Retirement calls for Albert

Currently the President of Northern Ireland, with his second three-year term coming to a close on St John’s Day on June 24, Albert has no choice but to hang up his hat and step aside for his successor, Dr Maureen Howie, from Eglinton.

Albert, who is only the second Knight of the Order from this area, said: “It is nice that it is going to an other local person. Maureen is a former Area Commissioner of the Western Area and she has just been promoted to a Dame of the Order, the first dame in this area”.

Albert will not leaving the order per se as he is a life long member he can still attend events, but he will no longer hold a senior ranking position.

He joined in 1950 as a 13-year-old Cadet in the former Londonderry Ambulance Cadet Division because his sister was in the organisation.

“It was much different with less rules and regulations, less courses, less certificates to work for and less badges. You did your First Aid Certificate and that was it that was all you did,” he said reflecting.

“The organisation now is vast, it is full of courses, child protection, patient handling, patient care, the list goes on and on.

“When I was a Cadet I remember the night before the Queen was to come to Northern Ireland following her coronation in 1952, the Cadet division was disbanded and I got a knock on the door late at night the night before to say the visit was called off. It wasn’t until many years later I got to meet the Queen, when I got my MBE, but that was for my work with the Home Accident Prevention group,” he said.

From 1950 until the present day Albert has held almost every position in the organisation, from Cadet right up to local Area Commissioner, to Northern Ireland Commissioner and NI President.

“My biggest achievement was when I was NI commissioner, during the 1990s, was when the team from here won every possible trophy at National competitions in London and in 1996, the team from Northern Ireland became European first aid winners, so that was probably one of the greatest achievements. I also had the honour of meeting Princess Margaret. I led a contingent of 24 cadets to a camp in Wales when Wales was celebrating their Diamond Jubilee and Princess Margaret, who was Commandant-in-Chief of the St John Ambulance Cadets visited the camp and I met her and chatted to her.”

Always keen on youth work, in the 1960s Albert formed six youth divisions, including reforming the Londonderry Division, and played his part in helping steer the organisation through ‘the Troubles’.

One of his greatest honours, he said, was being made a Knight of the Order in 2001 at St James Palace, London, by the Duke of Gloucester, the Grand Prior.

Paying tribute to those he had worked with, he said there were ‘lots of people’ over the last 30 years in which he had carried out his administrative and leadership role, but it was those on the ground he admired the most.

“I always appreciate the people out at weekends in all weathers, and at all hours of the night. They are the people whom I praise, the people at the grass roots. Some of the duties they carry out are not easy, they never know where they are going to be, in middle of fields, up to their ankles in muck, and the training now-a-days is heavy,” he said.