In Northern Ireland, from the late 70s to the early 90s, the IRA killed over 40 alleged informers.

But the man who often found, tortured and sometimes killed these people on behalf of the IRA

was himself an informer, a secret British army agent with the codename Stakeknife.

Who gets to play God? And why me? Why my family?

When lies are still being told to this day, who do you believe?

I wouldn't even know where to start, and I'm with the irony.

Steakknife.

Listen first on BBC Sounds.

There was a great deal of anxiety leading up to that night.

And I do recall that as the night wore on, I would rise from bed and peek out the window

and see if there's something happening in the sky.

My twin brother and I were grow quiet and listened to see if we could detect some sound of something, some indication that things had begun.

Gerald Walker was eight years old and on that night on New Year's Eve of 1971,

as he peered anxiously out of his bedroom window into the dark, he was convinced that the world was about to end.

Spoiler alert, the world didn't end, but Gerald's upbringing and the belief system, which had led him to wholeheartedly think it would, had a profound impact on the course of his life.

From the BBC World Service, I'm Asia Fuchs, and this is Lives Less Ordinary.

Gerald was raised on the south side of Chicago in the U.S.

He was one of six children and his parents were both blind, something he didn't fully understand as a child.

In the beginning, it was completely normal because we assumed all parents were blind.

Everyone else's parents couldn't see either.

I mean, when you're raised with something, you don't know it's unusual until you meet other people whose situations are different.

So I recall learning my parents for blinding from a neighbor who explained it to me, who said to me one day, isn't it weird that your parents can't see?

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