The Far Side of Revenge

Go! Time to go, yeah.

"Dear Mrs Gillespie, may God bless you all.

"Always, but especially at these sad times. Dublin."

"Dear Gillespie family,

"I was greatly saddened and outraged to hear that several people

"had been killed in a bomb explosion during the night."

"I was further distressed to hear of the barbaric manner

"in which Mr Gillespie was murdered.

"It was a most dreadful and obscene crime

"and I'm sure that the sorrow that you experienced

"must be almost unbearable."

"I have prayed for the repose of Mr Gillespie's soul

"and for all your intentions.

"With my sympathy and prayers. John, aged 17."

"Dear Mrs Gillespie and family,

"I have never written to anyone before like this,

"but I wanted to let you know that there are people worldwide

"who feel for you and focus their love on you."

"Having seen the horror of what the IRA have done,

"we wish to send you our condolences and wishes.

"Mr Gillespie has not died in vain.

"One day, there will be peace.

"Our father's family was killed

"in the Treblinka concentration camp in 1934.

"A sympathiser. Australia."

"Dear Kathleen,

"please accept my heartfelt sympathy at your time of great loss.

"No words can express how my heart feels for you

"as my husband was murdered this year

"in front of our two young sons, aged eight and five.

"So, like yourself and your three children, my children and myself

"are totally devastated and don't know how to carry on.

"I have found that people on both sides of the community really do care

"and, like you and me, cannot understand why people like Patsy and my husband,

"who are innocent family men, end up as victims.

"There's so many questions and no answers."

OK. Oh, God! I didn't make enough.

And I know it's hard when you get the first...read-through.

And anything that doesn't work, we'll change.

I will work with you till you're totally, totally happy.

So, we're making progress.

I'm not that interested in the story of someone's life

just for the story of someone's life.

And for me, it's always, what is the medicine in the story?

What happens is I start meeting with people

that may be possible performers and I interview them.

And I ask them often very open-ended questions.

"Tell me about your childhood.

"What was it like to be you growing up? What was it like later?"

I just sort of follow wherever they're going.

A lot of people, when they haven't seen this work, say,

"Oh, I know what you're talking about. You're doing drama therapy."

And it's never that. The point of this

is to make a full-length theatre production.

That is not the point of drama therapy.

"Patsy wasn't involved in anything to do with the Troubles,

"but he became a target for the paramilitaries because of his work.

"After his own business running mobile fruit and vegetable vans

"stopped making money, he took a job as a civilian worker

"in the kitchen at Fort George.

"The paramilitaries were putting warnings in the paper,

"but there weren't any other jobs available to unskilled labour

"and Patsy was just trying to support his family."

When Patsy was taken away from here, he was taken across the border.

He was on the other side of the Coshquin checkpoint

and he approached the checkpoint.

He obviously was following instructions as to what he had to do.

Patsy knew that they were armed gunmen

left in the house here with me and the weans,

and Patsy would've done anything for us.

I think he would risk his own life

before he would let anything happen to us.

Patsy was chained to the van

and obviously knew that he would never get free.

He drove into the search bay at the checkpoint.

The van was detonated by remote control.

He must've only had a few seconds.

He shouted his warning and then...then the explosion.

EXPLOSIVE BLAST

There was five soldiers killed as well as Patsy.

Pure hatred.

I just couldn't bear the thought...that human beings

could actually sit down and plan such a horrific thing.

It was so meticulously planned.

I was living on hatred and anger and just wanting to do something.

I didn't want revenge or anything like that.

I mean, I certainly don't believe in forgiveness.

How do you forgive somebody that does something like that to you?

Now, let's take our deep breaths. ALL INHALE SHARPLY

Let's do it twice more.

I just wanted to just talk a little bit about process.

Well, it's more or less...what I expected, you know.

Adding the letters is a wonderful inspiration by you.

I thought that was... It was nice to have them included.

There may be some things we want to cut. I don't know. Yeah.

It's long, but as I was working with it, it was hard to know what to cut,

because it feels all part of it. It all feels important to me.

Other people, feed back what you want to say. How are you feeling?

It's just really, really inspirational, the way in which you've dealt with it.

It feels such an honour to know you and the person.

And for me being witness to you

and how you've come through it is a part of my journey, even being in this, you know.

