The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Ghosts of Riots Past: The Troubled Conflict in Derry Through The Eyes of a Volunteer First Aider by Jude Morrow

Episode Date: November 6, 2022

The Ghosts of Riots Past: The Troubled Conflict in Derry Through The Eyes of a Volunteer First Aider by Jude Morrow Set against a backdrop of the late 1960s Bogside, Martha Bradley is inspired to join the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps at the age of fifteen, following a family tragedy that changes her life forever. This prompted her family to move to the legendary Rossville Flats that dominated the skyline of the Bogside. The teenage first-aiders begin their service by attending sports fixtures, fairs, and religious services, to suddenly administering first aid in a most forbidding active war zone with live ammunition. Martha's journey with the Order of Malta places her at The Battle of The Bogside, the daily clashes between the Free Derry residents and the security forces, Bloody Sunday, and Operation Motorman, whilst guarding a secret of her own from her unit and her family. Even though we all wore the same thing, white coats and kit bags, everybody wore them and carried themselves a wee bit differently. I would learn everybody’s mannerisms, walks, and small details. I became so close to my unit that I could tell them all apart, even when wearing my gas mask during a riot, outside, and in the dark. I feel it quite symbolic that we wore white coats, almost like we were ghosts. We were the ghosts of riots past, the ghosts of riots present, and the ghosts of riots yet to come. The Ghosts of Riots Past captures the nostalgic perspective of the troubles in Free Derry (1969-1972), the togetherness of the first-aiders, and the spirit of Christian charity and courage of the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep in keep your hands arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss let's see what it would say arms in the vehicle okay got that check legs in the vehicle got that check yeah okay so what happens now oh wait we're live hey chris voss here i was just gonna make sure i got ready for the show per the announcer

welcome to chris voss show my friends and relatives and all those people listening to the show we certainly appreciate you guys coming by thanks for being here we have returning guest jude morrow on the show my good friend from ireland across the pond as they like to say his third appearance on the show we actually had him back three times. We liked him that much, and I think you'll like him as well, three times as much as however you liked him before. If you didn't know him before, that's 300% more that you'll like him from zero. So that's a payoff, really, when it comes down to it.

Anyway, guys, go see his books on goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, and mine. Go to youtube.com, Fortress, Chris Foss. Go to all those places we are on the interwebs. We're doing a lot of stuff over on LinkedIn. If you're not seeing what we're going on on LinkedIn, it's crazy over there. And also, go see what we're doing on the TikTok. We're trying to be cool on the TikTok.

It's not working, but we are getting lots of people that are watching the videos and ding. We're just not, like, TikTok famous yet, which probably is never going to happen. But you know how that goes. Anyway, he's on the show with us today. He's going to be talking about his amazing new novel. He's written, I think, three books so far. And this one's a bit of a departure from what he's normally written about.

We'll talk to him about that. The name of the book is called The Ghosts of Riot's Past, The Troubled Conflict in Derry Through the Eyes of a Volunteer First Aider. Jude Morrow is on the show with us today. We'll be talking about his book. It came out September 1st, 2021, and we're going to find out more about it. Welcome to the show, Jude. How are you? I'm absolutely fantastic.

By the way, I noticed something with your intro you didn't do the singy chris voss show but you know the chris moment show if you i can throw it in if you want please that's like it's a chris voss show.com how about that is that good yeah that's okay i mean we try and we try and improv the ramble that we do at the beginning every time we try and make it different so it's not the same. Because, you know, people get bored with that stuff. Like, oh, Chris, it's Chris doing his stupid stuff again. Right?

But that's a trademark. That would be like McDonald's stop on the I'm loving it thing. I mean, you can't just do that. Or finger licking good for KFC. It just stays. It's uniform. That's very true. That's very true. That's very true.

Yeah, you know, sometimes, you know, we just like to make the show different. You know, sometimes you can't give it to him all the time. You've got to make him miss it, Jude. Yeah, okay. You know what? I must actually note that down. I mean, I'm very much head first kind of guy. Yeah.

