انا يا حسين قد على في الخافقه وصوت كل الملا فائد وه ننادي من المغادي. makamah terais.

hello, i'm sean murray, and this is the conversation where we take an alternative look at political events and current affairs through annaries lens. in this show we hope to pick, probe, investigate and uncover the... that you want to hear, we go or

mainstream won't go. this week we talked to a man that defied all odds after he was seriously injured during a gun and bomb attack that killed three of his fellow bond members in july 1975. going to become a beacon of reconciliation, my next guest has embodied the essence of the aris peace process. but before we speak to our next guest, let's get a quick overview on this week's topic. a

so let's introduce today's guest. joining me today is steve trovers, a former bass guitarist in the miami show bond. steve survived horrific attack by the loyals paramelody group, the ulster volunteer force that took the lives of his three friends and bondmes. steve, welcome the show. thanks, john, nice to be here. i usually begin by asking the generic question of of your childhood growing up, but i would like to get to the crooks of of of our conversation today, which is the story. of what had happened in the 31st of july 1975, sure. um, well, like most young fellows growing up in the 60s, we all wanted to be the beetles, we of wanted to join the beetles and be pop stars and um, as far as living, i was living down in carrick insurance toperary, so as far as the uh, the north was concerned and may as well have been the north pole, um, to my a shame we say that now, but um, i started

playing and it was the easiest thing that i ever did, uh, it was easier than than having a real job, and so i was head-haunted by number of of bands and... and uh one of them was the miami show band, the band was huge band, it had been going for a long time, but they changed the the lineup over the years, people used to come and go, it was institution really that band, our lead singer frano tool was was a archetypical sort of pop pop star, and um, the band was also doing its own material, so it was an attractive thing for me to join that band uh, and ' hit the ground running really in uh start of june uh 1975 and we were being the summer summer time we would have been playing six seven nights a week um and anna and i had just we we'd been

married the year before you it's all almost like honymoon period when you join a band like that you get to know new friends and everybody is friendly and we were uh i was like emphasize the fact that we were mixed band, we were catholics and protestants from north and south, although i had no idea who was, i mean obviously the excess would give the likes of ray and dez and brian away because clearly they were from the north, but with regard to religion or politics, i had no idea what anybody was, and we were we're playing and remember that particular weekend uh, the weekend last weekend i was really in july 75, we'd been playing at the gullway races and we had been playing there, we played there on the monday and the tuesday, when we got home after the two nights, we um, we would normally have the tuesday offer because we were playing on the monday and tuesday, the night that we were due to have

off, we like to have one night off a week, but the night we were due to have off was the thursday night, uh, but we still had one gig to do and that was in bandbridge, uh, in - um and country down just just north of of nuri, there was plans already set, well set in in in motion um to to try to frame the band, members of the band as uh running guns basically or bombs or whatever it was uh for for the ira, so we would have in, it was false flag operation obviously and um we finished the dance r. went home to anthrum uh in his own car because we had the following night off the thursday night off, so those five of us got back into the minibus, we had a volkswagen minibus uh for the personnel, we didn't travel with the equipment, the only equipment we carried was our our guitar, so

tony garty and i, tony was lead player, i was base player, we carried out equipment, sometimes we would have brought dez macaley, desley as he called himself. his saxophone with him um and we that was the case that night, so this is tony's guitar, my guitar and dez's car, and if you if you know the the way they're constructed those um volkswagen mini minibuses, there's the engine is in the back and there's a little shelf at the back so you can lift a window over the engine and there was a little shelf, that's where we used to put those instruments, we wouldn't give our guitars to the road because rodies are inclined. throw stuff into the van and you know it's a bit like somebody working an airline you know with your case uh you couldn't be sure so we were precious about them and um we were in good form because it's a relatively short journey from from uh

banbridge to dublin we were we were based in dublin and normally uh some of the lads if is a longest journey the lads would be nodding off after a while and that was a bit of a and then so i would always sit up beside brian brian mccoy who was our trumpet player and brian was uh always drove the personnel van as well he kept it at home and um so we uh but because everybody was was wide awake and they had no intention of sleeping on the way home uh i climbed back into the back to chat with tony we were talking about guitars we're about six miles from north of nuria at this time we weren't long out of vanbridge brian turned back to us and said ' uh we've got to stop, there's a road block, and you come across these, 1975, the troubles were were raging, so uh, um, we knew the drill, at least the lads, i, i was, i was the least experienced uh, traveling in the north and with stops and roll blocks, but the lads knew

