0:00:02 > 0:00:04TRAIN THUNDERS
0:00:21 > 0:00:25# I was born by the river... #
0:00:26 > 0:00:28My name is Sam McAughtry.
0:00:28 > 0:00:32I live in Comber. I am five feet ten and a half inches tall,
0:00:32 > 0:00:34with these shoes on!
0:00:35 > 0:00:42#..Ever since It's been a long
0:00:42 > 0:00:46# It's been a long time coming But I know
0:00:46 > 0:00:49# The train's gonna come. #
0:00:51 > 0:00:56I work writing books and writing plays and writing short pieces for the newspapers.
0:00:56 > 0:01:02Also, writing insulting things on the computer and then deleting it!
0:01:02 > 0:01:04I also write sexy things on the computer
0:01:04 > 0:01:07and then delete it like the clappers before the wife comes up!
0:01:09 > 0:01:16# Beyond the sky It's been a long...
0:01:16 > 0:01:21# A long time coming But I know
0:01:21 > 0:01:22# The train's gonna come
0:01:22 > 0:01:26# Oh, yes, it will
0:01:28 > 0:01:30# I go... #
0:01:30 > 0:01:33Sam McAughtry may be one of Northern Ireland's
0:01:33 > 0:01:35most successful writers and storytellers,
0:01:35 > 0:01:42but his journey to success has been one inspired by family tragedy and personal redemption.
0:01:45 > 0:01:48# It's been a long... #
0:01:49 > 0:01:52This is the untold story of Sam McAughtry.
0:01:52 > 0:01:56# But I know The train's gonna come
0:01:56 > 0:02:00# Oh, yes, it will. #
0:02:14 > 0:02:19Sam McAughtry has led a colourful and contradictory life.
0:02:19 > 0:02:23He has been a trade unionist, a civil servant,
0:02:23 > 0:02:27an RAF navigator and an Irish senator.
0:02:27 > 0:02:31ANNOUNCEMENT PLAYS OVER TANNOY
0:02:31 > 0:02:34But throughout his 85 years, his driving passion
0:02:34 > 0:02:38has been his love of writing and his joy of performing.
0:02:38 > 0:02:42# It takes an Irish heart to sing an Irish song
0:02:42 > 0:02:46# In the good old Irish way
0:02:46 > 0:02:49# It takes the real McCoy
0:02:49 > 0:02:51# To fill your heart with joy
0:02:51 > 0:02:54# There's nary a song so gay
0:02:55 > 0:02:58# If you come from Dublin, Bantry Bay or County Cork
0:02:58 > 0:03:03# If you come from London, Timbuktu or from New York
0:03:03 > 0:03:07# It takes an Irish heart to sing an Irish song
0:03:07 > 0:03:11# In a good old Irish way. #
0:03:15 > 0:03:18Just with that, the Prince of Storytellers spoke.
0:03:18 > 0:03:23"Do you want to hear a poem?" he said. He certainly did. Bo Kennedy smiled.
0:03:23 > 0:03:24"It's a lovely one," he said.
0:03:24 > 0:03:26"It's about daffodils.
0:03:26 > 0:03:29"It was wrote by the man that owns the big shops.
0:03:29 > 0:03:30"He is called Woolworth".
0:03:30 > 0:03:33- Thank you. - LAUGHTER
0:03:40 > 0:03:43There is wine there for those that like it!
0:03:45 > 0:03:48I like that caveat.
0:03:48 > 0:03:50CONVERSATION BUZZES
0:03:52 > 0:03:54I was bumming about it everywhere.
0:03:54 > 0:03:57I was accidentally dropping the paper in front of people, you know?
0:03:57 > 0:04:02It is a clever play on words.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15But Sam McAughtry has not always been centre stage
0:04:15 > 0:04:19and not always content with his life.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25In the tension of the summer of 1971,
0:04:25 > 0:04:27disillusioned by the failure of politics
0:04:27 > 0:04:32and the sectarian violence that was tearing his native city of Belfast apart,
0:04:32 > 0:04:39Sam McAughtry would also have to face his own, very personal, demons.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51I last sat here on this seat 30 years ago
0:04:51 > 0:04:54at just about the most depressing period of my life.
0:04:56 > 0:05:01I had been suffering for months from a deep depression in which drink was playing too much a part.
0:05:01 > 0:05:05I was sitting here and I had really had enough.
0:05:05 > 0:05:09Instead of going to work, I would just come up here to sit.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13Nothing was happening inside my head except that I knew I was useless.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16I could not handle the depression at all.
