1
00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:01,520
Speaker 1: How are you doing today, David.

2
00:00:03,560 --> 00:00:07,480
Speaker 2: I'm that hot from the weather, but I've got a

3
00:00:07,519 --> 00:00:10,080
belt of hay fever, so I might sound very croaky

4
00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:10,800
to you this morning.

5
00:00:10,880 --> 00:00:12,439
Speaker 1: That's in radio.

6
00:00:12,480 --> 00:00:14,599
Speaker 3: We would love that because that's what That's what listeners

7
00:00:14,640 --> 00:00:16,280
love to hear, is that little croakiness.

8
00:00:16,320 --> 00:00:17,879
Speaker 1: Man. But you know the thing.

9
00:00:17,719 --> 00:00:20,239
Speaker 3: About it is is that you know you as a writer.

10
00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:22,719
I mean you you understand how the mind, body, and

11
00:00:22,719 --> 00:00:24,760
soul physically works. And you've got to reach us that

12
00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:25,679
are reading the books.

13
00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:29,320
Speaker 2: I think you have to. I think if you're creating

14
00:00:29,399 --> 00:00:32,399
characters in your books, or or even if you're writing

15
00:00:32,399 --> 00:00:36,320
about yourself, you have to try and put that emotion

16
00:00:36,600 --> 00:00:40,079
into those characters and how you think they would feel

17
00:00:40,079 --> 00:00:42,280
an act. It's very important.

18
00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:43,520
Speaker 1: Being the creator of hard Read.

19
00:00:43,840 --> 00:00:46,439
Speaker 3: What what did you envision while you first set out

20
00:00:46,479 --> 00:00:48,320
on this project, because i mean this is your third

21
00:00:48,359 --> 00:00:49,520
military novel.

22
00:00:51,520 --> 00:00:56,560
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not sure, because I'm a new boy really

23
00:00:56,560 --> 00:01:02,079
at writing. I'm not sure what I envisions. But it

24
00:01:02,159 --> 00:01:08,599
was really trying to show people what a soldier or

25
00:01:08,640 --> 00:01:12,120
a serviceman goes through when they're in a terrorist war,

26
00:01:12,159 --> 00:01:15,840
in a security situation, trying to protect people from people

27
00:01:15,879 --> 00:01:19,480
who want to take over their lives. So I thought

28
00:01:19,519 --> 00:01:23,760
I'd get it down on paper, inspired by my late wife,

29
00:01:25,079 --> 00:01:30,319
and that's really how the novels started, and slowly but surely.

30
00:01:30,359 --> 00:01:32,920
The first one I thought was a bit of a disaster.

31
00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:37,000
But as I worked my way through, I think I've

32
00:01:37,079 --> 00:01:40,519
learned a lot of lessons in how to put over

33
00:01:41,519 --> 00:01:45,400
my experiences in the services and other people's.

34
00:01:45,959 --> 00:01:48,560
Speaker 3: You talk about how tough it was, I mean, I

35
00:01:48,560 --> 00:01:51,239
mean hard Rein is set in the nineteen seventies in Ireland.

36
00:01:51,640 --> 00:01:54,920
I was alive during those time periods. I remember the headlines.

37
00:01:55,079 --> 00:01:57,519
It was not a real peaceful place over there.

38
00:01:59,439 --> 00:02:04,760
Speaker 2: No, it was tragic really, but people called it the Troubles,

39
00:02:04,799 --> 00:02:09,400
which to my mind is sounds like an unpleasant neighbor

40
00:02:09,439 --> 00:02:13,000
parking his car in your parking lot. But it really

41
00:02:13,080 --> 00:02:15,840
was a brutal terrorist war. I mean, could have family

42
00:02:15,879 --> 00:02:18,599
members dragged out of the homes at night and have

43
00:02:19,080 --> 00:02:22,400
a drill put through their kneecaps, or shot through the kneecaps,

44
00:02:22,520 --> 00:02:26,840
or worse, dragged off to some remote woods and murdered.

