died he took it very badly indeed and then I was getting married shortly after she died and he said, “don’t be leaving me by myself, you can come and live here you know”. I said to my husband then, well to be “if you don’t come and live with us, we can’t get married at all because I can’t leave him by himself”.

I think really when our Stevie arrived as soon as we brought him in, he said, “give that child to me” and I did, I think that’s what kept him going. He used to go down to the Legion and have a couple of drinks down there and that, but he still wouldn’t tell you anything except you have to be kind to people and look after everybody.

Interviewer: I want to ask you again about the Sugar Trains, I think that’s really interesting, so where did they go to and from?

Hazel: We had a railway station in Omagh and that would’ve went to Bundoran, and people would’ve had maybe four or five coats on them to bring sugar and butter and all that kind of thing. People would’ve cycled over the border if they were anywhere near hand at all and brought stuff back as well. I wouldn’t be that familiar with the Sugar Trains and that but there are quite a few plays and that have been done about the Sugar Trains and nearly everybody could tell you a wee bit about them.

I think the biggest change that ever came to Omagh was the loss of the trains, I just thought the trains were a great thing and my children I took them to Derry and took them on a train to Portrush or Coleraine or whatever just so they would know what a train was all about.