the drill, and i got to know them very quickly, you stopped, turned on your interior light, you turned off your main light, you let your side lights on, and you approached when you're told to approached. uh, there was a man with a red torch, on this particular time uh, we were surprised that brian said, almost apologitically, he was a real gentleman, brian, and he said, that's we've got to get out, these gentlemen want to do a check on. van and for me being the new recruit from way down south in south teperary you know i thought this was a big adventure it was something that you go home and tell and you know what we were stuffed of the by a man with the gon or whatever you know but um there's a sliding drawer on the on on the side of a mini of the volkswagen minibus just pull it across and lads piled out and i was the last one out um and um "as i got out i noticed that there was a number of soldiers there, now i wouldn't have known one uniform

from another, um, but uh, these were also a darkest type of uniform, and apparently this was udr uniforms that they were wearing, and um, some of the men were hunkered down, they were all friendly to be honest with you, um, and they told us to line up uh, facing the the hedge and at the hedge there was um there was a drop of about 3 meters down into into the field in front of us and they told us put our hands on our heads and intertwine your fingers and put put your hands on yeah this was just adding to the adventure for me and as i say there was five of us ray was gone home so i was in the middle and tony garty ar was on my left and fran was on his left and then on my right, des macalet, des lee was on, no, actually, brian mccoy was was on my

right and dez was on his on his right, and does within you know touching touching distance of the back of the the fan, that's how close we were to it, and uh, there were there was banter between the soldiers and and ourselves and they were saying uh, one of them, i remember one of them said, i bet you lads would rather be at home and bed than standing out here at the side of the road, and fran fran or... our singer was witty fella and he said i bet you lads would rather be at home in bed than than sitting in a ditch because some of them were hunkering down and i was fascinated by that the guns they had these sort of rifles with perforated barrels, i think there were sub machine guns or something like that - and and one was laying across this man's uh legs and as i say he was hungry down there was another man he seemed to be in charge and um and he was giving the orders. and there was another man there, the man that, i think he may have been the person that stopped us and told us to pull in, um, he had notebook, and just before

we pulled in, there was a car coming up behind us and and when he told us to to get out, brian said, can i pull into the side of road, there's a car coming up bef fast behind us, and he told us, yeah, that's fine, so we're standing there, and and everything was very relaxed, and the man in charge told them... with notebook to get our names and addresses and so he started at at at fran and um he asked fran his name and address and fran was giving it to him he was about to ask tony his name and this this another man appeared on the scene and i hadn't seen him now i'm not sure if he arrived in the car that was pulling up coming up behind us because particular car never passed us and um but this man when he arrived uh everything

changed, the atmosphere changed and uh he had lighter color fatigues on him - and and it was actually fascinating buse because he had side arm and he had lighter color berries like sort to get fawn color berry as opposed to the green ones that the other men were us had. and he asked, he asked the man who appeared to be in charge what the man with the notebook was doing, and the minute he started to talk, i recognized you, this is this is an english man, and um, the men that were hunker down were standing up now and everybody was, it it it appeared as if there were more professional, and this man definitely took charge, and i was just fascinated by this this soldier who was who has uh made everything that that bit sort of ' more professional and as i say brian mccoy

was standing beside me and he he nudged my elbow with his and uh he said uh this is british army and what he meant was was that you know this should be done professionally and i heard a click they had opened the back of our van the that little shelf and i heard click this was uh just actually just before the... and arrived, i heard this click and they were opening the guitar cases and i'll tell you how you know i didn't take it seriously, i took my hands down and i turned around and i walked back to the back of the... the the minibus and i said to him, can i help you with that? i didn't want them touch and i had very unusual guitar, was a was called a dan armstrong base, it was a plexi glass, you could see through it, it was like a glass base, and there was only about four of the in the country, um, fill in it had one, brush shields had one, i had one,

there was about there was about four of us had them uh, and we were precious about them, yeah, and so uh, he uh, there was two men at the back and and and they pointed out a little case, had a little like a little school, like a little brown school case type thing, and they said, what's in that? i said it's a um, effects pedals, it was unusual enough for base bear to be using effects pedals in 75, but i had a wawa pedal and an octav divider which was called a color sound octivider, and uh, and he said, are there any val valuables in? and i said no, was i was surprised that you had even asked that, but in hand side, i think maybe he was asking where the you know was the take the money from the gig or something, i don't know what he what he meant, but we wouldn't have been carrying that, the road he would have done all that, um, and when i said no, he turned me around and punched me in the back and knocked me back into line, and um, but this

time instead of being in the middle i was, i was next to dez, i was between dez and brian, so i was second from the van. 'uh brian was reassuring me and he nudged me and he said this is british army will be away soon and he actually said british army which was important because later on we were able to verify that um anyway um and dez chirped in as well and both of these lads are from the north dez from belfast and brown's from calidon and they would have grown up and know the you know different accents as well and with train musicians ears the'. would know that this is, this is a british army, but uh, and he also said, it does said the uh, the army is usually careful with the equipment, so that was a comforting thing. what we didn't know was that there were two men had taken a 10 pound bomb uh commercial explosives, they were putting it under the driver seat. for years we thought that the

