Merrion Press 🔖is on the cusp of publishing a new book by Colin Bateman.
COMING SOON
THUNDER
AND LIGHTNING
A Memoir of Life on
the Tough Streets Cul-de-Sacs of Bangor
Colin Bateman grew up
in the pleasant seaside town of Bangor in Northern Ireland. Ten
miles away, the IRA, the UDA and the UVF were blowing Belfast
apart, but he was more concerned with making his first million
through the GBA – the Gerbil Breeding Association (sadly
short-lived when his gerbils turned out to be cannibals).
Inspired by All
the President’s Men and The
Odessa File to become a crusading journalist,
Bateman joined the local paper when he was a seventeen-year-old
punk, where instead of bringing down Presidents and finding
Nazis, he found himself being hunted down by the notorious
Kilcooley Strollers, a dance troupe with an axe to grind.
So close to the Troubles, yet so far away
– Thunder and Lightning is the story of
one boy’s journey through the rather soft side of life in a town
which lacked tough streets but boasted many cul-de-sacs. A town
where an occasional terrorist bomb was seen as an opportunity to
profiteer and where his father became a paramilitary by accident.
Paperback • €16.95 |
£14.99 • 256 pages • 235 mm x 153 mm
• 9781785374357
Colin Bateman is the author of more than thirty novels,
including Divorcing Jack, Mystery
Man and I Predict a Riot. He
wrote the screenplays for the film version of Divorcing
Jack, and also for the movies Crossmaheart, Wild
About Harry, The Journey and
Driven. He wrote the plays National Anthem, Bag
for Life and Nutcase.
In 2010 he was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters by the
University of Ulster, for his Services to Literature. He
lives in Bangor, Northern Ireland.
Merrion Press 🔖is on the cusp of publishing a new book by Colin Bateman.
COMING SOON
THUNDER
AND LIGHTNING
A Memoir of Life on
the Tough Streets Cul-de-Sacs of Bangor
Colin Bateman grew up
in the pleasant seaside town of Bangor in Northern Ireland. Ten
miles away, the IRA, the UDA and the UVF were blowing Belfast
apart, but he was more concerned with making his first million
through the GBA – the Gerbil Breeding Association (sadly
short-lived when his gerbils turned out to be cannibals).
Inspired by All
the President’s Men and The
Odessa File to become a crusading journalist,
Bateman joined the local paper when he was a seventeen-year-old
punk, where instead of bringing down Presidents and finding
Nazis, he found himself being hunted down by the notorious
Kilcooley Strollers, a dance troupe with an axe to grind.
So close to the Troubles, yet so far away
– Thunder and Lightning is the story of
one boy’s journey through the rather soft side of life in a town
which lacked tough streets but boasted many cul-de-sacs. A town
where an occasional terrorist bomb was seen as an opportunity to
profiteer and where his father became a paramilitary by accident.
Paperback • €16.95 |
£14.99 • 256 pages • 235 mm x 153 mm
• 9781785374357
Colin Bateman is the author of more than thirty novels,
including Divorcing Jack, Mystery
Man and I Predict a Riot. He
wrote the screenplays for the film version of Divorcing
Jack, and also for the movies Crossmaheart, Wild
About Harry, The Journey and
Driven. He wrote the plays National Anthem, Bag
for Life and Nutcase.
In 2010 he was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters by the
University of Ulster, for his Services to Literature. He
lives in Bangor, Northern Ireland.
Former IRA volunteer and ex-prisoner, spent 18 years in Long Kesh, 4 years on the blanket and no-wash/no work protests which led to the hunger strikes of the 80s. Completed PhD at Queens upon release from prison. Left the Republican Movement at the endorsement of the Good Friday Agreement, and went on to become a journalist. Co-founder of The Blanket, an online magazine that critically analyzed the Irish peace process. Lead researcher for the Belfast Project, an oral history of the Troubles.
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