0:05:16 > 0:05:19# I just keep on drinking
0:05:22 > 0:05:25# Drinking just like a fool
0:05:34 > 0:05:35# Keep on drinking
0:05:35 > 0:05:38# Ooh... #
0:05:39 > 0:05:43It is very hard to recover the feelings that I had then.
0:05:43 > 0:05:49I am sitting here today and I can enjoy the view and think back
0:05:49 > 0:05:53to beyond the depression to the days when I brought my children up.
0:05:53 > 0:05:59I would be more inclined to look on that hopeful side of it than to think too much about the black days.
0:06:01 > 0:06:05I just sit here now and think how lucky I am to be sitting in this lovely park.
0:06:08 > 0:06:11JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS
0:06:15 > 0:06:18If you read enough books you get the impression
0:06:18 > 0:06:22that alcoholism is something that is always with you
0:06:22 > 0:06:25and that you have to be very careful all the time.
0:06:25 > 0:06:27That is not the point at all.
0:06:27 > 0:06:30The battle was won when I walked through the front door
0:06:30 > 0:06:33of Shaftesbury Square. They did a lovely job on me.
0:06:42 > 0:06:45Sam McAughtry had been admitted to Shaftesbury Square Hospital
0:06:45 > 0:06:49in Belfast suffering from chronic alcoholism.
0:06:49 > 0:06:51He was temporarily homeless
0:06:51 > 0:06:56and separated from his wife and young family.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59It is an odd sort of a feeling to come back.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07I feel enormous gratitude to them.
0:07:07 > 0:07:11I have paid tribute to them in articles I've written and so on.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14I feel enormous gratitude to them.
0:07:14 > 0:07:20I can't recall that awful feeling when I first came here,
0:07:20 > 0:07:23that feeling of total disgrace.
0:07:33 > 0:07:37I went in there at a very low ebb indeed.
0:07:37 > 0:07:38I thought to myself,
0:07:38 > 0:07:43as most people do going in there, that there was a tinge of disgrace about it.
0:07:43 > 0:07:47The notices on the walls and various
0:07:47 > 0:07:51Alcoholics Anonymous posters and so on.
0:07:51 > 0:07:54I thought to myself, "This is not too good."
0:07:54 > 0:07:58I don't think I am playing a blinder here, at all.
0:07:58 > 0:08:03I was thinking of what my family would think coming to visit me with all this...
0:08:03 > 0:08:06stuff around the place about alcoholism.
0:08:16 > 0:08:19I think I would have just degenerated into one of those guys
0:08:19 > 0:08:22that you see around that you don't want to see.
0:08:22 > 0:08:25I don't think I would have hit the slums,
0:08:25 > 0:08:29but I would have degenerated into somebody who wasn't much in the line of company.
0:08:29 > 0:08:31That's for sure.
0:08:37 > 0:08:42When I finally left this place, I walked out onto this pavement
0:08:42 > 0:08:43and began to walk down here.
0:08:43 > 0:08:47Belfast was in an awful state in those days.
0:08:47 > 0:08:48Belfast was bombed
0:08:48 > 0:08:51and smoke was everywhere and all that sort of thing.
0:08:51 > 0:08:57The only mood I can say, is that I was thinking to myself, "It is over now."
0:08:57 > 0:09:01Whatever they've told me to do I am certainly going to do it.
0:09:12 > 0:09:16Whenever I came out of the hospital, it was at a time when the house
0:09:16 > 0:09:20I had lived in at Dundonald had been sold. We had no home to go to.
0:09:20 > 0:09:24My daughters were farmed out to friends, my three daughters.
0:09:24 > 0:09:29I thought I had better go out and look around and get another house.
0:09:29 > 0:09:31I came into Comber.
0:09:31 > 0:09:32That was our first port of call.
0:09:32 > 0:09:38The very place we looked at was my house. It had only just been built.
0:09:38 > 0:09:43It was brand new. From the day and hour I went over the threshold of that house,
0:09:43 > 0:09:48everything worked out for me. My life changed completely.
0:09:48 > 0:09:52Hopes and dreams that I had all started to come true.
0:09:52 > 0:09:56I was full of energy.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00Full of the need to make up for lost time.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02I certainly did it from that household.
0:10:07 > 0:10:12I wouldn't leave it if I won the lottery and that is a fact.
0:10:12 > 0:10:15That house is the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.
0:10:15 > 0:10:19I put my foot over that door and never did a thing wrong after it.
