 Northwest. Now there's a master storyteller who has returned to the stage and he is coming to Greenland Theatre this Saturday night. He's a Michael Harding, there's Times Journalist and author and storyteller and a great man for exploring the truths about the human condition. But recently he found that he was actually, despite all of that, he was unable to say certain things that he really wanted to. He was recovering from surgery and he travelled here to Donegal and headed out to the coast and contemplated life and people in particular that had an effect on him over the years that had profoundly affected him, that loves and mentors and old friends and he wrote letters to them, letters that would never be posted and we were chatting to Michael on the show last year about this but it's, anyhow, and Michael's here to cut a long story short. Meg is here so for all that I'm rather than a good Michael, good, good. Is it, I was going to say there in the introduction, is it sort of the, a book tour, is it sort of the book on tour? It's a book tour, it is. It's like what I do every, every time I have a new book, I've done this now over 10 years, when I have a new book out, I do a tour and it's like an evening with Michael Harding and it's like 90 minutes on stage and I just have stories from the book, right, so it's not kind of formally reading the book very much but it's a bit of fun and a bit of kind of sharing the stories, sharing the ideas that's in the book and this particular book I wrote it, I had two operations on the spine 18 months ago. How are you now? I'm not too bad just about, I'm alright, but anyway I was so happy that the operations went well and that I recovered I felt I wanted to come to Donegal just because it's a retreat for me, I've always come to Donegal for quietness and peace, you walk along the beaches around the west coast and you couldn't do better, so I'm walking along there, I'm getting better, I'm healing myself and what started to happen is I started thinking of people that I miss, like we say the woman those brides made at me wedding or the fellow that was best man at me wedding or the fellow that the priest that married us and I'm thinking of them because they've passed away, they've died in the past three years during COVID and I'm missing them and the thing that I felt was I never get an opportunity to say thank you to them, like those people like Mary McPartland, she was a famous singer and like Mary was such a help to me in my career, she really practically helped me get into theatre. Tom Hickey was a great actor, he used to do Benji in the Reartons, he was another man that kind of I wouldn't have been able to get on as a writer if it weren't for those people who showed me the ropes and showed me how to do it and helped me along the way and there were two examples of people who died unexpectedly, who are because of COVID and never had a chance to sit with them and say do you know I really appreciate all you did for me and when I got better myself from a spine operation I felt this urge, I'd be walking along the beach at Carrick Finn and Mary McPartland's voice had come into my head or I'd be thinking of Tom Hickey looking, you know you'd be looking down the long beach at the rocks in the distance and there'd be some little figure of a person on it, you know the way they're like tiny and you'd be thinking god that looks like Tom Hickey and so I thought I'll write this book as letters to all those people that I felt grateful to her and who passed away in sudden circumstances and in ways that I never had an opportunity to thank them and that's the book really. Yeah, a book that's done really well. Yeah I got the number one best-selling on that crack thanks be to god. But it was as a chance to I suppose the way that you've done it it's a chance to talk to these people and say things that you never did get a chance. That's right yeah because I think like one of the things we do miss is saying thank you like like there's people I even thought about it like last Sunday what is today one Tuesday I thought of it on Sunday Mother's Day my mother passed away like 12 years ago but there isn't a mother's day that passes I don't think like of how many opportunities I missed to thank her like in her old age when she was old and feeble and I used to be going to visit her on Calvin and I used to be fed up going to visit her you know like you'd be going over every Friday and she'd be difficult she'd be awkward and because she was like in her late 80s and she'd still insist on coming out to done stores with you and you'd be going around done stores with her and she'd be barely able to walk across from one aisle to another but she'd insist on doing it herself and she'd be going to the the yogurts you know and they'd be like which one will I have there'd be about 25 yogurts right and it would take her the whole day to go through them and eventually she'd take the same yogurt as she takes every week you know what I mean that's right and you'd be thinking like oh I'm I'm a great hero to be putting up with my mother but like it was only when she passed away that I felt such sadness that I didn't spend more time saying to her how much I appreciated the way she reared us the way she minded us the way she was so open like even like you know my life has been a queer confusion of doing one thing after another which