Thank you for the strength and the inspiration... Thank you.

..that you bring to it.

Although I remember it all being on the news and all,

through meeting Kathleen and hearing it from Kathleen, I mean you couldn't...

It was just, "That's terrible! That's terrible!"

but with meeting Kathleen and hearing all the details...

As I say, it's sad, but it's beautiful.

She says that you've told your story a million times.

You're so brave reading it...

and you're going to be reading it again and again and again

and I can't see that it gets any easier at all.

The way it's written, Teya, everything is in there

and it's so concise and it's everything... You can see you in it.

The letters, it's a great touch, because you're in...

Whatever about the rest of the world, you're in our hearts now as well and we all feel for you.

Can I give you a hug?

Thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you!

KATHLEEN SOBS

Thank you.

And it's great for us to be a part of that as well,

to get the opportunity to read those letters for you.

In the beginning part,

I have people tell their stories to the group,

usually just one person at a time,

and I sort of set up the rules for us to just listen.

"I was an ordinary little girl

"growing up off the Shankill Road in the 1960s.

"I dreamed of getting married one day and living in my own house.

"I decorated that house in my mind for years.

"Outside, it was going to have an old-fashioned street lamp and pump, painted black with gold trim.

"Inside, three bedrooms, a real-leather suite and an indoor toilet.

"It would have a garden out back with slides and swings for the children to play."

And as you read it, Catherine, can you read it like you're talking?

This is just a tool, but it's a tool that you want to...

It's sort of like the raft going across the river,

you want to get to the other side of the river and then you want to throw away the raft.

You don't need it any more. Yes. Just as if you're sitting talking here when you say it? Exactly.

Like, just say, just now, just as a joke.

"I was an ordinary girl growing up off the Shankill Road in the 1960s

"and I dreamed of getting married one day and living in my own house."

Just those two things. I was an ordinary girl

just growing up off the Shankill Road in the 1960s

and I dreamed of getting married, having my own house.

Yeah. Keep going. And I could... I decorated that house in my dreams.

And I'd have a lovely leather suite

and out the back I would have a garden with slides and swings for the children.

And what was the most important thing you had? The outside toilet?

Indoor toilet. The indoor! Oh, no! ALL LAUGH

No, it had an outside toilet. But this was in your dream.

Oh, so I have to... Oh, right.

I'll work with you for five minutes and we'll work it out.

ALL LAUGH Well done.

APPLAUSE

Otherwise, you'll be the only one I know

who dreams of an outdoor toilet. ALL LAUGH

Half the audience is going to be able to relate to that.

You know what I mean? Especially ones that are our age. Yeah.

Oh, our age? ALL LAUGH

We had an outdoor toilet, I remember it well.

I was always within my own community.

I was always with the Protestant community.

Went to Protestant school.

And you just didn't go out of your own area,

you stuck with your own community.

I was about 13-and-a-half when the Troubles started.

We lived between the Falls Road and the Shankill Road

and there was just the wall of the mills separated the two.

You knew that the people on the other side of that wall...weren't the same as you, you know?

This was your feeling.

I just can remember men in a lorry coming down and just throwing bricks, bottles at the houses.

They came with petrol bombs one night.

I don't think I liked Catholics very much at that time, at that age, like, 14 years of age.

MARCHING BAND PLAYS

I just loved the 12th of July.

I just loved all the parades. It was a real carnival atmosphere.

I just always loved the tradition of bands. I mean, my father was in a band and...I joined a band.

I wanted to be British. I wanted to remain part of Britain.

Anywhere I could be to demonstrate that, that's where I was.

Three years after I was married, I had my first son.

When I was pregnant with him,

I was out on a lunch break from work one day

and we'd gone to the Wimpy cafe.

And two girls came in and actually planted a bomb almost at my feet.

EXPLOSION

SIRENS BLARE

I heard the explosion a few minutes after we'd got out of the cafe.

because with working in the city centre, there were bomb scares all the time.

And the windows...I remember them being blown in

and then where I worked they got reinforced glass and stuff in.

But when people were running frantic when bombs had gone off,

we would've brought them in

and I could've made them tea to try and settle them down.

But after the incident in the Wimpy, I totally...

I couldn't have done anything like that.

I really went to pieces after that.

When I remarried, I had two more children.

