Jack And I : Creative Writing

Well hello Jack and What about you ?

“ Not to bad Doc and yourself ?”

"I'm pretty good . Did you feel that earthquake the other day ? I'll tell you what we were all a bit shaken up here at our place . Did you have anything from your neck of the woods in Canberra   ?

“Yea it rock and rolled a bit some time mid evening ”

"Sure enough itn't the weather been strage lately .?"

"What was that Doc ?"

Jacek asked as he went throutgyh his bag .

"I was just saying that hasn't the weather been awesome  here lately?"

"Yeah Doc . I like a bit of thunder and lightening you know . Last summer was a little bit too warm and hot for my liking .”

I watched him take a sandwich fro his bag and start to eat .

" Hey Jack howe's the meat ?"
"Thanks for asking , its great ?"

He said .

He was a dark horse Jack . I waited until he had finished eating and asked .

"So tell me Jack in relation to the darker things of life .

You're guilty of being involved with one of the higher arts forms. Poetry and story telling am I right ?"

"Sure Doc . Just like yourself ..

"Ha Ha . So you're also a bit of a dark horse ."

"Yeah , so  how's the form ?"

“Aye . Miserable . Ha! Ha!”

I’ve been playing your CD The Spinner . I think my favourite songs are Tale of The Tinker , Nancy and also The Working Class People Of Belfast ,. In my opinion they are the three best tracks on the album  . Tell me a little about those ."

“Well Doc I grew up in Belfast . Born and raised there . I  was one of the last of the generations to see the place the way it used to be . You know peaceable, because in what ’68 there was bloody explosions started again and the two communities fractured back into the old tribes whereas before that when I was growing up for the most part there was no problems really . You used to go down to the dances in Belfast on Saturday night and two three in the morning used to cross the Falls or cut over the Shankill . There was no problems at all . You knew people in both divides and then when this thing started again people went back into the old religions into the old  politics or whatever the hell it is I don’t know .  It’s a madness but the actual piece itself The Working Class People Of Belfast is certainly a lot of the people that I know who are connected to Ireland both North and South . Its coming to terns with this nominally in a sense a non-identity  . It could be different and I guess that piece is one way as to how it could be different . I mean its based on a very long tradition of socialism  not communism where the working classes have got more in common than that which has ever separated them in many cases .”

" I know exactly what you're saying Jack . My own knowledge of the working class people of Belfast a long time ago tells me about those from the age of twelve who entered the Mill life in bare feet and they give their life to their employer . They end up with varicose veins but get very little back and it’s the poor working class people of Belfast that  always have to suffer.

“Absolutely . I mean the last time I was back in Belfast I made a point of taking a very long, as we say, dander round the city and in the close perimeter to the city .
Crossing the old roads The Falls, The Shankill, Newtonards Road, Woodstock Road all those places . I mean if you just looked at the condition of the houses ,they’re all the same  ”.

That’s the great catalyst isn’t it everyone within the working class people of Belfast have a common denominator and its that which you just mentioned the condition of the corporation house that needs a bit of work done and the people who haven’t got a lot materialistic wise but they have soul Jack .

“Very much the soul in that place is just bursting .”

What do you put that down to ?

“I think it’s a shared experience of the hardships which have been visited on the place . Sometimes through the designs of other people, sometimes through the designs of ourselves . One thing I found though and I’ve have travelled a lot in my life and sometimes Doctor Write  it seems that’s all I’ve ever done . What I have found is anytime Northern Irish people meet there is a binding, a bonding, much more so than with the Southeners .The experience is not unique its not a usual or a normal experience that the people have had to endure ”.

We are a people who belong to the same part of the world and we have come through a lot . We can find each other all over the planet .  I have listened to and  spoke to a lot of people from Belfast . The thing I always find is that its always great to be with your own .Our thoughts are the same and it’s a brilliant thing that we have . Where do you write these days ?

“Everywhere . Its sort of never stops . It’s a bit of a curse in a sense you know .
That piece The Working Class People Of Belfast I had finished writing on a beach in Spain one afternoon and at that time I made a conscious decision to stop all this nonsense  and put my time to mundane things like earning money and trying to make a living and I deliberately shut this off . I couldn’t because it kept coming .
I don’t know where it was coming from  . I’d no idea but it kept coming and this Working Class People Of Belfast  kept twirling away until one afternoon on the beach in Alicante-Alicante it declared itself written . ”

I think the vocal arrangement to The Working Class People Of Belfast is quite unique. There is a lot of depth there .

Its interesting . Many comments have been made  and in the chorus I asked The Trade Union Choir  from Canberra directed by Chrissie Shaw to sing the chorus and I recite the chorus and we just don’t quite match up and  Mike said yea that makes a point with that place and again it was one of those things . It wasn’t really consciously done it was unconsciously done . Yea .