wouldn't be kind of conventional but the mother always enjoyed it she always supported it she never criticised anything I did you know so that's another example of how I think we miss sometimes in life saying thank you to people who may have an opportunity and COVID really gave us this terrible moment of not being able to talk to people because I like I was in hospital for two months during that period and all that time the wife had to just drive me to the door and that was it you were just left there and people who were ill but who were dying they were talking to their loved ones on an iPad on devices yeah you know yeah you mentioned your mother there is that in a way a uniquely Irish thing or a uniquely Irish thing off of certain generations in that you know we deeply loved our parents yeah those things we just we just didn't discuss or we just we didn't express our love the way that we we should have and yeah the way that we can now there's there's a reticence in Irish people and it came out in that film on Colleen Cuen there's a lovely reticence in Irish people and that's what I saw a review in the New York Times of that film and that's what it said it said that the Irish have an extraordinary reticence that like we get it feels excited I suppose that's why drink is dangerous for us like we get over emotion I get over emotional um hopping around the place and you know going crazy like happy but at the same time there's a reticence in Irish people where they understate their love for each other and I think that's a great gift and I think that the other thing about like I go up and like I was in Waterford now last weekend and I'm in Tony Gaul this weekend and I'm doing the whole country with this tour although I have to say letter Kenny next Saturday night is the one that I'm most in favour of because it's special to me I've been coming up here and living here and I wrote the book in Tony Gaul so it's special but going around the country you do meet people like I went in for a coffee this is only three or four days ago and I was traveling up from Waterford and I went into for a coffee shop and there was a woman and she was standing at the door at the coffee like she was working in it she had been wiping the tables and squirting them with anti disinfectant and she's standing at the door even when I come on and sit down she's still standing there she's looking out and she's watching somebody and I'm wondering who is she watching and eventually she says back to one of the girls in the kitchen you know did Tommy get his tea right and he's obviously somebody who's working he was working he was cleaning drains or plumbing for them outside and she opened her Tommy did you get your tea I said no so come in and get your tea and he came in Wellington's and all went in through to the kitchen to get whatever dinner or tea or lunch he was having but that kind of mind in people do you know what I mean that she was watching out for somebody else and we do a lot of that and it's what makes us human you're you're you're you study the you know human nature that will Irish character in particular and and and write a lot about it and I suppose we're we're we're right for studying and it's we're we're a great race we're we're a great sort of nationality altogether well we have huge negativities right we have huge things are wrong with us but the danger is that we get too overwhelmed by the negative I mean most of the time if you're listening if you read the Irish Times or any newspaper any day of the week most of it is kind of negative or it would depress you with the awful things that happened the murders the rapes the violence the drugs the you know the rogary of politicians whatever and like right in the middle of that every Wednesday I read a column which is just stories about how beautifully human we all are and I think it's just a balance it's not like it's not like we're we're kind of denying that we do bad things in Ireland we do we make awful mistakes and have done in history but by God there's also another part of the story and that is the human nature and the kindness of people is always beautiful and and why is it not highlighted more why is it not written about more why do we have I'm not saying we have a fascination but why are we all are more likely to be drawn towards stories about oh did you hear or isn't it awful that it is now but a turtle could be raining in five minutes you know why I know yeah well I think it's just because that's human nature it's human nature for people to kind of almost believe the worst about themselves and and the person that tells you the worst about yourself is yourself like you think of the amount of people who get up in the morning and they have a little voice on the back of their head being negative all the time do you know what I mean and you make a mistake about you have an appointment for 10 o'clock with the doctor and you miss it because you thought it was tomorrow that kind of thing and you crucify yourself you're constantly being negative about yourself and we all have that propensity like I think that's just human nature it's not just Irish it's everybody has this terrible push that they want to listen to this voice which is negative inside them and sometimes like that's where it ends up in you know mental health issues where you really need to be positive and you really need to as they