A remembrance of my friend and comrade Bobby Sands who died on hunger strike this week (5 May) 1981. Bobby was the first of ten republican prisoners who died in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh. The Thatcher Govt's criminalisation policy was an attempt to defeat and criminalise the political prisoners and through them the republican struggle. The republican POWs in Long Kesh and in Armagh Woman's prison faced up to this challenge and broke the British government. Their courage and tenacity in the most horrendous of conditions is inspirational.