There’s a lot to be said for what’s happening in Belfast today . I think you know I suppose we’re lucky to be away from . There’s a lot of things that you and I  can say and do that we couldn’t do in Belfast . With our music, with our poetry .
It kind of frees us a bit  being away from it .

“I think it does . One of the things worldwide is its wealth and impact when you  see how it has fitted in . Pretty much anything goes you know, within reason, simply because the place in European settlement terms is too young .
We haven’t had the time here to develop old ancient institutions which rightly or wrongly, good or badly start to build walls . I think in time it will happen .You can see possibly things like that starting  to happen in the States . Certain dynasties starting to happen, establishment,  the old Iveagh League type thing. I don’t think its really settled here yet, but it will . I think its human nature . Certainly artistically
I think it’s a great benefit when you can really do what you want . Nobody really cares which is a good thing and a bad thing of course .

Another track on The Spinner album I love is Nancy . You’ve got a great feel of the blues in that musical expression there .Some of the musicians on this track are fantastic .

Oh yea. The trumpeter in particular Miroslav Bukovsky originally from Bohemia .
His band is Wunderlust, a jazz band and he teaches at the jazz school in Canberra .
We needed a bit of top trumpet so we used Duntroon Army people to come in and do the horns and that . The likes of Tony Hunter  who’s claim to fame mainly is the Bluegrass world . I don’t like Bluegrass butTony is one of those guys who can play just about any stringed instrument . I think he came to one of the sessions one night with about fifteen of them . All sorts including one he made himself . He came with a pedal steel or some kind of slide guitar that he made himself from various bits that he procured from the tip .

Who came up with the melody for Nancy ?

Its sort of always going on . Its formulating  all the time . Well I mean you’re a writer so  I’m sure to a greater or lesser extend a similar thing happens to you as well . You’ve really got no choice about it .The melody has been there for a long time . The song itself is  a true story . I used to live in Dublin and its about a girl I met one night and things started from there .

I lived in Dublin myself for a while and I found it is a great centre for the arts .
I used to go to a pub there called  Sean O’Caseys and as you’d expect there was always a good supply of Craic centred on Irish writers and the Irish music  .
Lots of writers frequented the place .

Sure , I mean even if you go to any of the Irish Clubs around Australia you’ll see the posters up on the wall Irish Writers and you look at this and I mean any one country would be pretty chuffed to have one or two of them of these guys and we’ve got the first eleven sort of . I mean there’s hundreds of them. I mean Shaw Joyce, Yeats and Stoker . We were talking about stoker and a lot of people didn’t even know he was Irish . They think he was Transylvanian but like Bram Stoker doesn’t even make it on to the poster .

I suppose at the time when he was writing about Count Dracula not many people related to what he was trying to say . People backed away from all that because it was very dark . They might have said this fella not well or something like that and they pushed him out into the margins somewhere .Today Irish writers are getting  the recognition they deserve and the quality and depth of their work is incredible .

Oh yea . Like Sammy Beckett . He moved North for a while and he taught for a while in one of the Grammar schools . Campbell College . I think he lasted about ten months . He didn’t like Belfast at all . I know a lot of people seem to think its the Birmingham of Ireland .

It’s a hard station all right . I remember Richard Harris God rest him said one night in front of the home crowd in the Belfast Opera House . To make it to the top in New York is tough but if you can please a Belfast audience you’ll make it anywhere . Not everyone could afford to go to the Opera house so the people who could wanted to be entertained  and expected the very best .If you were lacking in any department they’d soon let you know it .

Oh yes . I remember once a few years ago going down to the city hall lights at Christmas .There was so much soul in the place. You could touch it .
You could feel it .It’s a feeling I’ve rarely had any where else and the earthiness and grittiness and some the expression people have I mean, its performance poetry in every other sentence .

That’s where it comes from .

Its from the soul . The art itself . I found that the music in particular its very much Grittier than Dublin .

Its been suffered for . Some people would laugh or scoff at that or say ah everything’s suffered for . But living a slaughter house brings out the grit in writing You either fight about it or write about it . So others may  understand where you are and what suffering is all about . Unless something has been suffered for it can’t last the testing of time  . What the people of Belfast have experienced is a suffering that has brought out a great strength of soul . There’s also  a great healing in being able to talk about or write about that experience  as well . Another song on The Spinner Jack is The Tale Of The Tinker and it speaks of a place near to where I grew up . Crumlin Road Jail and The Mater Hospital .

Oh yea a wonderful cathedral of misery .

That’s a good way to put it . A dark wee spot opposite the court house .

I was going up  there on the bus about three or four years ago and it was pelting down with that sort of sleet and the bus stopped in a bit of a traffic jam and you could see right up the side of the jail where  on one side was the wall with the razor wire and on the inside was the prison . You had this dirty sort of ally type of area in between, Jesus, the ghosts in that place .

In that piece on the album there is one .