45
00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:29,639
Until this day, a lot of the bodies have never

46
00:02:29,719 --> 00:02:30,400
been recovered.

47
00:02:30,639 --> 00:02:33,080
Speaker 3: Wow, you have you share a quote here that really

48
00:02:33,199 --> 00:02:35,879
is deep inside my heart. There's a heavy price to

49
00:02:35,919 --> 00:02:39,240
pay for peace on all sides of a conflict. I

50
00:02:39,400 --> 00:02:41,360
love that for some reason. I think it's because maybe

51
00:02:41,360 --> 00:02:43,840
that opens up our hearts to say, look, it's all

52
00:02:43,919 --> 00:02:45,400
going to come with a cost.

53
00:02:47,639 --> 00:02:47,919
Speaker 1: Yeah.

54
00:02:48,199 --> 00:02:54,840
Speaker 2: And you know, Winston Churchill said better jaw jaw than

55
00:02:54,919 --> 00:02:58,280
war war, meaning it's better to talk than it is

56
00:02:58,319 --> 00:03:02,000
to fight. But it comes a point with some people

57
00:03:02,080 --> 00:03:05,560
who are not prepared to talk through problems and resolve them.

58
00:03:05,599 --> 00:03:09,280
They just want to dominate with the bower of a gun.

59
00:03:09,439 --> 00:03:14,719
And then you really have to stand up to them.

60
00:03:15,199 --> 00:03:18,400
It's not just neighbor and neighbors standing up to them,

61
00:03:18,439 --> 00:03:21,759
it's village and the village next to it standing up

62
00:03:21,800 --> 00:03:24,840
to the town and the city and so on. And

63
00:03:25,919 --> 00:03:29,360
you know, it's very, very difficult. Takes a lot of

64
00:03:29,360 --> 00:03:33,719
courage for people to do that. And I think in

65
00:03:33,759 --> 00:03:39,120
the book, I've tried to show suddenly what the local

66
00:03:39,199 --> 00:03:44,879
people were going through and how the security forces tried

67
00:03:44,919 --> 00:03:48,039
to deal with the situation. And they didn't always get

68
00:03:48,080 --> 00:03:52,680
it right. No one ever does. But it's a difficult

69
00:03:52,719 --> 00:03:55,639
thing to get a balancing act when you're dealing with

70
00:03:55,879 --> 00:03:59,639
terrorists who work in the dark and murder. People in

71
00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:04,319
the dark can plant bombs and don't care who they kill, women, children,

72
00:04:04,360 --> 00:04:08,719
doesn't matter what religion they are or race. They just

73
00:04:08,759 --> 00:04:09,719
go ahead and do that.

74
00:04:10,039 --> 00:04:12,240
Speaker 3: The name of the book Hard Rain, from David Brown.

75
00:04:12,319 --> 00:04:15,919
We'll be right back, Hey, thanks for coming back to

76
00:04:15,919 --> 00:04:19,000
my conversation with author David Brown his book Hard Rain.

77
00:04:19,600 --> 00:04:21,879
That's so interesting that you're bringing in the real people,

78
00:04:21,920 --> 00:04:23,600
the civilians. And the reason why I bring that up

79
00:04:23,639 --> 00:04:26,160
is because I've been with different punk bands such as

80
00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:28,800
the Sex Pistols, who know that time period all too

81
00:04:28,800 --> 00:04:31,319
well and they feel that that's where their inspiration to

82
00:04:31,439 --> 00:04:34,079
try to get the word of music out there to people,

83
00:04:34,279 --> 00:04:36,519
because because the times were very dark and they had

84
00:04:36,519 --> 00:04:39,040
to learn how to how to basically deal with what

85
00:04:39,079 --> 00:04:42,319
was going on around them.

