I was still in school uniform, which must have made it 1990.

My father had left for work just five minutes before, accompanied by my younger sister, when Jive Bunny was drowned out by a loud, dull thud.

My mother immediately fretted her husband and daughter had just become the latest statistics of 21 years of death and trauma.

A lifetime in west Belfast may not have made me a ballistics expert but I was sure by the rattle of the windows it was closer to home.

When I opened the door to the rear garden the plume of smoke 10 yards to my right, frantic Scottish accents and moans of distress spelt out just how close. Toast in hand, I walked closer.

An agitated soldier, rifle pointing in my direction, squealed at me to "get f****** back. Get back into the house". I quickly obliged but not before hearing one soldier squeal of being blind and another begging not to die. A crater, easily 5ft wide and deep, had been blown from the edge of the neighbour's garden.

Someone had obviously picked up that an Army patrol walked through the forest at the edge of the Poleglass estate around 8am every day, them and dozens of schoolkids who attended the secondary schools in nearby Andersonstown.

As I headed off for my bus I passed a military ambulance and more squaddies searching a wooded area, 500 yards from the incident.

I had my own issues with the Army. A young neighbour, 10-year-old Carol-Anne Kelly, had been shot dead with a plastic bullet nine years before returning from the shops.

At eight years old this leaves its mark.

But my instinct immediately told the officer in charge exactly where his colleagues were and how to get in.

My feeling I may have helped save a life was punctured by a stranger who witnessed my encounter.

He uttered one word, "tout", local slang for a grass.