The Beginning of the End: The Crippling Disadvantage of a Happy Irish Childhood

by Walter Ellis

Walter Ellis grew up in East Belfast. His father was a commercial traveller, his mother a housewife. He and his sister were not abused as children. Ellis was never forced to wear girls' clothes or spend days naked in a cold cellar. Instead, he was sent to school each day and to church on Sunday. In the summer, he and his family went on holiday to the seaside. But, determined that he should not suffer from the crippling disadvantage of a happy Irish childhood, Ellis systematically set about destroying everything that gave him stability. He was expelled from school and dropped out of not one, but two universities. He also acquired as his best friend the Protestant renegade Ronnie Bunting, who, as chief of staff of the INLA, murdered Airey Neave, the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in the carpark of the House of Commons. Bunting was an extraordinary, demonic personality. He once foisted Joe McCann, Ireland's Most Wanted man, on Ellis's mum for the weekend and gave Walter a suitcase to look after that turned out to contain over a hundred thousand pounds - the proceeds of an armed robbery. The last straw came when Ellis was arrested by Special Branch in England on suspicion of plotting to assassinate top government minister William Whitelaw. "The Beginning of the End" is like nothing else that has come out of the Ulster Troubles and is sure to shock, intrigue and entertain.

Genres: Memoir

255 pages, Paperback

First published April 25, 2006

About the author

Walter Ellis was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in September 1948.

His published books include: Franco's Map, How Not to Write a Bestseller - An Expert Guide, The Beginnings of the End, The Oxbridge Conspiracy, The Caravaggio Code, Anglophobia and London Eye.