But after the birth of my daughter, I took postnatal depression.

THUNDER RUMBLES

I didn't know what was happening to me,

I just thought my head was going away.

Everything was a problem to me.

Then I wouldn't go out of the house.

And then I kept my blinds closed.

And then when people didn't call to see me, I blamed people. "Nobody cares."

Even family were saying, "Snap out of it! Snap out of it!"

But...I just didn't know what to snap out of.

I want us to stand up. Yeah.

You carry the bowl and it's usually that...

'I always need to know how much can people tolerate,

'with the hope that the audience comes to bear witness,

'to see the other as self.

'To recognise themselves in each person,

'especially in somebody that's telling a story about being a perpetrator.

'It's easier in some ways to identify with a survivor.'

"I was 13 when the hunger strikes began

"and that was all anyone talked about.

"I could've told you the names and times of death

"of each of the hunger strikers.

"When I was 13, I acted and was far older than I should've been.

"I fancied all the boys running around in balaclavas and throwing petrol bombs.

"The IRA were our saviours, our heroes, our protectors.

"In my eyes, they could do no wrong."

Born in Derry, brought up in Derry.

There was always stuff going on. There was always riots,

there was always shootings, there was always bombings.

I was getting police and soldier harassment.

whether I knew it or not, of things that were going on.

Then in 1972, Bloody Sunday happened.

GUNSHOTS

My mother's brother, Michael McDaid, was killed on Bloody Sunday.

He was one of the ones that was shot at the barricades.

When he was shot, it went through his cheek, hit off his jawbone and ricocheted down through his heart.

And then he was thrown into the back of a Land Rover with two other fellas and he wasn't dead.

He ended up suffocating with the other bodies too.

GUNSHOT

I'd been going to marches and demonstrations.

I had been to numerous funerals over the years.

I'd known lots of people that were killed in the Troubles.

Two from Cable Street...

but all those boys used to hang round the bottom of the street.

Erm...and I knew them all.

It's hard to watch men cry,

but it was hard to watch all those boys fall apart so badly.

I remember the sadness. I remember knowing that there was something wrong.

I just absorbed everything and took it all so serious

and I lived it day by day.

I became involved in the IRA at the age of 18.

I was asked by a friend of mine to join up

and at the time I didn't know what he was asking me,

but when I realised that he was actually asking me to join up,

I knew straightaway that I would say yes.

I didn't think that I would ever end up involved in the IRA,

cos I didn't think that maybe I was good enough

or because I was a woman.

But when that opportunity came,

I felt that they obviously thought that I was good enough.

And from that day on, I started going to the usual meetings

and the swearing-in...and ended up becoming a quartermaster.

I was a wee bit...anxious about hearing your story.

Wondering how I would react to it, you know.

And...in a way, I feel...

..I don't know, feeling sorry for you is not the right way to express it,

but I just feel that maybe you were misguided a wee bit.

That's my feeling.

'Teya told me who to expect to be in the play,

'but, obviously, I had to meet them before I realised whether I could work with them or not.

'So we went on a residential and that was like a bonding thing.

I knew who she was and I nodded at her and she nodded back.

And...I was physically shaking,

physically shaking and close to tears and thinking,

"Right, how's this going to go?"

It was strange sitting there wondering, "Which one's the IRA woman now?

"Which one's the IRA woman?" SHE LAUGHS

And then we started telling bits of our stories

and Anne started saying...

And she looked straight at me, you know, and I thought, "All right, this is her. This is her."

So when I was telling my story, I was physically shaking

and I was conscious of every time I mentioned anything about the Provos,

that this woman was sitting beside me and I couldn't turn round

to see how she was reacting or how she was feeling.

By the end of me telling all these women what I could of my story,

the tears were running down my cheeks.

I turned around to Kathleen

and she just put her arms around me and gave me a big hug.

And...she cried and I cried

and I thanked her and she told me it was OK.

And I couldn't believe it.

Hi, Maria. LAUGHTER

Wow! LAUGHTER

'Maria...she's a serving police officer.

'And being a serving police officer now

'means that basically you could potentially be a target.

'There are death threats out on police.

'And so anywhere she goes, something could happen to her or those around her.'

What she has said is she's willing to take that risk herself,

but she's not willing to be in a crowd where something could happen to somebody else.

