Why should the death of someone left for dead after being interrogated and tortured over 30 years ago affect me?

I'll tell you why.

Growing up in the Steeple in Antrim, my friends and I used to snigger and laugh at the man who walked through the estate wearing flared jeans.

Flared jeans!

In the midst of the 80s, when drainpipe jeans and calf-hugging trousers were all the rage, we thought it was hilarious that anyone would still be wearing flares. As the man walked past us, his jeans flaffing in the breeze, we used to nudge each other and mutter about his 'flares' amidst laughs and muffled coughs.
They say little amuses the innocent and, in this case, it was true.

The man never told us off. He never scowled at us. He simply smiled and seemed to walk even more jauntily than before, which gave those flares an extra gusto.

I was 10 and it was 1981. We soon got used to seeing the man walking through the estate and quickly became bored with the 'flares' joke.

We only knew the man as Gerry.

Some years later, when the book 'The Shankill Butchers' was published, I realised that our Gerry was in fact Gerry McLaverty. My regret at the childish jibes was magnified when I read about the gruesome experience he'd been put through. He'd been left to die, survived and had gone on to help police catch the men responsible.

And there we were, giggling about his jeans - a style many of us, by the way, would be wearing during the bootleg/flares revival years later.

No wonder Gerry had simply smiled at our immature giggles.

There are many lessons we learn in our journey through life. If ever there was a case of 'don't judge a book by its cover' this was it.