0:10:20 > 0:10:23God bless it and all who live there!
0:10:25 > 0:10:27It's not much, but we call it home!
0:10:46 > 0:10:51Recovering from his alcoholic low, Sam McAughtry set out
0:10:51 > 0:10:54to rebuild his life by dedicating himself to his writing.
0:10:54 > 0:10:5835 years after his last drink of alcohol,
0:10:58 > 0:11:02Sam McAughtry is diligently working on his latest novel.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10I am at 15,377 words.
0:11:10 > 0:11:15It is beginning to settle. I know where I am going.
0:11:15 > 0:11:21The only thing is that I have to keep it at a certain level, readable.
0:11:29 > 0:11:32My writing is plain and readable.
0:11:32 > 0:11:35It's not fancy.
0:11:35 > 0:11:37Whenever people say that to me...
0:11:37 > 0:11:43A solicitor friend of mine - my last book - he sent me a nice wee note.
0:11:43 > 0:11:45He said, "I got your book.
0:11:45 > 0:11:50"I got home, I had my tea over at seven
0:11:50 > 0:11:54"and I had your book read at half past eight."
0:11:54 > 0:11:57That's what I want.
0:11:57 > 0:11:59They don't have to stop and say,
0:11:59 > 0:12:03"That is wonderful phraseology that reminds me of Beckett!"
0:12:03 > 0:12:04None of that stuff!
0:12:04 > 0:12:09That is the way I write and the way I always did.
0:12:16 > 0:12:21Sam McAughtry's unique writing style began when he was just a young boy.
0:12:21 > 0:12:26A boy who wrote letters to a father who was far away at sea.
0:12:26 > 0:12:29# Every letter I write... #
0:12:29 > 0:12:33When my father went to sea, my mother sat us all down
0:12:33 > 0:12:36and she'd say, "You have to write a letter to your father."
0:12:36 > 0:12:39I'd be saying, "Dear Daddy, I did notice
0:12:39 > 0:12:41"that you brought something home for Jim
0:12:41 > 0:12:46"and you brought something home for Jack, but you brought nothing home for me."
0:12:46 > 0:12:47New paragraph.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50In other words,
0:12:50 > 0:12:54as I tell youngsters in the schools, I was talking to him.
0:12:54 > 0:12:55I wasn't writing a letter to him.
0:12:55 > 0:13:00I was addressing him. He was across the table from me.
0:13:00 > 0:13:05I never walked away from that situation of writing to my father
0:13:05 > 0:13:07thinking that I was a writer.
0:13:07 > 0:13:10If I thought about it at all, I just thought,
0:13:10 > 0:13:13"I wonder where that letter will end up?
0:13:13 > 0:13:16"What is it like anyway when the letters arrive?
0:13:16 > 0:13:23"Does a boat go out carrying a sack full of letters for the sailors, or what?"
0:13:23 > 0:13:26I never regarded myself as a writer.
0:13:30 > 0:13:37# In every word that I spell In every tale that I tell
0:13:37 > 0:13:39# Every wish... #
0:13:39 > 0:13:42Sam McAughtry's father and older brother, Mart,
0:13:42 > 0:13:46were once merchant seaman on the same ship, the Dunaff Head.
0:13:46 > 0:13:50A young Sam, filled with the romance of the sea,
0:13:50 > 0:13:52dreamt of one day joining them.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00I would have been down here an hour before the ship was due in.
0:14:00 > 0:14:04Over the horizon, just at the mouth of the river,
0:14:04 > 0:14:07I would have seen the Dunaff Head, my father's ship.
0:14:07 > 0:14:10The berthing master would have it tied up.
0:14:10 > 0:14:13The first man on board was a customs officer.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16The second on board was Sam McAughtry.
0:14:16 > 0:14:20When war broke out, my father said to my brother,
0:14:20 > 0:14:22"We'll have to split up because if we're both lost
0:14:22 > 0:14:27"on the convoys to Canada and back it'll kill your mother."
0:14:27 > 0:14:29"We'll have to split up."
0:14:29 > 0:14:34My brother, Mart, said, "OK, there is a ship coming in and I'll sign on."
0:14:34 > 0:14:37He had signed on the Kenbane Head.
0:14:37 > 0:14:39I went away to the Air Force.
0:14:39 > 0:14:43Before I went, the Kenbane Head came in here, to this dock.
0:14:43 > 0:14:44I ran up the gangway.
0:14:44 > 0:14:48The first thing Mart said to me when he came up on deck
0:14:48 > 0:14:50and saw me was, "I've got a job for you.
