Buster Mc Shane

[ulsterstan]

Any one remember Buster  , great body builder .

[BLOOMFIELD]

If my memory serves me right, he trained at Short's Recreation Club on the Holywood Road, I used to go there also.
It did not do me much good.

His younger brother went there also.

Mary Peters also trained there.

[ulsterstan]

Right Bloomfield he did  .

[BLOOMFIELD]

My memory of him is not very impressive.
He tended to be a very dour person, no conversation, and gave off an air of "don't even think of talking to me "

His young brother was the opposite, all fun and carry on.

I think Buster thought that we were a bunch of idiots

[BLOOMFIELD]

Stan

Please note I'm thinking back40 years.

But, I think, the dour body builder with the fun brother, might actually have been the Mc Peake brothers.

[Christopher]

Did Buster have a fine art collection in his beautiful bungalow which could be seen fron the Devil's Elbow at Craigavad? I seem to remember reading an article, complete with a picture of two, in the Tele.

I met a couple .. Alvar and Joan Young at some of the motor races. Alvar may have had some mechanicing skills .. I'm not sure about that .. maybe he took a few photographs. However I remember Joan worked in Busters

[telescopenut]

 I rembember Buster, I was at his club for a short time.I trained at Sidney Baxter's one of Buster's mates.Both men were rather short, and seemed to have chips on their shoulders, perhaps that is why they always got their suits made with large shoulder pads to accomodate the chips. But, it was always good craic and and I actually worked very hard and got great results.Alas, both Buster and Sidney have gone to the great gym in the sky.

[Christopher]

Stan

 the Mc Peake brothers.

Were those brothers related to the McPeake family of traditional music fame

[Davy R]

Robert "Buster" McShane had the gym in upper Arthur street. I worked there in the 70's and met my ex wife there. She was my future wife then of course 

[Biffo]

My memory of him is not very impressive.
He tended to be a very dour person, no conversation, and gave off an air of "don't even think of talking to me "

His young brother was the opposite, all fun and carry on.

I think Buster thought that we were a bunch of idiots

I knew Buster fairly well and always found him to be very pleasant. One memory I have was sharing a seat with him on a trolley-bus into Belfast. There was very little room for me - he was about 10 feet wide !

[four-stroke]

After a session in the gym it was customary for me to have a glass of fruit juice. I had a table to myself, the other tables being occupied. After about ten minutes Buster and Mary came and shared my table. I cannot remember any of the conversation other than he told me that like myself, he was also an ex B.B boy.I don"t remember finding him dour, quite the opposite and humourous with it. Maybe that was down to Mary--all in all, a very nice fellow.

[Seaviewite]

Any one remember Buster  , great body builder .

I think Buster was more of a Weight Lifter.
Represented Northern Ireland at a couple of Commonwealth Games. Buster did well at some lifts but his weakness was in "The Squat" which I think was one of the last lifts in the competition. Buster was usually well in medal contention until then.
Of course he really made his name as the coach of Olympic Gold Medallist, in the heptathlon,  Mary Peters.

[wilsonjohnhaire]

I knew Buster McShane back in 1950 when we were members of the Young Workers League, the youth section of the Communist Party of Northern Ireland, as it was known then. He was very active politically, which is never mentioned. He served an apprenticeship in Short & Harlands as a fitter. At the age of 21 he packed this job in to concentrate on his weight-lifting and body-building. Some have called him morose but if he was on occasions a lot of it had to do with his intense training. He used to do 48 hour fasts to clear his body. I suppose you would call it detoxing today. When he was suffering like this he would tell us and plead with us to leave him alone. I have rarely seen anyone so dedicated. He was a small man but a human crane. His strenghth was amazing yet he was placid and avoided arguments.
If there isn't a plaque set up for him in Belfast then I think there should be one. Remember the struggle to get Rinty Monaghan a plaque but we were successful in the end.
 

[ormeau bap]

I knew Buster,I worked with his wife Loretta in Scotts .He was a very nice man.

[wilsonjohnhaire]

I left for England in 1954 and lost contact with Buster but his brother came over to London and we worked together on a couple of building sites. Noel was also in the Young Workers League. Noel didn't stay long in London and went home to Belfast. I then lost contact with him. I heard he had started up buildong business. I met Buster again in the early 1970s when I was on a visit to Belfast. We had a drink in the Arts Club and talked about the times we went to the World Youth Festival which was held in Bulgaria during the 1950s, and again in Moscow. So you can see he was very political at one time. I didn't know he was married. I know he had a girlfriend back in 1954 who had won the Miss Belfast title as a teenager at the time. We went everyhere in Belfast during our political time - into the Markets, up the Falls, the Shankill, Ardoyne... knocking on doors and asking people to sign the Five Point Peace Plan, which was for world peace. Buster was accepted everywhere he went in Belfast, and that was before he became well-known. He did have charm as a young man. There was never any trouble for he hated sectarianism, as Noel did. The YWL was a mixed organisation. One day a visitor from Belfast told me had just seen on TV Buster having the biggest single pane of glass, North or South, being put into his new gymnasium. He sure made a place for himself in Belfast. Amazing to think he was as good as capitalist as he was a communist. Buster and Noel, two fine lads.