86
00:04:42,519 --> 00:04:48,720
Speaker 2: Indeed, and you know, there was a terrible tragedy the

87
00:04:48,759 --> 00:04:52,199
group called the Irish show band We're traveling back from

88
00:04:52,759 --> 00:04:56,800
doing performance in Northern nine and when they were taking

89
00:04:56,839 --> 00:05:00,920
aside and on their trip back to Sudden and actually

90
00:05:01,040 --> 00:05:06,439
murdered on the streets. And I don't believe the perpetrators

91
00:05:06,439 --> 00:05:09,279
of that have all been court some have been brought

92
00:05:09,319 --> 00:05:14,720
to justice. And the reason I think they did. That

93
00:05:14,920 --> 00:05:21,360
was because they saw it as both sides of the

94
00:05:21,439 --> 00:05:27,079
communities of Roman Catholics, the Protestants and the security forces

95
00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:31,920
all getting together behind the love of music and what

96
00:05:32,040 --> 00:05:35,000
it can do and bring peace to people. And I

97
00:05:35,040 --> 00:05:37,600
think it was a revenge killing for that.

98
00:05:38,240 --> 00:05:39,920
Speaker 3: What did you feel in your heart at the age

99
00:05:39,920 --> 00:05:42,240
of fifteen when you joined the British Army. I mean

100
00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:44,439
that's an early age there, David.

101
00:05:47,199 --> 00:05:50,360
Speaker 2: Well, Yeah, in those days you could join at fifteen,

102
00:05:50,439 --> 00:05:53,519
but you weren't allowed to be sent into any combat

103
00:05:54,600 --> 00:05:59,600
until you were seventeen. I felt a great deal of relief.

104
00:05:59,639 --> 00:06:07,000
To be honest, my hometown Cambridge, which famous for its universities,

105
00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:12,560
I came from the opposite end to that where you

106
00:06:12,639 --> 00:06:15,600
didn't get three meals a day. You've got one meal

107
00:06:15,639 --> 00:06:20,120
a day and anything else you could find, basically, and

108
00:06:20,639 --> 00:06:23,680
you were living in a sort of Victorian slum which

109
00:06:23,800 --> 00:06:29,720
was cold even when the sun was shining. So joining

110
00:06:29,800 --> 00:06:34,600
the army and getting nice uniforms to wear and three

111
00:06:34,639 --> 00:06:38,360
cooked meals a day seeing a good deal.

112
00:06:39,720 --> 00:06:42,920
Speaker 3: You make everything feel so real inside this book. And

113
00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:44,879
I know that you've gone through so much in your

114
00:06:44,920 --> 00:06:47,160
own British Army history. But the thing is is that

115
00:06:47,439 --> 00:06:49,399
to put it on that page, to make it feel

116
00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:52,199
so real, did you have to relive it again? And

117
00:06:52,240 --> 00:06:53,800
how did you handle that emotionally?

118
00:06:58,279 --> 00:07:02,639
Speaker 2: That's a good question, because I think you never stop

119
00:07:02,759 --> 00:07:05,839
handling it. You just and you don't really come to

120
00:07:06,720 --> 00:07:08,800
terms with it. You just learn to live with it.

121
00:07:09,800 --> 00:07:16,240
And I think that when I was writing it, a

122
00:07:16,279 --> 00:07:19,519
lot of the things that I had first hand knowledge of,

123
00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:24,319
I was reliving it slightly, but I was trying to

124
00:07:24,399 --> 00:07:29,120
put it into words in a way that readers would understand,

125
00:07:29,720 --> 00:07:34,160
not my mixed up mind over it. So that took

126
00:07:34,279 --> 00:07:39,680
quite a bit of work actually sort of sorting out

127
00:07:40,319 --> 00:07:45,040
what was real and what my head was inventing at

128
00:07:45,040 --> 00:07:45,439
the time.

129
00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:47,879
Speaker 3: My wife really wants to know. She goes, she looked

130
00:07:47,879 --> 00:07:49,560
at me, and she goes ask him the question of

131
00:07:49,800 --> 00:07:53,120
in one way or another, has Queen Elizabeth II appeared

132
00:07:53,160 --> 00:07:54,399
in your books?