See, right now, you know, everybody is all up in arms. Like, damn it, he didn't sing the intro. What the hell is going on? Is this even the show anymore? The Chris Walsh show? Maybe it's not even the same guy. And they're going to go listen next time to the next show and go, he better do it this time.

And so, you know, you got to mess with people. You got to make them appreciate the, I don't know where the hell we're going let's talk about your your your book so you've got a third new book out you've written two books on neurodiversity and autism you know you've written two books on that and then this third one is a novel is that right is that right it is yeah where i'd i've written why does daddy always look so sad the loving her place in the spectrum i was delighted to be on the chris voss show with both of those kind of book promoters and i had to do the the third book where the first book was like my experiences going up through school and college as an autistic child. And then the second one was more like my social work career, business career, kind of motivationally speakery, you know, type of stuff.

But then I realized like last year I was like, holy crap, I have run out of life to write about where in last November I was only 31 where I was like, I've chronicled literally my my whole life so i needed to go to something different and last year around it was was october and november last year i mean in in dairy every year the the bloody sunday massacre is is commemorated on the 30th of january every year the horrible day itself happening on the 30th of january 1972 which meant that 2022 was the 50th anniversary commemoration of bloody sunday and you know what even though i live here have grown up here i didn't know anything about it really i was really yeah and i mean i did i was born in 1990 i'm a, youthful go-getter. And I didn't grow up through the troubled time.

I didn't have any concept of violence in the streets. And I thought, you know what? I'm actually going to make a conscious effort and get to know my local history a bit more. So I went to the first thing that anybody who wants to learn stuff goes to which is google or the internet or in my case like picture books and i was looking through these picture books of the city and like riots everywhere i mean the place was horribly filthy with like barricades and burnt out cars and buses and everything and i noticed there was like these like young people like teens wearing like fancy like officer-y type uniforms and i thought who are they and some like wearing like white medical

coats and stuff and they were all children and the white coats were way too big on them and i thought right this is interesting and they are or were the the order of malta ambulance corps or would be known as the Knights of Malta. So I was like, first aid? That's a cool angle. I was like, nobody's talked about that, I don't think. And I ended up being correct. Nobody's ever written a book about it.

None of them, the first aid corps of that time, wrote a book about themselves. Because what people don't understand, my city in 1969 became a self-declared autonomous zone, where it was, if anything, and it was called Free Dairy, that's the Free Dairy period, 1969 to 1972, where the residents of Free Dairy, which was an 888 acre perimeter area, barricaded themselves in to reject the police force,

the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the British Army and everything else, where it was just enough's enough. Because when you think of a humanitarian crisis, you normally think of people being displaced from their homeland. But we were the opposite, where we barricaded ourselves in.

And because we barricaded ourselves in, other emergency health care services and provision couldn't really get access. So it was left to these teenage girls to provide health care. Now, it was mostly teenage girls, about three quarters of them. There were some boys, there were some older ones as well. But mostly it was these teenage girls that ran a health care network and they treated everybody without wow wow and so do you base the book around those teenage girls that were running the doing the medical stuff yes i did where i mean whenever the violence really started i mean from

1969 onwards the community needed them. They were a pillar of the community. They were overseen by some doctors and nurses and makeshift first aid posts that were kind of scattered around the Free Dairy area. There was three main ones. There was a lot of other little pop-up ones as well. The work that they did in these first aid posts is baffling, where it went beyond the limits of first aid, where they were stitching people up with household needles and thread. They didn't have stuff. Seriously? Oh, yeah.

Wow. So let's lay a foundation on why this takes place and the events that lead up to Bloody, Bloody Sunday, and what Sunday or what Bloody Sunday was. Can we lay a foundation on that and talk about how we got to that, you know, why we had to have free dairy and all this stuff? Well, free dairy was established after the Battle of the Bogside of 1969. It was three days of intense riots between the Bogside residents and the RUC, the police force. And eventually the Bogsiders won and expelled the RUC from the area and barricaded themselves in.

