 It's freezing out there it is freezing out there as and I mean, I'm not normally one to be very cold I'm in a t-shirt. I don't do jumpers or sweatshirts or anything like that And I can feel it so if it's if I can feel it then it's definitely cold T-shirt in this weather. You're right and hardy. That's all I can say big thick reptilian skin, I think let's talk about the book anyhow, and Even though it's based very much There's there's a lot of it that happened in real life You decided to go with a book of fiction and the central character Martha. Yeah The reason why I wanted to have a fictional character on it is because I mean if you look at the free dairy period 1692 that's a fascinating period of history because my professional background as a social worker and I learned a lot about humanitarian crises, which are normally Citizens being displaced or expelled from their their homeland Whereas this was different where everybody decided to barricade themselves in so that's very very unique and You know inside that time where it was a self-declared autonomous state where the healthcare network was propped up mainly by Teenage girls, which was the order of Malta and first aid posts that were pop-up run by volunteers some doctors and nurses helped out And I thought that's a really fascinating element of it because you hear different stories like from political elements from paramilitary elements and whatever else Whenever it comes to defining local history, but nobody has thought of this Entity where it was first aid where it was the people that were there to serve the community to prop up that community when health care and general health overall in such a deprived area was so bad and there's so much happened and that tiny space and that tiny frame of time three years So the reason I deployed a fictional character and it was to try and get as wide a view of events as possible Because a real person wouldn't have seen or heard every pivotal moment and not three-year history But when it's a fictional character you can pull on in all these other strands. Yeah Okay, and you know some of the fictional some of them really yeah I'm threw you out the writing of the book I actually had gathered together a group of the order of Malta volunteers and families from those who are sadly no longer with us to Kind of help influence, you know what they did who they were and to kind of get an atmosphere of how they interacted with one another and I mean in the beginning there were there was some skepticism because there's been 50 years of enquiries solicitors nosy journalists everything else so I wanted to have a Fictional character in that to kind of portray some sense of feeling and loving life in that time without probing too deeply and What was already a very difficult time for them? we started this book you weren't O'Faye with this period of history or the the intricacies of what went on but When you got stuck in it was a hundred percent and you decided to do some proper research Absolutely where I I mean I had two books out I'd written about my experiences of being autistic in the mainstream school system and business and and working life and everything So I wanted to do something a bit different So the seed was already some for something different and it was about this time last year when the Sort of program events for the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday were starting to be publicized And I thought I know nothing about this So I'm gonna learn and the way my brains wired as if I take an interest in something. I'm all in in Energy time and everything else and it just I just became fascinated by it I really fell in love with it and I suppose it it took over to some extent, but I didn't realize How important my local history was and how significant it was and I suppose Like a lot of people in a lot of places around the world they take their own local history for granted Wasn't it great to shine a light in particular on these young volunteers these order multi volunteers and and they would have been doing what football matches and Fairs and you know, it's just what people were gathering and then all of a sudden they were thrust into almost a war situation Exactly and what's actually funny is whenever I had a room of them and I would if I said to them, you know, I think your heroes And I think you're all very interesting is that kind of in this part of the world, you know Whenever people turn their head like this, they think you're mad, you know, that was the look I got pretty much the whole time and Their humility was just incredible because I thought I did volunteer when I was younger I did some youth work whenever I was younger and I mean they wanted to volunteer They wanted to serve their communities and you're right That's the way it started out like doing D&D football matches the Lamas fair You know events GAA games and then all of a sudden they were Put in to the midst of a war zone live ammunition Petrol bombs and everything else and what people take for granted to is they were taught basic first aid Where they were taught how to put on bandages a last-of-plast, you know some burns ointment But then especially particularly in 1971 one internment came on the riots got more ferocious and nail bombs started to be thrown Where they were treating some really really horrific injuries because people didn't want to go to hospital no matter how persuasive the The order of Malta volunteers tried to be and they would have been on the scene as it was happening as opposed to being called in After the event it would have been a mixture of both I mean they would have been out on the riot lines people would have been treated on the street People would have been treated where they were if they were taken to nearby houses I mean first aid posts were were popped up in the area but Mostly it would have been delivered on the street on site where they would have hidden them cover behind walls and laneways And if people came for them they had stretchers with them and again very basic first aid supplies It is a fascinating time in local history and social history and in the history of Northern Ireland Tell us a wee bit about the book now, you know, we're chatting there about real events and real volunteers But that's only part of it the book obviously at work of fiction. Tell us a wee bit about You know, we're giving too much away about Martha and what happens to her Well, well with Martha I wanted to capture what kind of growing up in dairy in the 50s and the 60s Would have been like where there's a couple of elements that I wanted to bring into it Where one element that I wanted to bring in was the Rossville flats But three big sector tire blocks in the middle of the bogside I can't visualize them because they were knocked down before I was born But what I noticed in Facebook groups and when people talk to me about them they remembered them so fondly It's like this sort of mythical place that I can't visualize But then there's other people that think in their heads. Oh, I can't imagine them gone You know because they were there so long so I have elements of that And it I'm one really lovely part that was one of my favorite things that because a big part of the book As bloody Sunday as I wanted