 I love Christmas every year because there's so many Michael Bubley's dogs and I say the royalty checks in January are great. Now there's a dairy based author who has got the fourth and final book in fact in a series just out and it's the Stones Corner series. The final book is called Hope and a sizeable book it is as well and if you're looking at the video later on that's what the cover looks like and it's a lengthy 400 pages and I'm delighted that the author Jane, Jane Buckley joins us in the studio. Jane good afternoon. Good afternoon Joan. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for coming in. Let's roll back to the first book and that's not that long ago. What are we chatting a couple of years? March 2021. How did they say there's a book on everyone but there's four or more in you by the looks of things. How did the first one come about? Well the first one was supposed to be one book but it just escalated into four. I mean basically I lived in London for a long time and I used to get quite frustrated because nobody seemed to understand what the troubles in the north were all about. I mean they had sort of one opinion or a number of opinions through the media and having lived in Derry and it was a teenager during it I just thought well I'll write a fictional story from my own experiences and around. A fictional book based on reality? It's based on true events so obviously top and tail to be given the sensitivity of some of the incidents in the book. I have had to be very very careful but yeah true you know very much around facts and figures and true events. First one starts back in 72 and this one brings it right up to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. So there's a lot of history and history of the troubles and social history in Derry and so on in the middle. Right through and that's one of the reasons why I decided it was going to be three books and it went into four because there was such a story to tell. And you know so many things that have occurred but it's got everything in it. I mean originally I started to write it for I thought the younger generation as a way of you know reading a good book reading a fictional tale but learning at the same time what it was all about. But ironically it's actually people of my age you know who actually live through the troubles. There's a lot of memories in their little things that sort of bring things back. People can identify. Oh undoubtedly I mean it's you know as I say it's got all the little we've got the Rainbow Cafe. I don't know if you remember you know all the old places that used to be in the city. You know down in Waterloo Place and there's a lot of recollection in there for some of the old places. Derry every bit as much as Belfast has changed so much since. Unbelievable. Since to say for instance the Good Friday Agreement. No it's brilliant. Yeah. It is absolutely brilliant and I mean I'm back here well just before Covid so and I just love being back home. I always knew I'd come back home. What do they say? You can take Derry out of it. You take the Gert out of the Derry. You can take Derry out of the Gert. But Derry is such a different city now. Oh it's different. Cosmopolitan is a great place to you know to hang out and have coffee and sample different types of food. There's a great vibe about the place. I love seeing the tourists. I mean I can eat it in the corner waving and welcome them here because I just love to see tourists walking around the city. Because the history of the city itself is powerful. Absolutely. You know it's just amazing. And as peaceful it's you know people can come and appreciate it all the more. Now just go into the book. A synopsis for me and characters. Yes. You've got Caitlyn the young sort of innocent girl who falls in love deeply and badly with James Henderson who owns a factory. He owns a Rikola shirt factory in the city. So he takes over the factory from his uncle. And then you've got you know you've got a young British soldier who finds himself you know in the city. Has no reason or understanding of why he's actually there. Can't understand why he's over time. He's hated so much you know. So you've got sort of a level playing field from each perspective of the community. And then you've got you've got a young James. He's a young Protestant. He's quite naive again. But there is a love story in it during a conflict. You know and there are some very tough scenes in it. It's not for everybody. I will put my hand on hard and say that. But the last book hope I mean obviously the titles you know you've got turmoil 72. You've got darkness 1975. You've got light when the political you know the political landscape changed. You know when politics came over the armor light. And then obviously hope leading up to the Good Friday agreement. Why those titles are unusual titles. I don't know just instinctively. They came and it made sense you know according to the time in the era. I mean it was turmoil in 1972 just after Bloody Sunday. It was a termolic time. It was a heartbreak and darkness was you know the darkness. The second book personally as a woman. I cover a lot about the armor woman's prison. Which isn't much as talked as much as perhaps as a H block would have been. So there's a lot of really quite intense scenes in that as well. So and then obviously light leading to you know peace and then hope. I mean we're all still quite frankly we're still hoping our way that over the last couple of days things will get themselves sorted out. But we've come a long way as you said. Yes we have. Huge. It's not a way to go today even even with today's news. No I know. We're not just quite there yet. No I hear. And was it because of their response because you did get a great response after the first one. And the reviews have been great for these books. Yeah. So it did sort of you know one problem well and there's definitely a second one here and then well there's going to be a third and fourth. Well as I said it started off at one and I knew what the final line in that first book was going to be. But then it just as I said the story I got so ingrained in the characters. I mean there's some the characters are really real to me. So I had to literally tell their story and I couldn't have done it in any other way than doing the four books. And the final line in the fourth book is the line that I originally had started off with and the scene in the first in the you know just the first book I was going to do in turmoil. There you go. So. So many authors have said the same thing once they once they had the character once once I got into into the character then it flows. It's just it's like me talking to you. You know I've got this imagination where I can set the scene. The people are so real to me. I mean without sounding corny there's been a couple of scenes in there where I've actually physically been crying. I'm so ingrained in it and person from my own experiences as well. I mean for example in the first book there's a funeral scene and you know when you're when you're actually writing it comes right back. You know that moment when they're screwing the coffin lid down and you're saying right this is the finality of that. It's just it's powerful. But when it comes from a place of realism and not fiction and you then add in the fiction elements then it's understandable how it can be emotional. It is. I mean terribly emotional. And then there's some very you know that black you know gallo humor that dairy people have or we all have where there's a few funny scenes in there when one of the kids has just been told he's you know he's got onto project Children which is one of the. I don't know if you've ever heard of it but it was basically a New York policeman who started a project in 1975 bringing the kids back and forward. There was a documentary made and I've actually been asked to write the book his story the story the project Children story next year. I've been commissioned to write that because I used some of it because I was raging. I wasn't picked. I wanted to be picked when you got your wish. I did indeed. So that's going to be your next book. Yes it is. I mean and it's a fantastic story 23,000 kids over 40 years to host families. I can't believe there hasn't been a book about it yet. Oh well there's been a documentary for RTE and BBC but the book and that's the 50th anniversary in 2025. And I actually contacted Dennis Mulcahy's daughter when she was in letter candy saying and we met and we had it off and I've been over to Greenwood Lake. And William Crawley the BBC reporter for example he was one of the project Children. So I'm actually reaching out now to talk to the people that organise it on this end and some of the kids that actually attended. It's fantastic. Great stories to tell. Yes absolutely. It's just magic. Yeah. Okay well it's Stones Corner. It's volume four and if you've been following the series if you have the other books then you'll definitely want to get your hands on this one. It's called Hope and it is out now and where can people get there? Where's the best place people can go? Probably a bookmark. David bookmark IE and letter candy shopping centre. Yeah. He's been fab like yourselves. He's been really supportive. Okay good. Or you can get it on my website jainbuckleyrights.com. Okay. Yeah. Very straightforward. Jane thank you very much. Thank you very much. Have a great Christmas. And you. Thanks John.