Whatever the initial reactions of the Protestant middle class to an exercise so clearly enforced by paramilitaries, many of its members came to endorse the strike. In his memoirs Rees recalled returning late one evening to the Culloden hotel in affluent north Down. Describing walking through the plush lounge largely occupied by Protestant customers, he remembered: ‘The cry of “traitor” came in unison, a spontaneous response of anger. We the Brits were the outsiders.’
