Editing Johnny Adair (section)

==Early life==
Adair was born into an [[Ulster Protestant]] loyalist family and raised in [[Belfast]]. He grew up on the Old Lodge Road, a now mostly demolished road linking the lower [[Shankill Road]] to the lower [[Belfast Oldpark (Northern Ireland Parliament constituency)|Oldpark]] area, a site of many sectarian clashes and riots during [[the Troubles]]. The son of Jimmy and Mabel Adair, he was the youngest of their seven children, his siblings being (in age order) Margaret, Mabel, Jean, Etta, Lizzie and Archie (who was later also a UDA member).<ref>Lister & Jordan, pp. 25–26</ref>

Adair's father, Jimmy, had no involvement in [[Ulster loyalism|loyalist activities]] and maintained close friendships with a number of [[Irish nationalist|nationalists]] in the [[New Lodge, Belfast|New Lodge]] area, where he was a member of the local [[homing pigeon]] society. Jimmy continued his membership even after his son had emerged as a leading loyalist paramilitary.<ref name="Lister & Jordan, p. 27">Lister & Jordan, p. 27</ref> According to Ian S. Wood, Adair had little parental supervision and did not attend school regularly.<ref name="ianswood">{{cite book|author=Ian S. Wood|title=Crimes of loyalty: a history of the UDA|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=liiq7RU67OoC&pg=PA156|access-date=10 August 2011|date=15 June 2006|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=978-0-7486-2427-0|pages=155–56|archive-date=11 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131011083305/http://books.google.com/books?id=liiq7RU67OoC&pg=PA156|url-status=live}}</ref> However Hugh Jordan and David Lister insist that the Adairs were attentive and fairly strict parents who sent their children to [[Sunday school]]. As a child, Adair attended Hemsworth Primary School close to his Old Lodge Road home, where he was noted as an unremarkable student.<ref name="lister26">Lister & Jordan, p. 26</ref>

As he grew older Adair took to the streets, forming a [[skinhead]] street [[gang]] with a group of young loyalist friends, who "got involved initially in petty then increasingly violent crime".<ref name="ianswood"/> Members included [[Donald Hodgen]], [[Sam McCrory (loyalist)|Sam "Skelly" McCrory]], [[Jackie Thompson (loyalist)|"Fat" Jackie Thompson]], [[James Millar (loyalist)|James]] and Herbie Millar.<ref name="wood155156">Wood, pp. 155–56</ref> Adair, Hodgen, McCrory and Thompson were classmates at the Somerdale School on the [[Crumlin Road]].<ref name="Lister & Jordan, p. 27"/> Although the gang still officially attended school, they would frequently play truant, take a bus into the countryside and consume large quantities of cider.<ref name="lister28">Lister & Jordan, p. 28</ref>

The gang regularly congregated outside the [[Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes|Buffs Club]] on the corner of the Crumlin Road and Century Street, where their numbers were swollen by other young men from in and around the Shankill.<ref name="lister30">Lister & Jordan, p. 30</ref> Eventually, Adair started a [[Rock Against Communism]]-styled band called Offensive Weapon which openly espoused support for the [[National Front (UK)|National Front]].<ref name="ianswood"/>

At 17, Adair began a relationship with Gina Crossan, three years his junior and also a skinhead, who at the time had [[Skinhead#Hair|shaved her head to leave only a tuft of hair at the front]].<ref>Lister & Jordan, p. 35</ref> The notoriety of the gang, which was part of a wider group in loyalist north and west Belfast known as the "NF Skinz" because of their support for the ideas of the National Front, gained widespread notoriety on 14 January 1981 when "[[Nazi salute|Sieg Heiling]]" members launched a brutal attack on anti-racist fans of [[The Specials]] and [[The Beat (British band)|The Beat]] when the two bands played a concert at the [[Ulster Hall]].<ref>McDonald & Cusack, pp. 167–68</ref> Adair would later be assaulted by Irish republicans while attending a [[UB40]] concert.<ref name=UB40BBC>{{cite news|title=Republicans behind Adair shooting|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/333547.stm|publisher=BBC News|date=3 May 1999|access-date=16 December 2016|archive-date=5 January 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090105113757/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/333547.stm|url-status=live}}</ref>

This was followed in August 1983 by the so-called "Gluesniffers March", when 200 skinheads descended on [[Belfast City Hall]] determined to riot with [[Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament]] members who were holding a rally, with the march taking its name from the prevalence of [[solvent abuse]] among the skinheads.<ref>McDonald & Cusack, p. 169</ref> The gang was not sanctioned by the [[Ulster Defence Association]] (UDA), and led to [[South Belfast Brigadier]] [[John McMichael]] declaring that he wanted its members "run out of town".<ref name="wood155156"/> As a result, while still in his teens, Adair was threatened with [[knee-capping]] by the UDA after assaulting an old age pensioner but was given the option of joining the UDA's young wing, the [[Ulster Young Militants]], instead. He joined the Ulster Young Militants, and later the UDA – a legal loyalist paramilitary organisation which used the cover name "Ulster Freedom Fighters" (UFF) when it carried out killings.<ref name="ianswood"/>