For a period during the 1970s I used to pull back the curtains of my bedroom window and watch my father as he jumped over the low wall in front of our house, hop into the back of an army Land Rover and speed off into the darkness towards Belfast and the Black Mountain which overlooks the city.
His face and hands were covered in black camouflage and the army surplus knapsack he carried had been dyed black on our kitchen stove by my mother.
I'm not sure if he carried a gun but I do remember most nights wondering if he would arrive home the next morning.
My father was a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), an infantry regiment of the British Army established in 1970 after the outbreak of the Troubles and would regularly go out on patrols and surveillance with it around Belfast and the surrrounding area.
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Its official role was the "defence of life or property in Northern Ireland against armed attack or sabotage" and it was made up of overwhelmingly Protestant locals who served as part-time volunteers.
During the day dad worked as a civil servant and ran a small farm and at night he had this other life with the UDR.
He joined the force after serving in the RAF during the second world war - and I believe he joined the UDR to help save lives. He was older than most members and, perhaps usually for a member, he was born in County Donegal, one of the three counties of Ulster not in Northern Ireland.
His membership of the regiment put his life at risk. Bombs were frequently put under members' cars by the IRA who didn't much care about whether it was just the UDR member who was about about to get into the vehicle or whether he was also joined by his wife and children.
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I was sworn to secrecy not to tell anyone that my father was in the UDR - and I well knew the potential fatal consequences for us if I did ever blurt it out as the murders of its members were reported regularly on the news.
Dad left after a couple of years service but even to this day, I still feel uncomfortable discussing it such was the fear we lived under at that time. Indeed I probably only feel able to write about it as both my parents are no longer alive.
But I want to in order to help shed light on what living during the Troubles was like, what the Good Friday Agreement meant and why people should, in my view, avoid making rushed judgments on Northern Ireland without taking account of how life and the political relationships there have changed since the conflict ended.
I strongly agree with John Swinney that we need to "move on".
The First Minister made the remark in an interview with The Herald's Brian Taylor as he defended his plans to work with Sinn Féin, which historically operated as the political wing of the IRA during the Troubles.
But what I believe Mr Swinney's critics failed to understand is that Northern Ireland has itself worked hard to put its past behind it to advance power-sharing between nationalists and unionists in the interests of peace.
To my mind their attack on Mr Swinney's comments sends us right back to arguments voters there wanted to resolve in 1998 and absolutely do not want reignited today.
I understand the upset Mr Swinney's 'move on' comments have provoked among the families of Scottish soldiers killed in the Troubles, as my colleague Deputy Political Editor Rebecca McCurdy reports on today.
The violent death of a loved one is not ever something that is possible to move on from.
But Northern Ireland has drawn a line under its civil conflict which saw more than 3500 people killed.
It did so with the Good Friday Agreement which created new power-sharing arrangements, which included a Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive.
It was based on a series of fundamental principles, including “parity of esteem” between the Nationalist and Unionist communities.
The participation of Sinn Féin was dependent upon the “unequivocal restoration of the ceasefire of August 1994” and required a commitment to the decommissioning of weapons.
The IRA decommissioned its arms first in September 2005, followed by the loyalist paramilitary groups, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in June 2009 and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in January 2010.
Despite having previously been an IRA target while a UDR member, my father was an enthusiastic supporter of the Good Friday Agreement recognising that parties who fundamentally disagreed with one another had to work together for the wider public benefit.
He was certainly no supporter of Sinn Féin but he knew unionist compromise was needed if peace was ever to be restored in Northern Ireland.
At the time Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was opposed to the agreement.
But thankfully wiser heads won out and voters in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic backed the GFA in two referendums held on each side of the border.
Today we see Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O'Neill and the DUP Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly work together for the most part seemingly on good terms allowing people in Northern Ireland to enjoy a hard won but fragile peace.
Ms O'Neill has done much to try to be leader for all making history by attending and laying a laurel wreath at the annual Remembrance Sunday ceremony at Belfast City Hall in 2024 and 2025 and attending the King's Coronation in 2023.
And for her part too Ms Little-Pengelly has aimed to foster community cohesion, welcoming Catherine Connolly, President of Ireland, to Stormont Castle during her visit to Belfast in February this year.
So it is worrying when attempts are made to scratch open the wounds that are slowly healing in Northern Ireland.
Had political parties profoundly opposed to Sinn Fein not been prepared to move on from the past in 1998, and work together with Sinn Fein, I have no doubt the Troubles would be continuing today. People would still be killing one another and more young Scottish soldiers would be dead.
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