What prompted that? What was the disagreement? Well, the nationalist areas were mainly oppressed by a sectarian kind of government and a police force that i suppose propped up that sectarian government where you know protestant and loyalist and unionist people got much more preference when it came to housing health care education and even votes so because of that at the civil rights movement was born in 1968 1969 and it kept going forward even after those riots and eventually in 1971 you know the violence was a daily occurrence the british government had brought in an internment policy so anybody they believed was a member of the ira or a sympathizer was basically thrown in jail long cash internment camp wow so after a lot of kind of protest demonstrations and even they were banned protest demonstrations were banned but on the 30th of january 1972 another anti-interment civil rights march was arranged and it took place. And by half past four on that day, men and boys were murdered on the street by the parachute regiment, shot in the back mostly whilst running away from the troops.

Wow. A 14th dying later of his injuries. And that was the kind of a micro kind of explanation of the political situation here then. And, you know, whilst this was all going on, you know, the wounded and the people that were in really awful condition health-wise were tended to by a teenage voluntary ambulance corps. Wow. Because you have on the cover, you have a, it looks like a young lady

dressed in medical garb. And, of course, the writing going on the back. And this was a big was a catastrophe for the people who live here it accelerated so many years of war and conflict in the ira yeah i mean of course whenever you have the parachute regiment murdering 13 people in one day and basically one road one street you know that and it's such a small area, then of course it created community resentment, which made people take up arms and take the war back. Yeah. And I mean, I remember living through the eighties, seventies, eighties and nineties, I believe with, with the IRA, you know, doing all sorts of stuff, not only over there, but in England, in America, around the world. It was quite the battle, I suppose, maybe is the right word.

Well, it was. I mean, this was a conflict that raged from basically 1969 to, well, 1994, 1998, kind of that kind of time period you know where the IRA had I suppose called their ceasefire in 1994 it was you know it had ended a couple of times in between until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 which I suppose declared an end to the conflict as people knew it at that at that point where I mean and since then, like since 1998, there's been, you know, there's been lots of developments. I mean, the, you know, the Bloody Sunday murdered, their names were cleared because the army had said that they were nail bombers, petrol bombers had been firing rifles

at them and they just weren't. They were innocent men and boys where a lot of people had written books. A lot of, a lot of RUC men wrote books. A lot of army officers wrote books. IRA men and women wrote books. But the kind of story that was missing was that of the first aid personnel, of which there were many. I think it's because of their kind of vow

to serve all the lords injured, sick and poor. Like the Order of Malta is a very, very long standing thing. That's about 1200 years old. But the ambulance corps itself is only, what, about 90 years old. The perspective just hasn't been touched. And what's interesting is they treated everybody. They treated civilians, army, paramilitary, everybody. They treated everybody without favor.

And nobody's ever really kind of talked about it because I suppose whenever it comes to history, especially social histories, there's a saying that is so, so true. It's like the creakiest gate always gets the most oil where that's what narrative gets pushed out under the public consciousness. And, you know, even post-conflict, you know, you get kind of, you know,

gates being creakier and louder. But this one I did fine. And I feel so almost blessed and lucky to have found something that was so rich with information and stories and people that were willing to talk to me about it. Ah. That nobody had ever done that was my next question for you were you able to interview people from the events and then this is a historical novel correct so why did you choose to go that way with it as opposed to just

telling maybe the stories of of the people that were involved because i wanted to capture emotion and a spirit rather than do an academic study of it. I mean, I wanted to kind of tell the story in a creative way that was sensitive to the events that take place in it, where I had become acquainted with the museum of free dairy, who were fantastic and helped me get connected with people.

And I'd, I'd approach them to see if anybody that were in the knights of malta between 1969 and 1972 would be willing to talk and some some came forward initially and i i said at my first book launch that the first time i i met them i was i met them all together and it was almost like having a first date with 15 people oh wow, wow. Because don't forget, this was 50 years ago. And they had tribunals, lawyers, journalists, other nosy people writing books and stuff like that wanting to interview them.

