Birmingham pub bombings: Survivor recounts ‘indelible memory’

A woman from Shrewsbury, who was holding her 11-month-old son inside a phone box when explosions struck Birmingham five decades ago, recalls the event with vivid clarity. Judy Arliss stated, “It’s one of those indelible memories… you never get over something so serious and so awful as murder.” The bombings, which occurred on the evening of 21 November 1974, resulted in the deaths of 21 individuals and injuries to 220 others when explosives detonated in two establishments, the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in the Town. Ms. Arliss had recently disembarked from a train, having visited her mother in Dorset; the phone box was situated at the station, directly behind the two pubs. She described the scene, saying, “Suddenly, the sky went all sorts of colours, and the bangs… as you can imagine.” Her primary concern was her child’s safety, as she recounted, “What I thought mainly was to save my son… and I thought ‘I’ve lost two babies, I’ve got to keep him, he’s got to live, he’s got to live and I’ve got to get out of this.'” At the moment the bombs detonated, Ms. Arliss was speaking with her husband on the telephone. “He couldn’t hear a word I said so he put the phone down, and I kept ringing and ringing,” she stated. “It seemed like hours, it must have been about 30 or 40 minutes,” she added. Upon being collected by her husband later to go back to their residence, which was then in Castle Bromwich, the gravity of the event fully registered with her. She recalled, “I was shaking, holding my son with the buggy and the case in the back seat of the car.” “I got my son into bed, and I was still shaking,” she continued. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is widely suspected of perpetrating these attacks, though the organization has never officially claimed responsibility. This incident stands as one of the most significant unsolved mass murders in British history. Ms. Arliss commented, “I think you have to come through it and stop hating… but to rise above it was very difficult.” She further stated, “I try to see it from both sides, it’s not up for me to forgive.” “Maybe there will never be a resolution for the people who are still fighting and are, obviously, 50 years older,” she reflected. On Thursday, relatives, survivors, and dignitaries convened for two commemorative services in the city, where a one-minute silence was observed at 14:00 GMT. The initial gathering, restricted to invited guests, took place at New Street Station, succeeded by a public service held at Birmingham Cathedral. For further engagement, BBC Shropshire can be found on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X, and Instagram. Copyright for this material is held by BBC 2024, with all rights reserved. The BBC bears no responsibility for the content of external websites. Details concerning our external linking policy are available.