The day a car bomb missed me.

It was 1973 and I was a teenager out shopping on the remote off-chance my mother would let me buy a pair of yellow platform boots. They’d be so bad for my feet, she had said, before warning me to take care. Car bombing was on the up in Belfast, but when you normalise risk, you adjust your expectations and the way you live. It was safe enough that day, or so I thought on that busy street. The car exploded as I admired boots in a window display. It blew outward, pieces flying in all directions. A …