And because this is very public and if she was performing live,

anyone would know where the next performance was going to be and if they wanted to do something,

she would be a good candidate.

So she chose...in a gruelling decision for her and for all of us,

not to perform live.

How I got involved in Theatre of Witness,

it all started with Teya's first production of We Carried Your Secrets,

And I was supportive of him

and the work that he had to put in that was involved in it.

Teya just told me about her plans for this production.

The more I knew about it and the more she told me about it

and how it was going to be structured and just generally chatting to her,

before I knew it, she had me hooked. SHE LAUGHS

GENERAL CHATTER

'It is about Maria Murphy growing up as a child,

'just my background, significant things compiled to make my story.'

The whole thing head to toe.

Action. 'I came from a single-parent family, just growing up with that,

'just with my mum and my sister, but always in the background just wondering how my dad was,

'what he was thinking, where he was, was he thinking about me?

'Was he thinking about us?

'All the incidents that have taken place over the years in my life

'have actually been stepping stones

'to the career that I have chosen now.

'Being a neighbourhood officer, you have that wee bit of freedom

'to get involved in the different groups that are in your communities.

'You do get to know people that wee bit better.

'So I know their backgrounds. They know me and I know them.

'You're going to a call and you already know what the history

'is there and what's making people tick.'

I remember a call.

It was a potential suicide and I took this grown man by the hand.

"What's going on in your head tonight?

"What's so bad that can't be sorted?

"Come downstairs with me and we'll talk."

I noticed he had a Miraculous Medal pinned to his jumper.

"Ah, your wee Miraculous Medal."

He said, "You know what that is?"

"Yes, I do. And your guardian angel is with you tonight."

And he was.

You did that really, really well, so you did.

That all came together just nicely.

Well, Robin Young, he's my rock,

if you can get him in there in the background.

Oh, and he's modest too.

Robin's my partner and, yeah, he'd been involved in the first...

in the cast of the first production.

'I am Robin Young.'

'The reason why I'm not here with you in person today

'is because I'm a serving police officer

'and for some people, my uniform can become the cause for an attack.'

Teya contacted me and she actually... She used the words,

"A wonderful thing has happened."

And when I contacted her, she said,

"Listen, Patsy Gillespie's widow, Kathleen,

"was in the audience and she heard what you had to say

"and she was wondering if she could meet you?"

'Her husband Patsy's story was named and spoken about in the script,

'because Robin, who was on the body recovery team,

'had been called to that case and had spoken about it.'

'I started from 300 yards away and slowly moved in.

'We fanned out in a circle, each taking a triangular-shaped wedge

'in towards the middle of the huge crater.

'The place was littered with human body parts.'

I go out to Patsy's grave and I put flowers on the grave and whatever.

And all these years, I've been thinking to myself,

"Maybe Patsy's not even there."

I don't know who's in there, because I feel more affinity at Coshquin than I do at the actual cemetery,

cos I think, maybe Patsy's still

lying around here somewhere or bits of him or whatever.

Massive explosions create massive trauma to the body.

BIRDSONG

Within an hour or so, we realised that what had happened was...

It was called a human bomb and that's effectively what it was.

I spoke to this policeman and I said,

"Can you tell me, is there a possibility

"that...bits of the soldiers are in Patsy's coffin?"

'We knew that there'd been an armoured personnel carrier

'actually sitting static inside the checkpoint.

'Of course, the whole place was levelled at that stage,

'but I can remember working my way through the rubble of the building

'and...I lifted a brick...

'underneath was a human heart.

'And that was all that was left of whoever had been unfortunate enough

'to be standing there when the bomb went off.'

'The heart could've been Patsy's.

'Naturally enough, there was six killed that night, but who's to say?

'Kathie would've had issues with, how could she know who was in the coffin?

'Bearing in mind that her husband and a lot of other people had been involved in the explosion.

'And we could at least discuss that and at least be honest

'and say things weren't as advanced as they are now,

'but, hand on heart, people would've been... They would've identified him to the best of their ability.'

'He said "Kathleen, 20 years ago, the DNA wasn't what it is now,

'"so probably it was just distributed into the six coffins."'

So that was fine by me, because it confirmed that I wasn't going crazy.

Cos I would stand at the grave, thinking,

"Am I praying to you, Patsy, or am I praying to all these soldiers?"