0:14:50 > 0:14:52"You always wanted to go to sea.
0:14:52 > 0:14:56"I've got a job for you as a deck boy on the Kenbane Head."
0:14:56 > 0:14:59I nearly broke down. I said, " Mart, I have joined the Air Force."
0:14:59 > 0:15:02He said, "Well, there you are, maybe it is just as well."
0:15:02 > 0:15:05He described what it was like when ships were blowing up
0:15:05 > 0:15:09all around him on the convoy and the submarines were after them.
0:15:12 > 0:15:16The decision not to sail with his brother, Mart, on the Kenbane Head
0:15:16 > 0:15:19would be a defining moment in the young Sam McAughtry's life.
0:15:26 > 0:15:31For the Kenbane Head and its crew, along with Mart McAughtry,
0:15:31 > 0:15:36would be lost at sea in the fierce battle for the North Atlantic.
0:15:43 > 0:15:4866 years on, Sam McAughtry returns once again to the family grave
0:15:48 > 0:15:52outside Belfast where his brother Mart is commemorated.
0:16:14 > 0:16:18Mart. It just says MN in small letters...
0:16:18 > 0:16:20Merchant Navy.
0:16:20 > 0:16:25Lost at sea, fifth November 1940 in a sea action
0:16:25 > 0:16:30in which the German cruiser got into the British convoy lanes.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34He was lost with 19 other men.
0:16:34 > 0:16:40I was shattered. Of all the family, he and I were the closest.
0:16:40 > 0:16:45I was in South Wales, training to be a flight mechanic,
0:16:45 > 0:16:50when I got word that he had been lost at sea.
0:16:50 > 0:16:52I got it from Jack.
0:16:52 > 0:16:55I knew from the first line of the letter.
0:16:55 > 0:17:01The letter read, "Dear Sam, you and Marriott were always close."
0:17:02 > 0:17:06I threw the letter down onto my bed and burst out crying.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15It completely finished and shattered me.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18Up until then, life was a lark.
0:17:18 > 0:17:21Life was just a lark. That's all it was.
0:17:30 > 0:17:34My mother died just after I came back from the Royal Air Force.
0:17:34 > 0:17:37Only two days after I got back,
0:17:37 > 0:17:39after being away from home for two and a half years.
0:17:39 > 0:17:41She died then.
0:17:44 > 0:17:49My mother had a terrible time of it. She brought up ten children
0:17:49 > 0:17:53with her husband at sea, sending her a pittance.
0:17:53 > 0:17:58Four of the children died, one of them in tragic circumstances,
0:17:58 > 0:18:02hanged on the end of the bed at 11 months old trying to walk down the bed.
0:18:02 > 0:18:04The nightdress caught on the bed.
0:18:04 > 0:18:07The others, I remember four-year-old Betty.
0:18:07 > 0:18:09I remember mother taking us by the hand
0:18:09 > 0:18:12and bringing us upstairs to kiss Betty goodbye.
0:18:13 > 0:18:14When the war was over,
0:18:14 > 0:18:16and when we were all coming back home
0:18:16 > 0:18:19and we would have been bringing a wage into the house,
0:18:19 > 0:18:23she would have had a house full of laughter and everything.
0:18:23 > 0:18:25That's when she died.
0:18:25 > 0:18:26She had a rotten life.
0:18:26 > 0:18:28She was a happy woman,
0:18:28 > 0:18:30but I should say she had a rotten death.
0:18:30 > 0:18:33She was a very happy woman in her lifetime.
0:18:38 > 0:18:43The family tragedies would have a profound effect on the young Sam McAughtry.
0:18:43 > 0:18:48But most profoundly, he would never forget his older brother Mart,
0:18:48 > 0:18:51lost at sea and without a proper burial.
0:18:55 > 0:18:59So when Sam McAughtry began to write many years later,
0:18:59 > 0:19:02there was only one story for him to tell.
0:19:05 > 0:19:07He was the inspiration for my first book.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10I have always thought that he, in a kind of way,
0:19:10 > 0:19:14had a bit of a say in everything that has happened to me since that.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17People have lucky charms, that is what I have in Mart.
0:19:40 > 0:19:46After the huge success of his first book, The Sinking of the Kenbane Head, and the many books
0:19:46 > 0:19:53that followed, Sam McAughtry became one of Ireland's most celebrated storytellers and recognised faces.
0:20:03 > 0:20:08His appeal as a writer, then as a broadcaster on television and radio,
0:20:08 > 0:20:14crossed all religious and political divides as he travelled the length and breadth of Ireland.