So I thought, I'm going to have a different strategy where there's a truth serum that we use here in Ireland. And it's used in England as well. Is it called whiskey? Close. It's tea and cake. Oh, there. Distortion.

So basically what I did was we'd met in a group setting quite a bit, individually and stuff, because some of them hadn't seen or talked to each other in 40 years plus. So it was an opportunity to reconnect with old friends, have some tea and cake, catch up. And then I got to eavesdrop and write down what they talked about, where I had terms of reference at the start where I will, I didn't plan on talking to them about bloody Sunday because they,

you know, there's reports out there that there was the Saville inquiry, which lasted what I think about 10, 11 years. And they'd all done statements for that. And I thought, you know, I'll use those because their stance isn't going to change. And I'd wanted to know about, like, how it ran, you know, their camaraderie, their friendships, you know, and other obscure kind of silly details like, you know, what shoulders they wore their bags on, what was in the bags, any witty anecdotes. But what I did learn is that none of them had talked about Bloody Sunday among themselves.

Oh, wow. It had never happened, where eventually the conversation did turn that way. And with some, anyway, there was definitely some elements of healing or closure, because, you know, PTSD wasn't invented in 1972. You know, mental health care wasn't a thing yeah and and most of the the bloody sunday first aid corps were aged between 15 and 19 oh wow and i mean some of them went to school like a few days later or went back to work and you know what they had to do was just get on with it keep busy and you know pray um because that was that was the kind of standard mental health advice of 1972 and it was you know although 50 years later some people definitely got

got something out of talking about it and sharing their perspective on it and how it impacted them. And with some of those, they've actually been kept as appendices that are in the back of this book. So yes, it's a historical fiction narrative, but some of them have included their real stories in the back as well. How did you blend in some of the, between the real characters and people you interviewed and the characters that you put into the book and i mean i imagine there's a main character

or some main characters that you have in the book did you did you base those on anyone real that you interviewed or did you totally fictionalize those in your head well one thing i did want to do was to have martha this is martha here she's the main character in the book and i kind of designed her to be a bit of a non-descript nobody so what what i did was i from the kind of timeline between 1969 and 1972 you know a lot happened a lot of people witnessed a lot of things, and they've all been compiled into one book or whatever, various

other volumes that are read in the research phase. So I thought, see, like most of the highlights and lowlights, what I could do with a fictional observer is just place her there, but not really to interfere. Because, you know, yes, Martha tells the story, Martha tells the story.

Martha is the narrator, but Martha doesn't do anything, you know, of any great note, you know, she's just there. Okay. And I mean, I mean, cause with a real person, one person couldn't possibly have seen every pivotal moment and the free dairy story, but what the benefit of hindsight i could create somebody that could be at all the right and wrong places at all the right and wrong times and that that was that was the idea and and that's how she came about that's pretty awesome

did you talk to anybody who is wounded in the events? Yes, I did. You know what? See, even some of the first aiders themselves picked up injuries on Bloody Sunday. One was shot in the face with a rubber bullet from about four feet. Those things travel at 100 feet a second. Oh, I've seen what they do to human flesh. They're not cool. She was wearing the gas mask at the time which no doubt saved her

life and you know some others were abused kicked punched spat on i mean teenage girls spat on by british paratroopers in uniform and probably one of the undocumented war crimes of the century in my opinion which just happened and people acknowledge it happened but it hasn't really been compiled in a volume like i've done that that i know of and i mean there was because there's still people here that were there on i mean i spoke to many of them who were there who i mean mean, some carry, you know, not just kind of physical injuries from that day and time or that time period, but the trauma, the sadness, the loss, the bereavement and everything. So I felt a real responsibility to tell the story correctly and factually

and not have Martha do anything other worldly in it. That would be ridiculous. You know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have placed her with, you know, you know,

at certain points. Yeah. And do you cover the events of that day or, and, and thereafter and the fallout or how does the book go through the process? It probably sets up the characters beforehand and then before the events happen and then gets into the details from there.

