Michael Stone (loyalist) - Early Life

Early Life

Stone was born in Harborne, Birmingham to English parents Cyril Alfred Stone and his wife Mary Bridget (née O'Sullivan). Mary Bridget walked out on the marriage soon after Stone's birth and Cyril Alfred enlisted in the Merchant Navy, leaving the infant Michael in the care of John Gregg and his wife Margaret (Cyril's sister) who lived in Ballyhalbert. Stone has claimed that he suspects his biological mother may have been a Catholic because of her name but added that he was baptised in the Church of Ireland by the Greggs and as such he has always self-identified as Protestant. Cyril Stone subsequently remarried and had two children, Michael Stone's half siblings, by his second wife - Tracey and Terence - the latter of whom converted to Buddhism and became a monk in South-East Asia. The Greggs had five biological children with whom Stone was raised and whom he identifies as siblings, a son John and four daughters, Rosemary, Colleen, Sharon and Shirley.

The Greggs moved to the Braniel estate on the outskirts of Belfast in 1959 due to John Gregg securing employment with Harland and Wolff shipyard. Stone attended Braniel Primary School and Lisnasharragh Secondary School, where fellow pupils included George Best who was in the same class as Stone's sister Rosemary Gregg. Stone enrolled in the Army Cadet Force as a fourteen year old where he received basic training in firearm use. Stone was expelled from school at fifteen and a half after a series of playground fights and left Lisnasharragh with no formal qualifications. He would find work as a "hammer boy" in the shipyard only a few weeks later. However he got into a fight with another worker and, following a suspension, resigned his position.