that this thing was placed in the back, which was actually they were placing it under the driver seat. and um the plan was uh to that we wouldn't know anything about this this uh bomb that they were putting under thing and we they would have said thanks very much for your cooperation we would have driven off and according to forensics uh it was it would have it would have gone off between 10 and 15 minutes uh after after we left so nobody would have known about the uh about the road block uh and and we would have been, people would have said, well these fellows were carrying bombs, maybe for the ira or whatever, and um, so who can we trust, and they would have put pressure then on the irish government to have shut down, basically has more stringent security on the border, because at the time, if the ira had maybe

there was some sort of an outrage and they would have crossed over the border, there were reasonably. safe because not because the irish government wanted like that, but because the tds along the border counties didn't want to disrupt the normal life of people who would have been crossing the border a daily basis for maybe petrol or groceries which might have been cheaper at the you know on the northern side and uh so that was the reluctance it wasn't for anything else and um but it it didn't work the the plan didn't work the we're using rist watch timing mechanism. and um for one reason or another maybe it maybe they tilted it the wrong way or i i don't know anything about these bombs but this thing exploded and uh the two unfortunate men that were planting this bomb i like they were blown to pieces you know the tore the head off one person and the legs off and the arms off another but

there was very little left of them you know i remember seeing the autopsy reports and they were uh shocking. the damage, but when it went off, um, as i say, we were standing right beside it, and you know, the pictures, there pictures all over the place of the of the wreckage, i mean, there was little or nothing left, and um, it lifted me up into the air, and i remember you, being aware that something happen was was happening, and i often say that the whole world turned red, it actually that's what it looked like to me, and maybe it was the flames or what. whatever um and was i tried to run but was in the air so there was no i couldn't get any porches on my feet you know and uh i could hear guns going off it was like a... as if i was in slow motion, i was just raised up into the air and then i started to go down through the ditch, as i say, it was about a 3 meter drop into the field, and as i was going down

through the ditch, i felt almost like like time was was was was coming to a stop, and even through my clothes, i could count every single leaf and bramble and every single thing that... that i was touching, like now whether that's a heightened awareness through from adrenaline adrenaline or something like i don't know, but was i was very aware of all of that, and then all of sudden uh time went back to normal and hit the ground very hard uh, and instantly there was two more people fell top of me, and i think it may well have been uh tony and fran, 'dez was blown through separate, there was a trees and he was blown separately off a bit to the right uh, so there was the two lads fell top of me and um

and somebody then put their arms at their hands under my arm, apparently i was shot while i was in the air - i didn't, i i wasn't, i didn't realize i was shot, but i was shot with what they call a dom bullet, which is specifically.' designed to explode on impact and it it hit me just over my right hip and when it entered my body it exploded into 17 pieces so it was an these things explode when they and and it did a lot of internal damage and then part of it continued on and it through my left lung and out under my my left arm so it went right across the body and somebody put their hands on under my arms and started to to drag me uh, maybe to try to get me to stand up, but was a dead weight at that stage, and and while he was,

i'm very reluctant to say it was brain, i'm pretty certain it was bring brian mccay, um, and the reason i'm relucting to say it is because i feel guilty that he was murder dragging me - trying to drag me away from the thing and he was you know protestant. lad from callidon in county toron and and uh i'm a catholic from southaperary and he's dragging me out trying to drag me away from what's happening and he was shot in the head in the back and because the soldiers jumped down after us and started to started to to kill everybody started to shoot everybody and um so brian was lying beside me and i was lying on the ground and i i i kept my i kept my face, always remember that my cheek in the grass i just lying down wondering what what's happening and i could hear the others the soldiers then caught up with fran and and and

tony and they didn't get very far they tried to run away but they um i could hear the the the the the crying and the begging for you and and fron was laying on the ground and he was facing them and he asking him not to kill him and they stood over him and shot fran our singer 22 times and seven of those were in the face, he was particularly good looking young lad you know and um and um and shot tony in the back of the head and um number of times as well and uh one of the things that stands out for me was the obsenities the the coursing and the swing the shouting and roaring of the soldiers like real anger, it was quite frightening, and uh, when the shooting stopped then, um, i could hear uh, at least one soldier was walking around and

he was firing into the bodies to make sure they were dead, but they were well dead, and he walked over, and brain was was lying beside me, brain was dead as well, and he started kicking brian ferociously, he was giving a really kicking into him, and uh, and and shouting and screaming and then he walked, i was like about two feet away from that and he turned to me and he stood over me and um i was uh wonder will i get up what will i bake you will ask him not to but i had heard it didn't do that that's a lot of good you know so i i just stayed quiet and um i thought he was going to fire into me and i was saying to him it should be quick uh, and just as he stood over me and he had a pistol, um, somebody on on the road showed it down,