Yeah, it does. I mean, the kind of outline of the story is, you know, I have this, you know, Martha who experiences a family bereavement is inspired to join the order of malta you know a very standard storyline i mean it's it's simple as as anything it's just a very simple storyline and then you know whenever she joins the order of malta ambulance corps that's the real people because i mean some of them were were first aids you know service first aiders for 45 50 years plus a couple of them are actually still in it where and and different guises where you

know they've they've climbed the ranks and you know are in leadership roles now and you know have been in it all their lives um so it's kind of getting the focus on on them and and and what they did were you know not necessarily as as individuals but as a unit you know and to kind of capture all of all of as much of their service as possible to kind of really stress the importance of this is how important these people were to the community at that time where this was a populace of about i don't know maybe like free dairy how many people live in free dairy i don't know what i guess about 40 000 40 000 people that's just a blind guess an approximate where ambulances wouldn't really have come in. Law enforcement certainly didn't come in. The army didn't come in.

Nobody came in. So it was very, very hard to get medical aid, first aid, and even spiritual aid inside that barricaded seclusion zone, which had to be provided by these heroes here. That is wild what took place on that day. And I think there's film of it too and stuff isn't there oh there is i mean there's photograph like i mean there was tons of like and most of the kind of pivotal days of of my city's history i mean there was cameras there

there was the news were there uh you know everything from amateur filmmakers actually one of whom was murdered on Bloody Sunday, William McKinney, was an amateur filmmaker who had a cine camera with him that day. And that cine camera is on display in the Museum of Free Dairy here. So, I mean, the events from then were very, very well documented by many different people because I know now we have social media, we have the internet, we have filters and whatever else.

But back then, a lot more people were diarists, photographers, and people gave a bit more of a personal kind of social story where there's not many diarists anymore is there it's a bit of a dying uh i wrote that in my diary last night there's not many die not i mean yeah i mean i use facebook kind of as a diary you know facebook posts which sadly my my followers have to it's like what did he write today and you know so i use that as a diary but yeah you're right. A lot of people aren't around today doing that.

No, there's not. And, you know, with your Facebook as your diary, yeah, I mean, that's one of my favorite things that I do with my coffee. I listen to the Chris Voss show, and then I look at your Facebook, and then I roll your eyes and say, ah, he's just, he's getting closer. He's going on again about whatever. Yeah. Never change. Well, you know, it's always something to get up your ass every morning and write about on Facebook, I suppose. I don't know.

So there you go. Well, this is a hell of a historical thing. It had an impact in the long term in the history of our world. Hasn't these things ever been settled up finally over there in Ireland? Is everything okay these days and everyone's getting along? Well, I mean, I wouldn't go as far as to say everybody's getting along. I would say, you know, the killing of one another isn't as frequent. Loader into town, that's good.

Which is a wonderful thing. I mean, it's a good step in the right direction things are a lot better than what they were but it's funny you know with a because another interviewer asked me the same thing it's like you know so are things okay over there now like i mean i i didn't live through the the real dark days but what is interesting is that with the amount of people that i did speak to during the dark days, they still had happy times. They made good memories. They raised their families.

They went to their jobs. And, you know, a lot stayed friends. Even though where I lived was an active war zone for three decades or more. Jesus. of war zone for three decades or more jesus good times did happen in there too as well as the tragic sad pivotal world changing ones and i thought that was important to capture as well where humanity life went on time you know came and went and you know it was it was just a very, very interesting time. And I loved researching it. I loved getting into it.

And I still feel some sense of shame and embarrassment that I didn't know much about it 52 weeks ago. And, like, I'm learning more and more about it every day. I think I've taken on, like, a lifelong interest in local history now. Maybe another book is in the works there. Maybe it is. Maybe it is. Maybe it is. You know, it's, but it's important, even with historical novels, they shine a light on

history that needs to be, you know, needs more feature. The one thing man can learn from his history is that he never learns from his history. And so we need to learn from our history and we need to educate ourselves on what took place so we don't repeat it. That's always a good thing I hear. I don't know. That's going to go. No, it is a good thing and I mean

