Behind the headlines of the period known as the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the stark figures of more than 3500 deaths, the political turmoil, the religious and social antagonism, a myriad of everyday human stories were being played out, some ordinary, some extraordinary, some fascinating, tragic or triumphant.
This morning on The Ryan Tubridy show, listeners heard a story was that was all of these things.
John Chambers, born in July, 1966, was brought up in the cauldron of sectarian Belfast through the darkest years of the Troubles. Raised by his Protestant father in the fiercely loyalist estate of Glencairn, his teenage years were spent despising his Catholic countrymen. Although a member of the UDA, his father abhorred violence, but immersed John in the loyalist tradition of marching bands and deep sectarian distrust.
"When my mother and father first met in Belfast, mixed marriages were still frowned upon. It was in advance of the troubles…. It was a marriage doomed from the start."
During this time, his mother was an absent figure nobody ever mentioned. Who she was, where and why she had gone, these were mysteries to John growing up. It was implied she had died, and John somehow assumed it was in a car crash.
Then, years later, the truth emerged. John's mother was a Catholic.
"I had no social interaction with Catholics at all. They were alien to me…. We were told never to mention that our mum was a Catholic. .. The fact of having a Catholic mother appalled me."
John's parents had married in the mid-1960s, over the objections of his father’s Protestant family. But as the troubles gained pace, the strain of a mixed marriage became too much to bear. When John was just three years old, his mother suddenly "went on holiday" to London with his three siblings. A holiday that turned out to be permanent.
"When I grew up and started searching for my mother, it used to torment me that I couldn't see her face."
A full 24 years later, John aged 27, a truly bizarre encounter unfolded, some 4000 miles across the Atlantic.
A schoolfriend of John's was on holiday in Florida and, quite by chance, met a couple in a bar. The woman was originally from the Falls Road and, as it turned out, was a sister to Marie Chambers. John's mother.
John's subsequent reuniting with his mother was tempered by the tragic history of their separation. She had been searching for him for years, but her attempts to make contact were consistently blocked by his father's Protestant family.
"The moment I saw her, it was the most emotional moment of my life. She was the spitting image of my sister. She recognised me immediately. I was the spitting image of my father."
John has since settled down, married, had three children, and relocated to Lancashire to be near his mother and rebuild a relationship "fractured by bitterness, mistrust and mutual hatred."
And despite a childhood deprived of his mother, he is fantastically stoical and philosophical about how all of these events unfolded.
The full interview with John Chambers is well worth listening to, and as many listeners commented afterwards, there is a movie in this story… click here for more.