John McClure is the type of man who tells you to call in for a cup of tea if you're ever passing by again. He talks about coming home from bingo and turning on the Rose of Tralee.

A farmer, he wears a cap and working boots and addresses his wife, Ivy, as Mam. Wedding pictures of their five children hang on the walls of an immaculately-kept living room. Outside the two-storey farmhouse, flowers brighten up the farmyard against a backdrop of the Fermanagh countryside.

The mild-mannered 64-year-old could be seen as a prosperous man. But it was not always like this. On one day in March 1972, with his wife and five young children, he was forced to pack his belongings and leave his home and 100-acre farm close to the Border village of Garrison, for fear of his life.

As a part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment of the British army, he was a sitting target for the IRA, which at the time was launching frequent attacks across the Border.

With a ceasefire in place and the prospect of political talks, John and Ivy are now starting to think of moving back. A group called FEAR (Fear Encouraged Abandoning Roots) has been set up in Co Fermanagh to help some 20 Protestant families who left Border farms in the early 1970s. Most of them were members of the security forces.

The group has received initial support from the EU Peace and Reconciliation Fund and hopes to secure further aid.

On March 1st, 1972, a neighbour of John's, who was also in the UDR, was shot dead on his way to work by the IRA. A framed photo of a man in a suit is taken down from the front room.

"We were under a terrible lot of strain. Somebody who lived all your life beside you is after being shot. You don't know what state of mind you're in. You're in the same position and you know you could be next - you're not thinking straight."

At the time, the couple's children were aged between three and 12. One of them came home from school one day saying someone had said her father would want to watch himself, because he could be next.

"Friends were advising us to get out. They said probably the thing would settle down in a year or so and we'd be able to go back.

"The decision was taken overnight, so they came with cars and trailers and vans and we packed up our few bits of things and we moved out, and that was it. We moved out in a matter of hours."

John's father, who moved from Kiltyclogher in "the Free State" in 1942 to buy the farm, was still living there with his wife. They too moved.

Nobody even knew the family was leaving, but he says there is one thing that will always stick in his mind. They called into a shop owned by a Catholic woman as they were leaving, and she offered them money or any other help they needed.

"You see, we never had any problems with our neighbours down there, or even with neighbours across the Border, but there was just this element."

The years immediately afterwards were difficult. The house they first moved into, which was closer to Enniskillen and a safe 20 miles from the Border, did not even have an indoor toilet.

Their land was let for 14 years before John's son started farming it, travelling up and down to look after the cattle.

"I would be happy to go back. I would surely, if the ceasefire lasts, if I was sure it was permanent. That would be the only worry."

John and Ivy are Ulster Unionist supporters and they say they just hope the talks due to start next month are successful. He cannot understand unionist politicians who refuse to go into talks.

"I think they should all be in there hammering out a solution. Sinn Fein are there and that's it. They're a political party and they're representatives of the population, and therefore you have to talk to them. That's what politicians are paid for."