Which I didn't mind. I mean that's fine, I pray for the soldiers anyway

and I put flowers down at Coshquin for them at the anniversary.

But I just needed it clear in my head

that I was praying not for Patsy alone but for the soldiers as well.

And that's what I got clear that day. And it was like...

just another thing, another weight getting taken away from me,

something else that I didn't have to worry about any more.

So now I know and that's fine.

Thank you for everything coming together,

and even though Teya's worried about it, we can see an ending.

We can see all the good work that she's done and how she's keeping true to all of us.

Thank you.

(I'm not worried about it.) THEY LAUGH

I'm not worried at all, I'm just...watching it. SHE LAUGHS

And in love. ALL LAUGH

And so...

Yes!

"As it was written, there was a famine in the land of Bethlehem.

"Naomi and her husband Elimelech journeyed to Moab with their sons."

'One day, Ruth, after a very tumultuous session, she said,

'"You know, if I could just tell my story like the story of the Book of Ruth..."'

And I went, "What did you just say?!

"Why can't you do that? Let's do that."

And she went, "Really?!"

"Naomi who was left bereft..."

'When I kind of considered the stories of some of the other women that were taking part in the project,

'it really felt like I didn't have a story.

'I wasn't really sure what it was that I wanted to give voice to.

'I think the story of Ruth to me is a story of loyalty.

'It's where a woman has lost her husband

'and her mother-in-law has lost her husband because of a famine.

'And she decides to stick with her mother-in-law and return to her mother-in-law's land.

'So she leaves her own people...and she journeys into an unknown.

'But also the story develops into one

'of enormous kind of kindness that people show to each other

'and kindness towards a stranger in their midst.'

Ruth, you're going to have to slow way, way, way down, cos...

TEYA'S VOICE FADES

I was called Ruth and I was kind of reflecting on the biblical Ruth.

I suppose I come from a Christian, evangelical family background

and that was quite a structured kind of life.

My dad was an elder in the Free Presbyterian Church.

Ian Paisley represented them and was a voice for some of their own kind of thoughts and fears.

And for me, it just seems to present such a challenge for us in Northern Ireland.

You know, where you grew up and mixed marriages had been so taboo,

selling land between us and Catholics and vice versa was so taboo.

I can remember at one point, probably in my 20s,

really struggling with some attitudes maybe even within my family.

Our family were also very politically aware, politically engaged.

Because it was a border area and a border community,

I became very aware of kind of the divisions

and I became aware of people around me kind of feeling targeted and under threat.

The experience was that actually the Protestant community was under attack.

I kind of had this yearning of wanting to be like the biblical Ruth.

Whilst we kind of grow up with these stories and understand them,

it was like, "How do you understand that in your everyday life?

"In what way can that be a kind of guiding principle?

"What does it mean? What it does mean for my own life?

"What does it mean for us in Northern Ireland?

"What does it mean in terms of the relationships between people and communities here?"

I can remember the moment when I decided that I wanted to leave Northern Ireland.

It felt like that there just was no choice and...crammed in.

I mean, I really did feel like you lived in a box.

I suppose in some ways, like, my story is a story of escape.

MARCHING BAND PLAYS Except you can't actually escape.

I struggled around what I saw as sort of a script

for a woman growing up within a kind of evangelical community.

What do you do? Do you deny yourself? Deny your family? Deny those people?

Take the ciggies. Where do we go for the...smokies?

Oh, there we go for the smokie.

Out there and then pull up the...

Do you know, I meant to bring the script with me but forgot.

I'm going back to practise. Yeah.

Like quarter past seven. Anne's rushing for herself then.

Eh? You're rushing to get your own make-up on.

You're doing everybody else's make-up and then you have your own to do.

Now? You could do mine too, cos I don't care.

We probably won't need any, like, but... Yes, we do.

Why did you say, "No, you don't"?

We all do! We all do! Stage make-up? Right. Yeah.

Smokes out here. All right.

CHATTER

When I young, I wanted to be a gymnast, a dancer, a PE teacher,

but I couldn't read when I went to school and I thought I was stupid.

But when I danced I felt alive and free.

Do you want me to go on? Yeah, yeah. THEY LAUGH

"Do you want me to go on?" I've given you five words, shall I give you ten?

