By Joe McCann
CELEBRATIONS were in full swing at Beechvale nursing home in Killinchy this week where Jim Rountree celebrated his 102nd birthday.
Jim, who has been a resident at Beechvale since he was 99, said the secret to getting to 102 was to “just exist, you just get on with it.”
Recalling his life, Jim mentioned his mother, Matilda, had also reached the age of 102. When asked if it ran in the family he said: “Well it’s run us this far.”
Jim was raised in East Belfast, where his father Francis James worked as a foreman at Harland and Wolff.
Jim said he was in the process of taking his civil service exams when World War Two broke out and the government subsequently cancelled the exams.
With two of his cousins he attempted to enlist but was unable to do so and instead joined the Civil Defence, and in this role witnessed the Belfast Blitz and dealt with unexploded bombs.
“Many young men signed up for the war. I tried to sign up with my two cousins, who were able to join up but they didn’t take me because of a medical complaint,” he said.
“That was silly I suppose because I outlasted them all. I joined up with the Civil Defence instead and was with them until the end of the war.
“I was a messenger in the early days on a bicycle and afterwards got a promotion but I was in Belfast during the Blitz as it was my turn to be up there when it happened. I had an interesting session with an unexploded bomb which was quite a problem but fortunately we got everyone evacuated and when it went off it wrecked two houses but nobody was injured.
“During the Blitz, they hit Belfast hard and I remember seeing the tracer bullets which were going up from the guns on one of the Navy’s ships which was in for a refit. I think that ship kept a lot of them at bay but Belfast was hit very hard.”
After the war Jim met the love of his life, Joan, and the two would be married for over 60 years and have three children.
Jim said he had a very happy life with Joan and also working at his job as a salesman and said he still keeps in touch with old work colleagues, including his former boss who attended his birthday party on Tuesday.
“I met my wife Joan whilst working at a wholesale drapery and we got married after the war,” added Jim. “Joan was a very good looking woman and after the war we lived out in Castlereagh and we had three children.”
“I worked for Johnson Brothers Ltd for 40 years. They were distributing agents for a lot of the cross channel firms; They’d distribute all sorts of grocery and medical items.
“I really enjoyed my time working with them and my old boss, Michael Johnson, was here at my party this morning.I like to still keep in touch with them. I travelled all over in my work and I really liked meeting people.”
On living at Beechvale, Jim said he is very happy and grateful to his family for finding him such a place to live. Since the pandemic Jim has also become known for his poetry and has written and performed several of his poems which have been put on Beechvale’s Facebook page.
Jim said: “I’m very happy here, they’re very good to me and I have a lot of freedom.
“I like to write a poem or two and Beechvale put me reading some of them up on their Facebook. When I turned 100 I had 50 cards from people I knew and 50 more from people I didn’t know at all but who had seen me reading my poems on their Facebook.
“I’ve been very fortunate my family got me somewhere so lovely to live after my wife died, I’ve been very happy here,” he said.
