This painting shows a vehicle checkpoint on Queen’s Bridge, Belfast, Northern Ireland. In the middle distance on the right-hand side of the picture a soldier is looking inside a car and talking to the driver before carrying out a boot and bonnet inspection. On the left two soldiers stand together keeping a look-out, one holding a riot shield, the other, a lance-corporal wearing an anti-gas respirator, holding his L1A1 self-loading rifle, mounted with an L2A1 infantry SUIT sight, to improve the identification of targets in poor light or at night.

In the background is a Humber ‘Pig’ support vehicle, a ‘Flying Pig’, so called because of the modification introduced in 1976: metal grille side-panels that looked like wings when folded up but could be pulled out at right angles for crowd control.