The Troubles started when I was seven.

We lived off the Shankill Road.

Back then Protestants and Catholics would play together.

We would go to their bonfires and parties and play wee games on the street. OK, OK.

So let's take it from the first... from where you're going to your grandmother's.

So we're just going to run the music.

But I once knew a girl who claimed back her life.

Who learned to say, "No!" MUSIC PLAYS

Even when her world was dark, she never stopped imagining,

who got help and support and found out she wasn't alone.

I am that girl.

Therese Parker McCann, a woman of strength.

Wonderful.

Well, I thought I was...the invisible one.

I was always doing things to make my mummy happy.

I just wanted her to love me.

and getting them out to school, I was helping her and she'd be happy and love me.

But she never ever praised me or nothing.

But I always kept doing this, I did, just to make her happy,

cos she always looked so sad.

My mummy's brother always lived with us,

because we hadn't much money at the time and when he stayed with her,

he would give her money to keep, to pay for food and stuff.

So that's the reason she let him stay there.

She would go to bingo and I would be at the gymnastic club

and I would come home and he was always there.

And he was always touching me and kissing me

and doing things and giving me money.

I was 11.

I just went into my own wee world.

I'd go home and go up the stairs and play with my dolls.

I would just go into my fantasy world.

My fantasy world where I was safe, where I knew nobody could hurt me.

I loved the fairy tales, loved angels.

My marriage broke down because of it.

I couldn't have my husband touching me or coming anywhere near me, it just brought back all memories.

I was having nightmares after nightmares.

I told him about it, but he didn't understand and...we just drifted apart.

I met a man, went through domestic violence for seven, eight years with him.

And I finally got away from him, like, but had a wee girl to him.

And...it was hell. Real hell.

I met Therese over at Newpin, which is a community programme

for women who have really...been abused or have had problems raising their children,

who really have issues of self-esteem.

Teya came over and I was...I'm very quiet

and all the other women were all talking

and I said, "I'd love to do this."

But I just sat there and the women were all talking away to Teya

and I said if, I don't open my mouth I'm not going to..."

But I looked at Teya and Teya looked at me and, I don't know, I just felt something from her.

We were sitting at a kitchen table and I said,

"If anybody would like to meet with me individually before we meet as a group, I'm open to that."

And Theresa raised her hand.

And then she told me when we did meet that she never speaks in a group.

She had never spoken in a group.

She'd been going ten years, she never spoke in the group

And something, I don't know, I think she saw in me

something about her mother.

Something happened, I don't know what it was, we just clicked.

I says, "God, if I don't speak up, how am I going to do this?"

Then, when I spoke to her later on,

she said to me, "When you asked me to go individual," she says,

"I wanted you to say that, there.

"I was hoping that you would speak to me."

She said, "Because I just seen something in you."

Then, when I met with all the other women,

it was an instant bond, but the trust was just there.

When we met we just opened up to each other

and I thought I would never, ever do this.

I spoke in a group for the first time in my life

and told my story, and they listened to me.

And nobody interrupted or talked over you

and I think that's what gave me the confidence to talk.

Everybody has messed up. No, it's brilliant.

I never thought my story meant anything, or...

felt anything to anybody.

Nobody seemed to care about me.

And all these people in this one room

were all showing this love and care

and I felt...I felt loved for the first time.

Really loved.

I like your leggings.

Yeah, I'm wearing them. Haven't brought my shoes.

Did you get new leggings, Anne?

I did, aye. They're good. Oh, aye, those are lovely.

But I think they might still be dark.

No, they're not as dark as the other ones.

Not exactly white, now, are they?!

I think he says khaki. I was like, "What's khaki?"

OK, could people go look at your props

and make sure your litter's in the right place,

your mops, your brooms, your...

'I don't have a real clear picture, ever.

'I don't all of a sudden go, "Oh, this is what it's going to look like

'"from beginning, middle and end." It's sort of like stitching a quilt,

'little by little, it kind of reveals itself.

'But, since doing this since 1986 when I started,

'I can say I trust the process.'

So, um, Peter you're all set and ready.

I don't know where all the cues are so, I mean I, er...

And if we turn the lights out I won't really be able to see.

It's too soon, but keep going,

we'll never get over - we're still in the first page.