to have a Sort of biographical account of one of the the children victims of bloody Sunday And that was Hugh Gilmore who loved on the Rossville flats So meeting with his family getting the recollections and sort of telling the you know the child story Was another good aspect of it. And as time went on kind of whenever I was on the the writing journey of it I just got talking to so many different people and I wanted to incorporate things like music So having like a 60s bubble-com pop soundtrack and it as well I just wanted to be like a time capsule sort of love letter to the 60s and 70s and yes, these events are well documented by history But people love their lives people went to work people went to school people sort of got on with it And despite really dark days people did have happy memories to it's it's a bit like that There's been a series of programs on RTE there recently about Life here in Ireland during the Civil War and how actually, you know normal life For the most part just went on despite all these awful events that we Was happening around them and that that we that became Became, you know part of our history and the same was in dairy I mean we think about this time and we think about the battle the bog side and bloody Sunday, but Normal life went on it did go on and but before and after and I Mean trying to capture how surreal the time was and one Part of a section of the book I'm really proud of as the 1969 rights the battle of the bog side because How surreal it was because I mean working with the order of multi volunteers who were there who treated people on those three days Because what you know getting their feedback as I went and the most surreal thing You know to happen during those three days was the idea that they are you see we're throwing the stones back at them We're throwing stones back like I mean what a thing for the police to have to do and I think trying to capture that sentiment because even at the start whenever the first injuries were coming in You know what happened to him or the police threw a stone at him What the police threw a stone at him did he tell you that right? I'm gonna go down and say and they came back and said right there actually throwing stones back at young people it is And again, you know, I stress it's great to shine a light on these young volunteers in the order of multi because I don't But to my knowledge hasn't really been done much. It's a it's a whole it's a whole it's a whole part of this phase in history that that has been sort of neglected and You know was it enlightening when you got to meet some of these volunteers They were only young teenagers then and incredibly enlightening because The this is the thing and I just told them and such pie regard I'd have a statue of every last one of them built if I'd get away with it It's none of them wrote a biography None of them really spoke publicly about their experience because they got into the order of Malta for the right reasons They didn't do it for publicity. They didn't do it for praise or thanks they did it for the true spirit of Christian charity and wanting to help people and I suppose kind of from you know the group of volunteers from that time who were very very young I mean some of them as young as 15 an upward most of them are between 69 and 72 or between 15 and 20 There were some older ones, but I mean most of them were very very young and I suppose It's an area that not many people have talked about because the way it works Particularly with Irish history I found is that the creakiest gate always gets the most oil You know the people that like talking about it the people that like speaking out about it the people that love telling their experiences and writing it down in books of which there are many and I suppose all of those kind of creaky gates kind of superseded the order of Malta volunteers, but hopefully not now and the title is particularly poignant because it hints at the the coats that they wore yeah white coats kit bags and The way they did it was they were almost like a safety net like I mean they Yeah, some of them would have walked out under the riot lines and stuff But they would have had them in laneways had them in corners had a stretcher with them You know they were just sort of in the background like ghosts, you know and then the white coat So that's where the name of the book came from because it sort of big among the Grips of young people at the barricades words circulated where the first aid girls were So if they were in a ramp way or a lane way where people could tell people where to go if they'd get hit with a Stone or fell over or a nail bomb blew up in their hand or whatever else awful injuries They had to treat but that's why the the title was there because but then I'm photographs if there's Photographs that were taken of that time, you know that they're very visible Where I say to people if you look at photographs of that time and you see a group of young people with white coats and big boots That are too big for them then that's them But you but now whenever I say that and people look at them. You'll not not see them And just want to mention you're you're sort of your your other work and your your other life in a way you're a Ted speaker and also a founder of NTI Neurodiversity Training International and what you do is you mentor people with the autism well What I do is we do a couple of things primarily we're a Marketing and design company so what we do is we work with autism charities and groups to create online courses memberships and There's a lot of autistic people themselves that want to set up their own business and kind of make a living out of their expertise and their Writing so we would do marketing brand and stuff like that with them And the other strand of it is schools training that I like to do myself because I went through the the school system as an Autistic child and when my first book came out which was why does daddy always look so sad and I was one of my first promo interviews was actually here in Highland radio whenever that came out and I realized when people were reaching out to me and writing to me that a lot of people working through the same Kind of issues that I went through and this was the mid 90s and early 2000s and I suppose the reason why Autistic kids like me the younger ones that are coming through now are Experiencing those things is because not a lot of people know about what being autistic is what it means and they have a Strengths-based approach. So we're actually on the campaign trail to train every school in Ireland north and south Okay, if somebody does want to reach out to you get in touch with you Socials female Absolutely reach out to me. I have no issue giving out my email over there the airwaves It's Jude at neurodiversity hyphen training comm the website is neurodiversity hyphen training net Jude morrow.com. I'm on social media Instagram, or I'm everywhere. I'm omnipresent Yeah, I'm easily found easily approached and very good at replying so do not be afraid. Don't be shy I don't bite. It's been a pleasure chatting to you Jude. The book is out now. It is it's called the ghosts of riots past Jude moral Thank you very much and thank you very much The choices we make determine where we're