133
00:07:57,560 --> 00:08:02,480
Speaker 2: Well? Not yet, uh I did. I did meet actually

134
00:08:02,879 --> 00:08:08,759
the most amazing lady and or was. Sadly we'll no

135
00:08:08,879 --> 00:08:13,199
longer see her lights again, and she could make anybody

136
00:08:13,240 --> 00:08:20,240
feel comfortable and at ease. But maybe maybe in the

137
00:08:20,279 --> 00:08:25,360
book I'm writing at the moment, I will put something

138
00:08:25,399 --> 00:08:25,920
in there.

139
00:08:26,600 --> 00:08:28,800
Speaker 3: Where can people go to find out more about you, David,

140
00:08:28,800 --> 00:08:30,800
because I want them to be able to experience all

141
00:08:30,959 --> 00:08:32,600
of your writing and to grow with you as you

142
00:08:32,639 --> 00:08:33,600
write that next book.

143
00:08:35,720 --> 00:08:38,960
Speaker 2: Well, where do we get e anything this game? It's

144
00:08:39,519 --> 00:08:46,639
good old Amazon. So Amazon have Hard Rain, and also

145
00:08:46,679 --> 00:08:49,440
they now have The Darkness, which is the follow on

146
00:08:49,600 --> 00:08:54,559
with the same central character to the Darkness, and it's

147
00:08:54,559 --> 00:08:57,480
still in Northern Ireland and actually spreads out from Northern

148
00:08:57,480 --> 00:09:02,519
Ireland and has an ending that some people might find

149
00:09:02,559 --> 00:09:03,519
difficult to cope with.

150
00:09:03,919 --> 00:09:04,279
Speaker 1: Wow.

151
00:09:04,519 --> 00:09:06,720
Speaker 3: Wow, Well, I can't thank you enough for giving yourself

152
00:09:06,720 --> 00:09:09,120
permission to you know, to write like this and to

153
00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:11,960
be open, because even Sylvester Stallone said that he makes

154
00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:14,759
those movies of Army so authentic, so people don't sit

155
00:09:14,799 --> 00:09:16,879
there and fall deeper in lover have a passion for

156
00:09:16,919 --> 00:09:19,000
something they think is great when in all honesty it's

157
00:09:19,080 --> 00:09:19,600
very dark.

158
00:09:21,200 --> 00:09:26,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it is, indeed, I mean, and in Hard Rain,

159
00:09:26,360 --> 00:09:30,080
and more so in the Darkness, you'll see the central

160
00:09:30,159 --> 00:09:35,559
character bomb around being dragged deeper and deeper into the

161
00:09:35,679 --> 00:09:39,600
more murky side of a terrorist war. And I perhaps

162
00:09:39,600 --> 00:09:43,000
should quickly explain to the readers that more your listeners

163
00:09:43,519 --> 00:09:48,080
that the name Bomber. It's a nickname in the army

164
00:09:48,120 --> 00:09:50,759
for anybody whose surname is brown, they get called Bomber,

165
00:09:51,679 --> 00:09:54,919
the same as anybody whose names white gets called Shorky.

166
00:09:55,039 --> 00:09:56,559
So it's just a nickname.

167
00:09:56,840 --> 00:09:57,399
Speaker 1: I love it.

168
00:09:57,519 --> 00:09:59,360
Speaker 3: Please come back to this show anytime in the future.

169
00:09:59,399 --> 00:10:01,200
The doors all going to be open for you, David.

170
00:10:02,960 --> 00:10:05,240
Speaker 2: It's very kind of you, and thank you for inviting me.

171
00:10:05,399 --> 00:10:08,120
Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today, sir, Thank.

172
00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:11,320
Speaker 2: You, thank you, and I'd love talking to you. That

173
00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:11,840
was great.

174
00:10:12,080 --> 00:10:13,759
Speaker 1: Thank you. Looking forward to your next book too.