All right, so then we go from the blackout.

OK, let's stop for a second. MUSIC PLAYS

Could somebody turn the music off for a minute?

Um, it's just everybody should've been clearing their own stuff

off the stage. Their bowls. Er...

And not putting them behind you, but taking them off, and who...?

Aye, from "The Four Corners."

Yeah, OK. So, let's just take it from "The Four Corners."

MUSIC PLAYS

The psychiatrist got me talking. Put me on tablets.

I met regularly with the psychiatric nurse

and joined a counselling group.

The burden of untold stories began to lift.

Right, OK, let's stop.

Um, I think the music was supposed to cut off a long time ago.

So, everybody's ready?

Have fun.

You did great for a first run through with this.

We'll meet - what time is it now?

It's, um... Quarter past seven. It's ten after seven, yeah.

So, it, um...7:25 - or 7:30, I'll meet you in the green room, OK?

I couldn't make healing happen if I wanted to make healing happen.

Healing happens on its own.

We all heal in different ways and different times.

I think that the process of doing this work opens people up

and something naturally happens.

And also, hopefully be inspired to make whatever changes they want

in their own lives to get back in touch with what's important,

who do they could care about? What do they love?

What do they want to do in their life before they die?

It's been heartbreaking that we had to put her part on film,

um, because Maria... Ah, she adds so much to the group.

Hey!

Oh, Maria!

Hello!

Everything's OK.

On the question about whether people are ready,

in a post-conflict society to tell their stories,

I, first of all, really believe people are always ready

to tell their stories -

in the right environment, given the right circumstances.

People don't reveal more than they want to reveal.

You know, sometimes people say to me, "Don't you worry

"that you're going to open up something really awful

"or really hard?"

And people don't open up unless, in fact, they want to open it.

What they do need to know is that you won't be scared

by what they open up.

That you are not going to find it unbearable.

That they can say whatever they need to say, and it will be OK.

I've had a few projects in my life

where I've had a group that's as wonderful as this group,

but very, very few.

Less than on one hand.

This group, there's such deep love between them

and they have so much fun and they're just a riot together,

and they miss each other on the days they don't see each other.

Should we go?

# When I was just a little girl

# I asked my mother, what will I be?

# Will I be pretty?

# Will I be rich?

# Here's what she said to me

# Que sera, sera

# Whatever will be, will be

# The future's not ours to see

# Que sera, sera

# What will be, will be. #

I look back at the dreams that I had as a little girl growing up.

I did get married and get my first home.

But it was a wee two-up, two-down, just like I'd come from.

No old-fashioned street lamp and pump and no inside toilet.

But I decorated that outside one with paint and paper

and I made it look as modern as I could.

I loved that wee house.

As a young girl I hadn't yet lived enough to realise

the power of dreams.

The dream of letting go of bitterness.

The dream of raising three children and two grandchildren,

with none of them involved.

The dream of being a woman, a mother and a grandmother.

I'm proud of what I have done with my wee life.

One particular night I was called to man an explosives device.

That day I'd had a really sore head and I didn't want to do this -

not because my head was sore,

but I had been a quartermaster running guns and explosives.

I'd never been directly involved in having to kill somebody -

and that's what they were asking me to do.

I never said no.

When I went to meet the fella that was doing the job with me,

I was glad it was him.

He was a good comrade, a good friend, treated me all right,

and while we were waiting for the patrol to pass,

I really, really had to go to the toilet.

He says, "Anne, you'd better go. I don't want any accidents here."

"I'll only be two seconds."

There was a pub down the road - I went down to the pub.

Went to the bathroom, back out again.

There was steps for me to climb up and as I was climbing those steps,

there was a God-awful pain in my head.

It was as if somebody had hit me in the head with a hammer.

I got round to him and he said,

"Jesus, Anne, what's happened to you?"

"I don't know, my head's a bit sore."

"You'd better go home."

"I'm not going anywhere, I'm staying here with you."

But within a couple of minutes, I was throwing my guts up.

"Anne, you have to go.

"Don't worry about this, I'll look after it.

"It doesn't look like they're coming anyway." And he made me go.

It transpired that I had had a brain haemorrhage

and ended up needing full brain surgery.

My father spent the whole night in hospital with me

holding my hand, watching me throwing up blood,

not knowing whether I was going to live or die.

