February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By John Kelly
An unlikely pair will soon share a stage in the Norwegian capital of Oslo, where they will be presented with the Nobel Peace Prize, an award that the Unionist leader, David Trimble, nervously regards as being premature. It might indeed. It certainly was when the recipients were Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams, two Northern Ireland women who led the Peace People, which vainly attempted to achieve much the same goal as Trimble and John Hume.
Hume is a lot less nervous about the prospect of success than his Unionist co-winner. The 61-year-old Derryman continues to ooze a quiet confidence about the future of the peace process. He is used to fighting against the odds.
His political career was a logical extension of his interest in the credit union movement. He saw the union as the means of breaking the poverty trap endemic in Derry in his youth. It allowed people to help themselves by pooling their cash and then drawing out loans as required at low interest rates.