used to say don't be hard on yourself think about the amount of times you could say that to somebody like don't be hard on yourself don't be always judging yourself negatively you are a beautiful person is it is it because we don't want to get we don't want to get above our station or we don't want to appear to be something that we're not I don't I don't know I mean I don't know I'm not a I'm not a psychologist or a therapist we're having a clue all I'm a I'm a storyteller that's all I can do but all I know is that in though in the stories and that yeah you know I write with my ears John B. Keen used to say that about his right and I write with my ears like I'm up and down the country and I'm listening to people and I'm just passing on the stories that I hear and the two things that you hear or the conclusions you come to one is that people can be very hard on themselves and they can get drawn to the negative stories in the newspaper and the negative stories in life but underneath that there's there's a huge powerful swell it's like the ocean it keeps coming back in and it's a kind of a notion of kindness I mean that's it you know and you couldn't get better players to see that kindness than this old county. Indeed yeah I would like to think so yeah and yeah it's about it's about spotting it. It's nearly as good as Leedsroom. So just to let people the listeners know and from Leedsroom. From Cavern. Oh from Cavern. From Cavern living in Leedsroom and I'm now kind of an exile in Donegal and Saturday night. Good mix. Saturday night in England on. Yeah yeah and just briefly come back to the book heartening you know you had a tough time with the back surgery obviously then recovery and you had the idea of writing the book in the form of letters yeah it's and I've said this to other writers it's always heartening when the book does well it's nice to see that received. Look I was this is the kind of success overnight success after 30 years like I was I'm writing and doing shows and going around the country since 1984 right and loving it but it wasn't until about 2006 so how many that's like 30 years and then all of a sudden I've had seven books now that have been bestsellers and sure it's great. But isn't it isn't that the arc of society isn't that the way we where the country is now sort of positioned the way we've become more open to if if you like you know what you're what you're preaching what your philosophy is what you're about and you know it's seeking out positivity talking about the human character and all its various forms we're more more open to discussion. We're open we're more open and I'll tell you grating as well there's more books available like like Irish people are reading far more books than there were when I was young and when I was young like in my 20s or 30s even the amount of publishers that published Irish writers was very few you know. Yeah there were definitely more Irish writers. There's a huge amount now I mean you go around any county and you'll find really really interesting and good writers so I think it's and the libraries are a great help but I think that generally there's there's more people reading. Yeah yeah. Anyway back to the show which is Saturday night and it's you described it or you mentioned the phrase earlier an evening with Michael Harding and and that's what it is. It's pure storytelling and there seems to be a lot of comedy you seem to be. Yeah yeah no I think you'll have a good hour laugh there's nothing as funny as misery so I do share with people some of the details of the awful things that happened in the hospital like there's there's things that I couldn't say on radio that happen in the hospital but like it's funny how miserable things are funny. Do you know that kind of way? Yeah yeah well you'll thank you very much. Yeah you don't you don't laugh at it when it's happened when you're lying there and they come with a big hose piped stick into you somewhere between your legs you're not laughing you know but when you're telling the story later it seems to be terribly funny. Yeah. You know so yeah there's laughter in it and there's a kind of a I read from the book obviously and a certain amount of spontaneity. I went I was here like I was in the on green on about four years ago and I remember I was so excited and happy that I went out on stage and I started humming or singing I just dropped in to see you all and the whole audience started singing with it and then I stopped because I didn't know the words and I had to say to the audience I don't know the words and they were not happy at all they were highly insulted but anyway I won't try that tricky I won't try that trick again. They probably they were relieved they probably didn't know the rest of the words themselves. But it could go I mean this isn't scripted this you know I mean you made a pointers but it could go off in any direction. I have basic stories which are the stories of the book it's like how I grew up how I got sick and how I recovered by wandering the beaches of Donegal. Saturday night in the green on. See you there. Pleasure. I'll be signing books afterwards by the way okay they'll be on sale I'll be signing the books afterwards or even if you have a book feel free to bring it along. Yes absolutely or or or anybody else's book you won't be deciding either. Fair enough. Fair enough. Thanks Michael. Thank you John.