And the life that I was leading, I could have ended up dead.

Bullets, bombs. I could've ended up life imprisonment.

How hard would it have been for my daddy to hold my hand then?

And I believe that God works in mysterious ways.

It was one hell of a mysterious way to get me out of that situation.

The Brits were never going to come that night,

because an informer had informed on the whole thing.

What would have happened

was that we would've been lifted, shot, arrested.

They knew we were there.

The Brits were never going to come that night and I'm glad.

Because even though I wanted to be part of the cause

and the justice of setting Ireland free,

it was never in me to go so far down that road.

It was never in me to be that type of person.

Is it really in any of us?

Each stair...

..was like for ever.

Just when I put my hand on the handle of the door,

that's when he grabbed me.

I kept closing my eyes, saying, "I want go home.

"I want to go home."

Then he said to me I could go home

Then he told me not to tell anybody.

Something bad was happening.

Something dark and so scary.

That's where I would go into my pretend world, where I was safe.

Nobody could hurt me.

The world of fairy tales and angels.

Where I could be anybody I wanted, like the Little Mermaid, Cinderella.

I loved beautiful dresses. I loved dolls. Antique furniture.

The smell of old wood. Fairies and angels.

I love their wee wings.

In my dreams, I put out my arms, rise up into the air.

I'm dancing. I'm flying free.

I go back to my roots and I take a new look at the Old Testament.

I'm drawn to an ancient story written between 900 and 500 BC.

It's one of the few biblical stories written about women.

It's a story of land, love and loyalty.

The story of my biblical namesake, Ruth.

As it was written, there was a famine in the land of Bethlehem.

Naomi and her husband Elimelech and the two sons journeyed to Moab.

There Elimelech died and the two sons took on Moabite brides.

Chilion married Orpah and Mahlon married Ruth.

They dwelled there for another ten years and the two sons also died.

Naomi, who was left bereft of her husband and her two sons,

entreated her daughter-in-laws.

"Return to your own mothers,

"and may God grant you that you may find rest,

"each of you in the house of her husband."

Orpah agreed, but Ruth cleaved to Naomi and wept.

"Entreat me not to leave you - or to return from following after you.

"Wherever you go I will go. Where you lodge I will lodge.

"Your people shall be my people. And your God, my God.

"Where you die, I will die. And there will I be buried."

Now, the hardest thing for me

was to try and contact my son in England

before he saw it on the news.

"Sure, you know I've got me ticket, Ma,

"I'm coming home in December."

"Aye, but I need ye to come home now."

"Why?"

"I'll tell ye when I get ye home."

"I'm not coming home until you tell me why."

That's the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life

was to tell my son on the phone that they'd murdered his daddy.

I can still hear him screaming,

"I'll kill those bastards."

I wanted to identify the body at the mortuary

but all they said was, "I'm sorry Mrs Gillespie.

"The coffin's closed."

"Dear Mrs Gillespie, thank you for talking with us

"yesterday in your time of grief.

"As an experienced journalist it was unexpectedly honouring

"to witness your sorrow.

"Hopefully someone, somewhere, will have been so touched by your words,

"that they might turn away from violence.

"My deepest sympathy is with you and your family.

"A journalist, Derry."

Now, 20 years have passed,

and I continue my work with ex-combatants.

I'm still fighting my case for justice and I won't give in.

My family have grown now,

and I have four beautiful grandchildren.

My eldest son wears his daddy's wedding ring,

which he had left on the window sill that night.

I can feel Patsy on my shoulder, getting special people to me,

to help and guide me through.

He's always there giving me strength.

When I was picking Patsy's headstone,

I wanted to write on it, "Murdered by the IRA."

But instead I had them engrave the words,

"Lord, may he be an instrument of Your peace."

I pray he did not die in vain.

APPLAUSE

You're all right. You're all right.

I know, it just feels bad.

Ruth, I left out half of mine.

You did! LAUGHTER

Aw, come here. Come here, all of yous.

Mwah!

It was fantastic.

It was fantastic, and you were fantastic.

And you were fa... All of you. All of you.

# Que sera, sera... #

ALL: # Whatever will be, will be

# The future's not ours to see

# Que sera, sera

# What will be, will be. #

LAUGHTER She sings it better.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd