3. Meanwhile back at home
While members of the McQuoid family served in the armed services during the Second World War others served their county on the home front, helping ensure supplies to those at the front and maintain an economy capable of welcoming those members of the forces that might return.John McQuoid was born in Willowfield Street in East Belfast in 1905 and was educated at Montpottinger Boys School, Renshaws and the Belfast ‘Tech’.
He served a five-year apprenticeship in Agnew and Brownlee, estate agents, Chichester Street.
Some fifteen years later he was appointed manager of A. E. McFarlane for a period of three years during which the principal became blind.
A promise of a partnership was never fulfilled.
In 1938, the year before war was declared, and with the help of his wife, Lily (Nee Mary Elizabeth Stewart) he opened his own estate agency on the first floor of 143 Royal Avenue, Belfast.
He was 32 years of age.
Business move
In 1960 the business moved to 45 Donegall Street with ground floor and upstairs offices and continued to grow. Sons Alastair and John joined their father and a second office, 432 Ormeau Road, was opened.Subsequentlym there were moves from Donegall Street to Chichester Street and to Donegall Square South but during the severe recession of 1989 to 1993 the City Centre office was closed and the business concentrated South of the City where it continued to prosper and the premises to enlarge.
John Snr. retired in 1975 having built, with the help of his family, one of the best-known and trusted family estate agencies in Belfast.
The reward for his labours would allow him with Lily to visit friends in far-flung places in Australia, Canada, the USA, New Zealand and South Africa.
The years 1988 to 1993, when he died, were spent quietly and happily in Holywood, County Down.
Twins Alastair and John worked together harmoniously to continue his legacy and the business survives to the present date although Alastair separated in more recent years to develop an independent career as a chartered surveyor working from Donaghadee.
Their elder brother Denis Morley, trained as a pilot, and had a successful career with British Airways. Married to an air hostess, Muriel Hayes, and now retired he lives in Horsham, West Sussex.
Keeping life normal
Two of John’s brothers, Samuel, and David, were also to help ensure that life continued as normal as possible during the course of the war.Sam, who married Vi Donaldson, joined a well-known drapery concern of James Ireland and became one of its best-known and popular agents throughout Northern Ireland before moving out on his own.
While he ensured that his customers were well-dressed, David saw to it that they were well fed driving a horse-drawn bakery cart through the hungry streets of Belfast (an act remembered by his son, Noel, when he was a passenger) before he graduated to the financial services becoming an agent for the Tower Cheque company.
He and his wife, Agnes (nee Mary Carson), settled in Dundonald, outside Belfast where they brought up two children: Samuel Lindsay, who became a Methodist minister and (in 1990, supernumerary), and Noel Caruth who, like his father, entered the financial services field.
Lindsay lives in England and Noel and wife, Joan, also adopted Holywood as their home.
Sam and Vi had two daughters and one son.
Vera Elizabeth was born in 1933 and lives in Lisburn and her sister Maureen Anne who was born in 1944 also lives in the same City.
Ian Donaldson, who became a chartered accountant, was born in 1938, and died at the early age of 62 from cancer.