come on. 'those bastards are dead, i got them with dumb dum dums. didn't know what a dum dumb was, but heard him say that very clearly. the des had been blown as i say off to the right into into the field, but he was he was lying closer to the ditch, the ditch was on fire, there was a danger that he would have been born alive, but he he he didn't budge either, he was, but they didn't see him, and uh, so i still thought that when the man said those bastards are dead, i got them with d, that he would have.' "i thought he's still going to fire cuz he was still standing there, and he turned around miraculously, he started to walk away, and uh, every, every step that he took, i was saying to himself, you, i hope he takes another step, because he may not be that accurate - and i was determined not to not to shout out if he if if if he fired, after a while there you seemed to be gone, and then i heard a voice

calling..." said fran, tony, brian, then said steve, and uh, i was the only one to answer, i was, i was amazed that the other guys didn't answer, because i was, i was expecting them to to answer, but um, they uh, there was no, they were dead obviously, and it was, it was dez, and he said, you okay, and typical irish, i said, uh, i'm grand, uh, i wasn't a pain or anything like that, it didn't feel anything, and so dez got up onto the road, and as he often says it was carnage on the road, and a truck came down a lawry and um, he asked the the truck driver is, i need to get into the police station to report this, but the truck driver didn't know whether he was involved in this, it wouldn't take him,

and then a car came. along they had to sort of stop and maneuver because there was a lot of bits and pieces of the van was all over the road and um was so eventually des got into in into into the police station in neuri and um i was i was trying to figure out i rolled over on my back i was trying to figure out what what's just happened here and i thought that these soldiers had been had being attacked by the ira and that we were caught in the crossfire, that's what that's the only way i could figure it out, because i completely trusted the soldiers, i was brought up to whether it's a policeman or a soldier, a postman, you were a uniform, you good person you know, and you had to be had to des deserved respect, but it was always remember this was absolutely beautiful, beautiful night, i was staring up at the it was about a half moon there and it's very

warm, very warm what? is but this was about maybe about quarter past nearly half two in the morning and um i still trying to figure it out and i was lying on my back and i counted my fingers to see if if there was any damage done cuz as a musician obviously it's important i remember tapping my my feet together and we used to wear these ridiculous platform shoes at the time it was the style and heard my i could click my my my my my feet together and i knew that i still had my feet, now i don't know why it down on me that i should do this uh, but there was a terrible smell of, there's other way to describe it, like meat, cooking meat, because when apparently i didn't know this at the time, but if somebody is shot a number of times with the machine gun or whatever it is, it's the bullet are so hot, they actually cook the

flesh. and there was a the smell of burning blood uh was was terrible and um i i got up, i sort of half sat up and i was able to do that and i turned around and i kneeled up and then i i stood up and i noticed that my stomach was extended, i couldn't find any blood so i said i heard that man saying dom dum, they were that means it was dummy bullets, that's what i i said to myself you know. these weren't real bullets at all, so dum dums must mean but because you couldn't find any blood. for the audience is sick dum dum bullets are explosive bullets, jumpdum bullets are explosive and um so all my bleeding was internal and my stomach extended out like very big uh and i couldn't figure out why that was and i still had no pain um and i don't. when i i managed to stand up i

fell down again and and i'd stand up and i'd fall down again so decided the best way to get around was to was to crawl around on my stomach and pull myself around and sometimes i'd kneel and push my... that forward, i knew there was something wrong because i found it difficult to breathe because the bullet had collapsed my left lung and uh, the first one, i, i, i was able to reach out to to brian and i shook him, i said, brian, you're okay, and there's no answer, and i, i said, he's after get, he's been knocked out, he's he's out for the count, so i crawled over to um, to towards fran and... won't say the state he was in, but you know uh, i was, i, i, i said to him, dez is gone, and he'll be back soon, so and we can, we'll all go home, and i crawled over to tony, and uh, tony, his his

injuries were bad, he had been, one of the bullets had gone through the back of his head, knocked out his eye onto his cheek, and it was uh, it was terrible, and and and - said to him um, i remember asking him, did you break finger? i wouldn't, i just would not acknowledge - what i was, what i was seeing, and uh, that lasts for for maybe forever, for a long time, that you your mind tell you not to, that this is not, you know, you're in denial basically, and um, so i uh, i i crawled as far as the ditch and... i pulled myself up, all i wanted to do was to to get some relief because i couldn't breathe properly, and i pulled myself up onto a little branch sort of a was hanging towards the field, and i leaned over that to see...