0:20:27 > 0:20:34A constant traveller, Sam McAughtry began a long-term love affair with the Belfast to Dublin railway line.
0:20:37 > 0:20:42When I was a child at home, my father used to talk about the Dublin train.
0:20:42 > 0:20:45My father thought Dublin was a wonderful city.
0:20:45 > 0:20:51He used to say, "Dublin has the greatest zoological gardens in the world".
0:20:53 > 0:20:56Every time, without exception,
0:20:56 > 0:21:00and this is not sickening sentiment or anything,
0:21:00 > 0:21:04but every time I go up the stone steps in Connolly station
0:21:04 > 0:21:08coming home, I think to myself, these steps have never been changed.
0:21:08 > 0:21:13My old dad ran up these steps coming home to meet my mother.
0:21:17 > 0:21:22My old dad falsified his age on board ship.
0:21:22 > 0:21:27He was actually touching 70 and he was telling everybody
0:21:27 > 0:21:30in the Shipping Union and everywhere else that he was 63.
0:21:30 > 0:21:37He used to say to me, "What use would I be if I came ashore, if they retire me at 65?
0:21:37 > 0:21:41"What could I do? People like me..." He worked in the engine room,
0:21:41 > 0:21:46and he'd say, "People like me are absolutely useless ashore.
0:21:46 > 0:21:51"I'm going to tell them I'm not 65 for a few years yet."
0:21:51 > 0:21:55Well, he did. At just under 70,
0:21:55 > 0:21:57he was taken ill on board his ship.
0:21:57 > 0:22:00The ship happened to be near Cuba.
0:22:05 > 0:22:12Mart McAughtry was suffering from severe stomach pains when his shipmates left him ashore in Cuba.
0:22:12 > 0:22:20He never recovered and died alone in a strange place, far away from his home and family.
0:22:28 > 0:22:30I was over visiting a friend.
0:22:30 > 0:22:34My brother Jim came over to see me to tell me that my father had died.
0:22:34 > 0:22:36A telegram had arrived.
0:22:36 > 0:22:43A letter arrived afterwards to say that he was one of the old-school seamen that had almost disappeared.
0:22:43 > 0:22:45That is how I learned about it.
0:22:45 > 0:22:49I was terribly sad because
0:22:49 > 0:22:52the two seafarers in our family
0:22:52 > 0:22:56that I had loved so much, gone.
0:22:56 > 0:22:59Thousands of miles away, dead.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02Mart was at the foot of the mid-Atlantic.
0:23:02 > 0:23:07And my father there died a very painful death
0:23:07 > 0:23:12and there was no-one near him to comfort him or say goodbye or anything else.
0:23:21 > 0:23:24Of all Sam McAughtry's heartbreaking short stories,
0:23:24 > 0:23:29one stands out for its intimacy and universal resonance.
0:23:29 > 0:23:32Cuban Journey was about his determined quest
0:23:32 > 0:23:36to find his father's lost grave of the other side of the world.
0:23:39 > 0:23:44"I was in Cuba to visit my father's grave, the first member of my family
0:23:44 > 0:23:49"to go looking for it, in 1984, 33 years after his death.
0:23:49 > 0:23:53"He'd been taken off his ship to a small sugar port near Santa Cruz del Sur in 1951,
0:23:53 > 0:24:00"where he was to die of peritonitis the same day.
0:24:00 > 0:24:03"I wanted to know if they could actually pinpoint my father's grave.
0:24:03 > 0:24:09"Their embassy in London had been vague, while still giving me press accreditation.
0:24:09 > 0:24:12"Well, young Albaholder told me that she knew
0:24:12 > 0:24:16"where the grave was and in three days' time she would take me there.
0:24:16 > 0:24:23"She and her Cuban colleagues all laughed at the way I lifted her and swung her around on hearing this.
0:24:29 > 0:24:36"In Amancio, a sleepy, dusty town straight out of a Sergio Leone film,
0:24:36 > 0:24:40"I was entertained by local party officials and given cool orange juice.
0:24:40 > 0:24:43"Then we all went out and walked, almost ceremonially,
0:24:43 > 0:24:46"down the Main Street for 100 yards
0:24:46 > 0:24:50"until we came to a small brick building beside a pair of gates.
0:24:55 > 0:24:58"It was the cementario, the graveyard.
0:24:58 > 0:25:00"I was motioned inside the building.
0:25:00 > 0:25:03"On a table, a large book lay open.