Oh yes . That’s a interesting piece that one . A couple of people here don’t like that It disturbs them . It  troubles them . First of all you’ve got the murder . Basically its about a tinker  who is happy with his life, a bit of a boy I suppose , a larrikin, he has the fortune or misfortune to meet this lady in a place called Larne . He wants to marry her and she won’t have a bar of it so he stabs her and he’s put away in the pokey and when he’s in this wonderful holiday camp called the Crumlin Road jail . He’s in his bunk one night and the ghost of this lady comes and visits him and tells him his fortune literally .   

Like any art form it will have a different impression of people where it will throw up an image within the subconscious mind and the impact is always going to be a different appreciation . Some people will like it while others fear it .

Personally I think that’s the function of all art  . In some way to challenge peoples perceptions and cause them to wonder . I think if you can do that, you’ve done you’re job .   

Some of the other tracks on the album like “For You” are quite evocative Jack .

Yes Paul I’ve been blessed  with the women I’ve known in my life and that’s about one of them . One of the difficulties about this and being a writer is that sometimes the partners can’t really fathom as to why you’re so distant most of the time like in outer space maybe, or  why you’re always watching people, as opposed to joining in. The reasons why is, you’re working .

On the track Santo Girls you’ve brought out some of your mariners tales.

Oh yea Paul . Its part of my travel portfolio career  . Ha! Ha!  I thought I’d go to sea and I did . I ended up going down to South America a lot . I spent a lot of time between there and the Middle East . Brazil itself there was  the jewel in the crown There was some lovely friendly ladies there in Santos . They soothed away a lot of our troubles .

There is some nice fiddle on that track as well  .

Yea that’s Dan Efraemson . He is a lovely fiddle player . I got introduced to him from Tony Hunter who does a lot of guitar and mandolin work on the album .

Tell me the story behind the Wild Geese in the lyrics after the Santos Girls .

Well the basis of that piece is and I couldn’t actually make this up Paul .
I was in a place in Jordan near Israel . It’s a close as to being in Israel without actually being in Israel . I was standing in a bar and had just come off a ship  and this guy came up to me and said, I suppose you’ll be going down to the Holiday Inn tonight  and I said Why , he said Well its St Patricks day and there’s a good band down there . I says So it is ok  I’ll go down there so I went and there was this band from Glengormley in Belfast and about fifteen County Antrim farmers . Its along long story as to what they and I were doing there .

You play keyboards and Box on the album .

Yea I just fiddle around with that . I’m really a words man .I’m very fortunate to have a lot of musicians around me .. My sense of timing is appalling and I do things which people say you can’t do  and they cover them all up .

I think with music there is a part of it that can’t ever be written . That essence from the heart and soul . You know it’s a feeling .

Yea it’s a tone .You see Doc its one of the places I learnt singing was in the back room of a pub at two in the morning half drunk on Guinness with a bunch of old codgers from the hills . Somebody would say right, its your turn and whatever you do you do and a lot of that was unaccompanied singing . There was no music of course , you had to make the song or the story carry and you had to do that by your own meter and tonal qualities . I guess from a commercial sense what it ended up was a very eccentric type of singing way of expressing yourself within the context of that tradition . It made perfect sense .

That tradition being folk ..

Oh yea I mean this was as folk as you could ever possibly  get . We used to drink in this bar Mick Cunninghams  in Dundrum just outside of Newcastle .You’d be in there Friday Saturday night, I think it was half eleven closing time you were thrown out and Mick would come around with one of the sons and invite certain people back into the back room, there’d be singers and a musician, a fiddler maybe , from memory there’d be twenty people all sitting just around doing individual bits .
Old stories, prose, poetry, sort of songs, everything . Pure folk . You’d have some very old guys coming in you know, my mate, his father used to run a poteen still up in the Castlewhellan Mountains and some of his mates used to come down and you’d hear all these stories . It was such a wealth or spread of stories ,earthiness , of grit, of humour ,  of pathos . Sometimes they’d be sung . Sometimes some of the people would be so drunk they could sing it would be spoken . It just ended up what it ended up as . Now wither people would pigeon hole it as this or as that, I don’t know . Its irrelevant . 

That kind of grit and background in music has an ability to give strength to the your voice and enable you to talk through concrete and if you make a mistake you just carry on with it .

Yea , I mean that was all part and parcel of it . Old Johnny falling off his stool in the middle it as he’s getting up to the  vinegar stroke of it . That’s all part of it .
Having a go at it with all the old codgers from my perspective was great . They wouldn’t quite criticize you but they would give you a couple of  hints on how to carry a song .

So you learnt how to chant and carry some of these old songs from these people way back in the County Down .

Don’t forget Doc as you know yourself a lot of these songs and folk stories were quite long . So in order to carry them especially in noisy pubs , I’ve seen guys do this , they’ve stopped the place you’ve got to be able to vary, alter and what I think is very important is to be this channel .

Thanks Jack for being a channel for us to tune into . Its been great to talk with you . I hope to see you again .

Thanks a million for having me Doctor .
All the best .

The End
 

By Doctor Write