Did you have any early memories of writing as a child?
No. Basically what happened, in 1974 I was knocked down and that put me into a coma for 3 months. I lost my memory. When I came out of the coma, I didn’t even know my mother and father. Nothing. I was a blank slate. The only person I remembered was my granny, for some strange reason.
I had a bad head injury, and I lost all my childhood memories previous to that. From there, all I can remember is walking out of my Ma’s front door and seeing petrol bombs and cars on fire. A car had just exploded. It was the middle of a riot. I could hear the baton rounds being fired. And my Ma pulled me in to the house. I didn’t know who I was or what this was. I could see the fear on my, new found, Ma’s face.
Everything seemed based on anger and rage. I didn’t go to school, I didn’t have any common sense, I had lost that, and so I did crazy things. I electrocuted my brother and set him on fire, things like that. I had to learn everything all over again.
New Lodge, Belfast – 1977
That sounds like a very difficult situation to recover from?
My Ma had three jobs and eight kids so you were left to your own devices. I started sniffing glue, and rioting all the time. When my Ma used to say I had to go to school, it was almost easier to keep me off because if you put me on on a bus I’d probably set it on fire. I just had no common sense.
What age were you when you were knocked down?
I was about 9 when I got knocked down and I was in hospital for about 10 months, altogether. I was 11 years of age when I was in Primary 1 and I was learning how to read and write and my brother was a year younger than me and he was in Primary 6.
I was the same size as the teacher and all the kids thought I was a giant. I even thought I was a giant. I didn’t know there was any difference between me and the other kids. I just thought I was the same age as the kids I was in the class with.
So no education to speak of?
No. My brothers John and Martin, they went to school, they were smart, but me and Kieran, my younger brother, we were a lost cause. He was my sidekick or I was his sidekick and we got in lots of trouble.
How does this all end up?
What happened eventually was that a girl that I knocked about with saw something different in me, saw something that nobody else saw, because most people would say to keep away from me. They would say that I was mad, crazy. But we got together, we were best friends, kissed at 15, moved in together at 18 and were married at 20. We had a lifetime together and I nursed her for 15 years through cancer.
Did you work? Did you have a job?
I had a wonderful life with my wife. I had kids, I had jobs. I was working near enough my whole life. I had a job in The Felons as a barman when I was 13. I joined the Merchant Navy. I was in there for 12 years. I had about 100 Doormen working for me in the town at one time. I had a phone shop, Fix a Phone. I was one of the first people to open up a phone repair shop in the town.
I always had a good head on me that way. I think I just didn’t like being told what to do so going to school didn’t suit me. My Ma and da couldn’t tell me what to do.
I stopped drinking when my daughter was born, so I was off drink and drugs for more than 20 years. I did have a good life.
What shifts that situation?
My wife was in the terminal stage of cancer, and she thought I was poisoning her. She had 26 tumours in her brain, we didn’t know this at the time, she was really sick and she thought I was trying to kill her. She was telling the kids this and that made things very difficult, and she finally said she didn’t feel safe with me in the house, so she asked me to leave.
I left the house, took a mental breakdown and ended up in hospital. They were going to section me and they were going to call the police and as soon as I heard that I was off. I ended up living on the streets, begging. My mind just went, like a flick of a switch, I just can’t explain it. I used to go around cafés at closing time to get food, would try to get cigarettes from people. I was in a really bad way.
Through all of this you ended up in jail?
I was drinking and taking drugs again. My Pharmacist asked me if I could get her Cocaine. I didn’t know where to get it and so I asked my brother. We got her the Cocaine and she got busted by the cops. She squealed on me and my brother and I got 5 years, she got 2 years and my brother got 2 years.
My wife passed away, I had actually managed to get myself back home, and she died in June and I went to jail the following July. I was still grieving when I went to jail and I was really struggling. I went to Maghaberry and then was moved to Magilligan.
What happens in jail?
I guy called Glen Smith said to me that I should get into Creative Writing and I said I had never read a book in my life. There was a class and it was run by Pamela Brown, who works with the Prison Arts Foundation, and I don’t know what she did to me but I started writing.
At one point I started talking about my childhood and I was saying how great it was and she was suggesting that it wasn’t a normal childhood. But I thought it was. So maybe we started to think there was a story there. So I went to the classes and I started writing and I just wrote and wrote and wrote.