0:25:03 > 0:25:05"A chair stood ready beside it.
0:25:05 > 0:25:08"My hosts stood back, deeply respectful.
0:25:08 > 0:25:12"I studied the list of names entered in copperplate writing.
0:25:12 > 0:25:16"I had found him easily, halfway down the page.
0:25:16 > 0:25:18"Mart McAughtry.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21"It stood out amongst the names of the Cuban dead.
0:25:21 > 0:25:30"He had passed away at 10.30am on 6th October, 1951.
0:25:30 > 0:25:32"The committee turned away
0:25:32 > 0:25:37"as I placed flowers on the grave, stood silent above my father's remains.
0:25:37 > 0:25:43"He was 54 years at sea in the engine room and survived being torpedoed in two world wars,
0:25:43 > 0:25:46"but he could not live at home after Mother died
0:25:46 > 0:25:49"so he falsified his age to stay at sea.
0:25:49 > 0:25:52"He was 69 when he died.
0:25:52 > 0:25:54"Now I knew where he lay."
0:26:07 > 0:26:10Of all our family, and there were ten in my family,
0:26:10 > 0:26:12four of them died when they were young.
0:26:12 > 0:26:15We were a big family and had a huge extended family.
0:26:15 > 0:26:19Not one of them had ever thought of going to see my father's grave in Cuba.
0:26:19 > 0:26:23I was the one who wanted to go and see him.
0:26:23 > 0:26:28The sea held enormous romance for me, so his life was romantic to me.
0:26:28 > 0:26:31Nobody else in the family felt like that.
0:26:31 > 0:26:34They thought the sea was a hard, rough old job.
0:26:34 > 0:26:38When I was standing over my father's grave, I was remembering him.
0:26:40 > 0:26:45I didn't say anything, but my thoughts were directed to him.
0:26:45 > 0:26:47I love you.
0:26:47 > 0:26:49You are my dad. I think you're great.
0:26:49 > 0:26:55I think you're smashing. I remember you when you came home from sea, picking me up as a toddler.
0:26:55 > 0:26:59I remember your grisly chin needing a shave,
0:26:59 > 0:27:03the smell of the whisky that you had just had in the bar outside...
0:27:03 > 0:27:07outside the, um...the docks.
0:27:07 > 0:27:11Here I am, now, paying tribute to you
0:27:11 > 0:27:15for a lovely, lovely father and the lovely thoughts that you give me.
0:27:15 > 0:27:17Although he had never
0:27:17 > 0:27:23reciprocated any of the curiosity or warmth that I wanted from him.
0:27:23 > 0:27:29He was just a hard-working man, unread more or less.
0:27:29 > 0:27:34He had only read one book. He used to talk about it... Sorrell and Son by Warwick Deeping.
0:27:34 > 0:27:36But he was an unread man.
0:27:36 > 0:27:40I was letting him know what I was like and how much I loved him at the graveside.
0:27:41 > 0:27:43# You must leave now
0:27:43 > 0:27:45# Take what you need
0:27:45 > 0:27:47# You think will last
0:27:49 > 0:27:52# But whatever you keep... #
0:27:52 > 0:27:55I did feel an enormous feeling of relief.
0:27:55 > 0:27:59They use this word "closure" all over the place these days,
0:27:59 > 0:28:05but, er...it was an enormous feeling of a job done.
0:28:05 > 0:28:07Of a long journey ended.
0:28:07 > 0:28:09# Crying
0:28:09 > 0:28:13# Like a fire in the sun
0:28:16 > 0:28:18# Look out, baby
0:28:18 > 0:28:21# The saints are comin' through
0:28:24 > 0:28:28# And it's all over now
0:28:28 > 0:28:31# Baby Blue... #
0:28:33 > 0:28:40Sam McAughtry's journey as a writer has been one of constant discovery and evolution,
0:28:40 > 0:28:45beginning with the young man who grew up in Protestant, working-class north Belfast.
0:28:47 > 0:28:51My early years... I recall my early years
0:28:51 > 0:28:57as living among people in a Unionist constituency, a very strongly loyalist constituency.
0:28:57 > 0:29:02The curious thing, and a thing that people are surprised to learn, in the South particularly,
0:29:02 > 0:29:05is that we were very, very Irish.
0:29:06 > 0:29:11Don't forget that my mother and father had come out of an all-Ireland, albeit under the Crown.
0:29:11 > 0:29:18They would have seen nothing wrong in those days with being described as Irish, not a thing wrong.
