"Richard" had been collecting Rangers football programmes for years. A bright 11-year-old, he talks with typical enthusiasm about his neatly stored soccer paraphernalia, built up with the help of his dad, who even took him to Ibrox Stadium in Scotland to watch his heroes in action.
"They burnt my football stuff, they stole my playstation and threw paint on my clothes," he explained in a matter-of-fact tone. They also torched Richard's house. This week he sat doodling on a colouring book in the Ulster Unionist Party advice centre on the Shankill Road, waiting for news from Housing Executive officials about where his new home will be.
He speculated as to the motives of the attackers. "They just didn't like us," he said. "Them ones don't like anybody."
He was describing one of about 40 such incidents recorded on the Shankill since last Saturday, when the feud between the UFF/UDA on the one hand and the UVF on the other escalated into a murder and eviction spree.
Many of the families targeted had links with the UFF's rival group, the UVF, or were simply seen as unsympathetic to the UFF cause. Richard said he knows who wrecked his home, that they lived on his street.
Members of three families put out of their homes in recent days were crammed into UUP councillor Chris McGimpsey's advice centre. Around a dozen children scampered noisily around the rooms, while stressed-looking parents sat smoking cigarettes and drinking tea.
Some children conducted rowdy discussions about the relative merits of the paramilitary rivals.
"Johnny Adair is stupid because he thinks he is better than everyone in the UDA/UFF put together. But he's not. None of this would have happened if he hadn't been released," said one softly spoken eight-year-old.
They talked about who was responsible for certain incidents this week. "I know them all," boasts one boy, in the way other children boast about Pokemon characters. "Even with their balaclavas on."
Among these temporarily homeless youths are boys who used to run errands for Johnny Adair, a hero for many youths in the area, and leader of the paramilitary group responsible for their current predicament.
He thought he was a big man, said a mother of her young son. You think he is the man, the mad man, don't you? Her son said nothing.
Recently Adair is said to have enlisted the help of young Shankill boys to point out to him where anti-UDA/UFF graffiti had been sprayed. He was considering driving them down the Falls Road as an extended part of this expedition but eventually changed his mind.
"It's all Prods against Prods," says one nine-year-old boy who was put out of his family home on the Shankill last Saturday by paramilitaries. "I know it is different organisations, but they should all like each other. We are all Prods. We shouldn't be fighting. The Catholics must be laughing their heads off at us."
Chipboard has taken the place of double glazing in the windows of burnt-out redbrick houses on Shankill Terrace opposite Kentucky Fried Chicken. A huge paramilitary banner was strung across the street for last Saturday's celebration of loyalist culture. "It was supposed to be a great family day out and this is what happened," says one parent.
Seven houses in the terrace were attacked. Round the corner in the mural-festooned Shankill Estate, more families returned from the local festivities to find themselves suddenly homeless.
A weary-looking Chris McGimpsey stands in the small kitchen of his advice centre, beside black plastic bags stuffed with the few remaining possessions of the families. A video, The Last of the Mohicans, sticks out from the top of one bag. He repeats his belief that in the past year there has been a rise in the recruitment of young people to the organisations responsible for such attacks.
Children as young as 14 are being recruited into the Ulster Young Militants, he says. There is a freshly-painted mural commemorating that organisation on a small bungalow at the entrance to the Shankill Estate.
"It is cowboys and Indians writ large," he says of the attraction for young people. "The situation has created a cult hero. It's like this: some kids love David Beckham and some kids love Johnny Adair. Some love both".
A community worker and local freelance journalist, Alex Crumlin, points to high levels of social deprivation in the Shankill as the reason for the enduring lure of paramilitary organisations in post-agreement Northern Ireland. "Idle hands will look for something to do," he says.
The fact that the Shankill is surrounded by nationalist areas meant people felt they were under threat, he added. "That is all part and parcel of it. . . Young people are also attracted to the myth of the whole paramilitary thing." There is a 22-year-old lying dead because of that myth, he said, in a reference to UVF-linked Samuel Rockett, shot dead this week in the feud.
For people like Crumlin, the task of trying to undo the negative image of the Shankill perpetrated by 30 years of Troubles has been made almost impossible by recent events. "Paramilitaries don't have the control over the area that outsiders perceive they have. The Shankill gets described as a terrible place to be, but it is a great place to be. This whole thing has set us back years, but the good people of the Shankill will keep on fighting together".
As people congregated on the sunny Shankill Road this week for the funeral of murdered loyalist Bobby Mahood (48), the shutters were pulled down on most shops and cafes. One of the only buildings open was the public library. Inside it was empty except for one tattooed man browsing at a paperback stand.
"I haven't been down this road since Saturday," he said. "I have only come out now to stock up on books, because there is nothing else to do. Everyone is keeping to themselves. Anything could happen. It's better to stay indoors".
Back at the advice centre Richard is also concerned. "You won't put my real name, will you?" he asks after a conversation about why he hates Johnny Adair. "Or exactly where I live?"
He is told this won't happen. His relief is clear from his quiet sigh and shy smile. Big men can have that effect on little boys.