it just goes to show with, even with the Ghosts of Riot's past, it's like even though a lot of the events took place 50 51 52 53 years ago that the story's still being told after all this time and will probably still be being told in 50 years time in new ways and from new perspectives and, you know, new things come up, like things up here in attics, boxes of photographs, diaries, notes, documents, artifacts that can keep on telling the story. Like even with the Titanic, the Titanic's lying at the bottom of the Atlantic 110 years, and they're still finding new stuff down there. They're finding new artifacts, bits of jewelry, chairs, you know, whatever. They're still finding stuff down there they're finding new artifacts bits of jewelry chairs you know whatever

they're still finding stuff down there and you know things are coming up here and there where the story's still being told and will probably be told forever i at least i hope it does that's what makes it interesting the humanity of it all what we can learn from our experiences stuff like that it's of course a historical novel so we can't tell you what's at the end and give away most of the middle work anything more you want to tease out on the book i think whenever people read it people are shocked to find that they didn't know a lot of the stuff that was that was. Where, I mean, with the first aid story, it's never really been told in one volume in this kind of depth.

And, I mean, it's amazing to me, even still. I mean, I'll kind of let you in on an author secret. Oh, there we go. you in on an author secret. Oh, there we go. Maybe I've got an author secret. We've got an author secret. But for the last two books, I'd read them so many times before they were released that I was like, ugh. Where I counted how many times I've read this book. And I've read it 26 times.

26 times? Holy crap. 26 times. And you wrote it. And I wrote book. I've read it 26 times. 26 times? Holy crap. 26 times. And you wrote it. And I wrote it. I know. I know. I put it down on paper. And I don't get sick of it. Which is a good thing. And I think

it's going to be very hard getting into book four now. But I suppose I'll pick myself up and go forward with it. think it's going to be uh it's going to be very hard kind of getting into book four now but i suppose i'll i'll pick myself up and you know go go forward with it but i mean even for other people like to look at the first aid perspectives like even during the wars any wars there was first aid efforts humanity humanity and even though there's some really disgusting vile things that happened in the world there were good people like the Order of Malta that tried to put smiles on faces, wipe away tears

dress wounds and basically let people like me know that there's some good people out there and that humanity isn't fucked that's the beauty of the humanity of it all really when it comes down to the experience of human nature well this has been pretty insightful, it's the beauty of the humanity of it all, really, when it comes down to the experience of human nature. Yeah. Well, this has been pretty insightful. It's been wonderful to have you on, Jude, again.

Give us your.com so people can find you on the interwebs, please. Okey-dokey. Well, look at my website. It's judemorrow.com. You can pick up The Ghosts of Riot's Past at Barnes & Noble, online, Amazon. If you're local to Derry, Little Acorns Bookstore, shop local, support local. And yeah, reach out to me.

I mean, I'm on all the social medias. I'm a big, awkward-looking man with a beard. My name's Jude Morrow. And I love talking about it. I love answering questions about it. And I like offering an interactive reading experience. So even if you're listening or watching this in like 10 years time through like VR, or if they invent like a microchip that's implanted in your brain, where you can, you can program your brain to put on the Chris Voss show every, every morning,

still reach out to me because I'll probably still love this topic in 10 years time as much as I love it now. It sounds like you really love it. And you're really proud of the work you've done. And you've done it interesting enough. I know people online have been gushing about it, so it's been pretty awesome. Thank you so much for coming on, Jude. We really appreciate it, man. Thank you for having me.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming again. We'll look forward to the fourth book. There's some pressure for you. There you go. There you go. More of the book, folks.

Whatever fine books are sold. The Ghosts of Riot's Past, The Troubled Conflict in Derry Through the Eyes of a Volunteer First Aider. Learn about history. Learn what took place. And it's interesting how much there is that you don't know you don't know. And so learning about this stuff is pretty cool. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. Be sure to see all our places on the interwebs. And we'll see you guys't know. And so learning about this stuff is pretty cool. Thanks everyone for tuning in. Be sure to see all our places on the interwebs and we'll see you guys next time. And that should

have a sound Jude.