0:29:18 > 0:29:23It has been hemmed in now by all sorts of dark shadows around the word Irish.
0:29:23 > 0:29:25I'm Irish.
0:29:25 > 0:29:29And I mean, I pronounce that, that I'm Irish.
0:29:29 > 0:29:32The thing I don't say is that I want to go into an all-Ireland.
0:29:32 > 0:29:36They're not ready for me yet. I'll tell them whenever they're ready!
0:29:39 > 0:29:42In the 1980s, Sam McAughtry WAS ready.
0:29:42 > 0:29:44Ready to take centre-stage,
0:29:44 > 0:29:48to become world news by leading a symbolic peace movement
0:29:48 > 0:29:52and protect his beloved Belfast to Dublin rail connection.
0:29:53 > 0:29:58- Are you all right, Sam?- Yes. It's nice to be here.- You made it in one piece?- One piece.
0:30:02 > 0:30:06The Peace Train committee is concerned with the Belfast-Dublin rail link
0:30:06 > 0:30:09and the symbolic retention of that rail link.
0:30:09 > 0:30:11That is all we're concerned with.
0:30:11 > 0:30:13We're delighted with the response we've had.
0:30:25 > 0:30:29Round about 1988, I was very friendly with Paddy Devlin.
0:30:29 > 0:30:35The notion came up that something should be done about the frequent bombing of the Belfast-Dublin line.
0:30:35 > 0:30:40It was being carried out largely by the IRA, but occasionally by loyalist dissidents.
0:30:40 > 0:30:44Paddy volunteered me to be chairman of a new body that was to be formed,
0:30:44 > 0:30:47called the Peace Train Organisation.
0:30:50 > 0:30:56As the recognised figurehead of the Peace Train Organisation, Sam McAughtry was instantly able
0:30:56 > 0:31:01to galvanise the movement and rally support behind him.
0:31:01 > 0:31:04The South came in with a vengeance.
0:31:04 > 0:31:10They sent senators and senior journalists up for the first Peace Train. It was an absolute delight.
0:31:10 > 0:31:13The Church weighed in, both sides.
0:31:13 > 0:31:16Bishops and so on from both sides.
0:31:16 > 0:31:19Politicians came... heavy politicians. Excellent.
0:31:24 > 0:31:28When we got off the train there was such a phalanx of people behind me.
0:31:28 > 0:31:31We were marching down to the strains
0:31:31 > 0:31:35of the Trade Union Band at Connolly Station echoing all over the place.
0:31:35 > 0:31:39Immediately I thought, "God, I look like a politician here,
0:31:39 > 0:31:43"out here...out trying to get elected to something or other!"
0:31:43 > 0:31:48It was an amusing thought because it was something I would never have done. So anyway,
0:31:48 > 0:31:53whenever we got onto the station, I just spoke from the heart.
0:31:53 > 0:31:58I bring you greetings, in peace, from the City of Belfast!
0:32:00 > 0:32:08I convey those greetings along the railway line from Belfast to Dublin, which belongs to us!
0:32:11 > 0:32:15We didn't expect the Peace Train to bring peace. In fact,
0:32:15 > 0:32:17the expert view on the Peace Train
0:32:17 > 0:32:21is that it didn't make a lot of difference to the bombing of the line.
0:32:21 > 0:32:23I wasn't surprised at this.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25The IRA bombed the line anyway.
0:32:25 > 0:32:28What it did make a difference to was to activate a lot of people
0:32:28 > 0:32:33who normally would have been working quietly in the background. It brought them to the foreground.
0:32:35 > 0:32:40As far as I was concerned, what we had done was worthwhile.
0:32:45 > 0:32:50For Sam McAughtry, the fight to save the Belfast-Dublin line had been important,
0:32:50 > 0:32:54not only politically and culturally, but also personally,
0:32:54 > 0:33:00since, as a novelist, he had found a creative home from home in Dublin.
0:33:02 > 0:33:07This is the flat in which I wrote my novel Touch and Go,
0:33:07 > 0:33:09in 1992.
0:33:09 > 0:33:12This would have been the bedroom here.
0:33:12 > 0:33:14Here is the office.
0:33:14 > 0:33:17My goodness gracious me!
0:33:17 > 0:33:20There is a computer in position!
0:33:20 > 0:33:22I sat here.
0:33:24 > 0:33:28The reason why I like to leave... I still like to leave home
0:33:28 > 0:33:32if I'm going to do serious writing is that at home I simply can't concentrate.
0:33:32 > 0:33:39I can do short pieces for the radio at home, but for a serious book, I have to get away.
0:33:57 > 0:34:02When I was writing articles for the newspapers, I used to call myself a writer then.
0:34:02 > 0:34:06It was always in me. I was always conscious that it was in me.
0:34:06 > 0:34:13An overheard conversation would trigger me off and I would lose my whole concentration
0:34:13 > 0:34:16on the conversation that was going on in the company I was with.
0:34:16 > 0:34:20I might overhear it from behind me, hear somebody say something.
0:34:20 > 0:34:23A sort of a click would come into my mind.
0:34:23 > 0:34:27When this click came into my mind, I was thinking there is a good wee story there.
0:34:27 > 0:34:30You could run a good few paragraphs on that one.
0:34:30 > 0:34:34In the early days I was a newspaper thinker, nothing else.
0:34:36 > 0:34:40There is something about particularly fiction writing
0:34:40 > 0:34:44that releases you from a lot of inhibitions.
0:34:45 > 0:34:47It has taken a lot of the fizz out of me.
0:34:47 > 0:34:51In my lifetime I have been a touchy character.
0:34:51 > 0:34:53Very touchy.
0:34:53 > 0:34:56I was a guy, at one time, who would look for a fight
0:34:56 > 0:35:00where there never was one just to keep the brain going.
0:35:00 > 0:35:04It has given me enormous inner calm and comfort.
0:35:09 > 0:35:14The life of the writer has allowed Sam McAughtry to revisit his past
0:35:14 > 0:35:18and to find inspiration in the retelling of his story.
0:35:19 > 0:35:24# Don't look for me in fields of clover
0:35:24 > 0:35:29# I won't be there I won't get older
0:35:29 > 0:35:35# I must wait here Holed up in my time... #
0:35:37 > 0:35:39You have to be deadly honest.
0:35:39 > 0:35:42Honesty is thrust upon you when you begin to write.
0:35:44 > 0:35:48In telling a story, you are revealing a good deal about yourself, for a start.
0:35:48 > 0:35:50What you consider to be strange,
0:35:50 > 0:35:52what you consider to be sad or funny.
0:35:53 > 0:35:56You are reading yourself
0:35:56 > 0:35:59with the stories that you write down.
0:35:59 > 0:36:03# I won't be there I won't get older
0:36:03 > 0:36:09# I'll hover like a frozen bird in time
0:36:11 > 0:36:16# Don't reach for me The stars are cold
0:36:16 > 0:36:21# My race is run My story's told... #
0:36:23 > 0:36:26I enjoy every day that I live.
0:36:26 > 0:36:29I mean, I'm...well,
0:36:29 > 0:36:33halfway into my nineties... 85.
0:36:34 > 0:36:38It feels just the bloody same as it was when I was 25.
0:36:38 > 0:36:41I have still got a day to put in and I am going to put it in.
0:36:41 > 0:36:45I am going to see what I can pick up from the day
0:36:45 > 0:36:49and from the things that I see and hear and do.
0:36:49 > 0:36:55# Yes, I'm wading through the waters of my time... #
0:36:56 > 0:37:00The proudest thing is that my name, McAughtry,
0:37:00 > 0:37:03has become well-known for good reasons.
0:37:03 > 0:37:05I think that's the proudest thing.
0:37:05 > 0:37:10I never say that when I'm in among my family or they would say I'm a big head,
0:37:10 > 0:37:12but that's the proudest thing.
0:37:12 > 0:37:17If I went down to Offaly or Cork or Galway or anywhere else,
0:37:17 > 0:37:20somebody would know the name McAughtry.
0:37:24 > 0:37:26# Don't search for me... #
0:37:26 > 0:37:32For Sam McAughtry, the man who, at the age of 50, found himself a chronic alcoholic
0:37:32 > 0:37:38and facing a very uncertain future, his success since then has been his greatest story.
0:37:41 > 0:37:48# Cos I'm wading through the waters of my time... #
0:37:51 > 0:37:56I just go through life with a plan for the day, that's all I do.
0:37:56 > 0:37:58I don't think about anything else.
0:37:58 > 0:38:00Really there's nothing else. I just try...
0:38:00 > 0:38:05If I can do something positive every day, positive from my point of view...
0:38:05 > 0:38:07maybe not to somebody else's point of view...
0:38:07 > 0:38:09that's the way I run my life.
0:38:09 > 0:38:11It is the way I get by.
0:38:43 > 0:38:46Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 2006
0:38:46 > 0:38:49E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk