Catch my breath, but. And then id stand up and id fall down again, and remember that it was almost like light show there was a the the the ditch was on fire and every time you the fire would crackle or whatever you would light up something and and uh wh i was crawling around there was there was body parts on the one of these on fortunate men and his arm was was in the field and it was um so. Like its its its its surreal, its its like a bad nightmares and youre telling yourself you youre just ignoring that and uh eventually then um heard walkie talkies, this was after about an hour, i spent about an hour crawling around the field and telling the lads that you know uh uh i said tonys fine and i said to friend you know uh brian is is uh seems to be out for the count but does be back to him with help and um i heard these walkie talkies and i was convinced that the man had come back to to finish off this thing i heard somebody jump down into the field and i said to myself you im going to stand up im not going to diland down so i stood up and i faced what i could hear coming. Towards me and show a light on my face and it said i remember man saying were the police on and uh i went to walk towards him and the the ground was sort of was uneven and i actually tripped and he caught me there was another was two policeman they caught me they eventually got me into into the hospital and um i remember being they were running down this car door with me and all the lights flying past me and they put me up on on on on an operating table and and they were questioning me, there was men there questioning me, and um, i dont whether there were doctors or police or whatever it was, but there were uh, one of them said, uh, you know, um, what happened to you, and i said, i fell through a ditch, thats the only explanation i gave him, i fell through a ditch, and he said, well, youve got some scratches and marks, he said, what are they, i said, well. The ditch and uh there was a of this nurse came over and she had a scissors and she i had a blue jumper on me and a sort of a black jeans and uh and she said um im going to cut this now i said no youre not of she said ive got to cut this off where she had to say i said i just bought it last week so i put my hands back and they gave in and they they actually took it off me without caughting it so i was happy enough with that. And the these people were pointing and they had a small uh wound on the right and a small wound on the left and these were the entry and exit wounds. I just kept saying you i felt through a didge and the i remember the one man said um uh what were you doing up here . They obviously heard my accent which isnt isnt northern action said what were you doing up here and i said i was playing yeah. i had no idea that they didnt know who we were, you know, because we go into a shop, Everybody Knows who we are, you know, um, and uh, i said, i was playing, and uh, he said, i, he said, playing at what, so eventually uh, i said, playing music, and um, i think they started to realize this is band. Next thing all these machines started to come down, i think it was xrays or Something Like that and all the banging and the noise from these and next thing i woke up uh hours, hours later, eight or nine hours later, and um, its just my wife was just standing there, she had been dead, billy and marie brought her up, and when they arrived at daisy hill hospital, um, um, there was a lot of security, theres a lot of commotion outside dais hill, and uh, and billy went straight over to the the security man with a, he had a like a clipboard, and billy said, were here to see stephen travis. And uh and anne was there, she i mean you think about she was like she was only 21 you know 20 22 21 22 and uh and uh he said uh Travis Travis he looked on the clip book oh yeah hes dead and billy said no check it again he said were told hes that hes hes uh that hes hes okay and he said oh my mistake hes in theater and um so. 9 hours, but i have to say uh, disney hill hospital within 24 hours, 48 hours of the whole thing happening, gave me back my my faith in mankind, its just amazing people, you know, amazing people. Steve, its an extraordinary story, and no matter how many times i hear it, its just um, it it stays with me, i mean it, its took you many years, its taken you many years, sorry, to come the terms with what had happened, but also youve been. Engaged in a journey of reconciliation from that, which is you know speaking to you before, has been very, very important for you. You want to talk about that . As you say, coming to terms with it is is is is is important. I dont know if you ever come to terms with, you actually accept that something happened, um, you never quite understand it, and uh, and for me its not an extraordinary story at all, its its my life, i dont know any other life, and this is the case with many victims. Uh, but for all those years up until 2016, until we uh, number of us got together, and eugene reeve, whose three brothers were murdered on the 4th of january 1976, and joe campel, whose father was murdered in kushendall, actually by the same, the same man was involved, the jackel, the jackel robin jack jackson, um, who is a, killer for higher. And hes working working both with the special branch and with uh mi5 um we got together uh uh there was an event in in the uk was run by michael oher whose little sister magella oher was murdered uh in in 76 and i think it was august 76 and it it was a bring people together from both communities who had been uh had been impacted by the troubles uh one of the other speakers on that particular event his his wife had been killed in the shankel road bombing and there was there was four of us uh talking about our experiences because its important to to talk about these things so that people understand you the futility and and the failure of violence and uh we decided that the event that was all mcbrid was the the mans name whose wife sharen was was murdered in on the shenkel road bomb thing, but um, when when we began to realize you know theres more uh, its more, its about other people as well as me, its its, so i had been focusing for all these years on myself and my own story, and then when i started to hear other peoples stories, i thought, well, its important that that that society understands what happened, because you have to understand the past, its like, people often say, well, lets move on, but if you go down to to do your driving test a you, and you turn up without a rearview mirror, youll fail the test, you have to know where whats behind you before you can you can navigate safely into the future, so its important uh that that we know, so it started to to understand all the peoples stories. First of all, i wasnt alone in this, i wasnt, this was, this was a journey that we all had to had to make and to come to terms with and to understand. You cant, you cant excuse the things that happened, but i began to look at the word, the big word for me now is context, you know, why people do certain things, i believe that the people who who were there on the night, and even those with you, screaming and shouting the obsenities, they actually, you know, the products of of of of the times that were in the also products of of of of the society that they grew up with, and if youre bounced on your knee by your grandfather. You to hate the person who lives across the road because they say different prayers to the same god, youre going to believe that, you know, and and this fear and all of these things, its not excusing these things, but um so the the journey, the reconciliation journey started off with using the word reconciliation and then we we noticed that words like reconciliation meant Different Things to different people, to people down in the south who unfortunately know little or nothing about what happened in the north, they think reconciliation is lets build you a big expensive peace bridge in the north and we get both factions uh tell them behave themselves meet in the middle and hug each other. Not, thats not going to happen, thats not, its not feasible, it wouldnt happen anywhere, so i began to understand the whole thing, so uh, and more and more, it just there was two things that just came to the f for me, was the first of all, education, education is to understand what happened, why it happened, its not, its not enough to understand what happened, just always ask the question, why did it happen, and um, um, you terrible things, once once once the killing starts and once once somebody on either side or and it wasnt just two sides because it was orchestrated by uh as as tommy sans the great singer songwriter said to me one time um tommy has a beautiful song out called there were roses its about two two young friends catholic and protestant and were up in his house in roschavel one time and there was lots of guitars and everything around this is not too long ago and i said tommy sing there were roses and he sang it and it brought it back you know the the because we were mix band and and i remember saying to tommy god tommy theres terrible things done by by both sides during the conflict and tommys a wise wise old man he said um i say old he wont like that but he said um oh he said terrible things indeed he said but there was a terrible thing there in the first place to make it happen and in my new book, i actually finish with that sentence, because there was an unjust was an unjust society, it was it was injustice there, and uh, but as i say, when you know when when when either side starts to kill the innocent and murder the innocent, whether its you know, wh is the miami or claudy or or whether its you know and skillen or the or or or the revies or the odos or anything, you can go on. Forever with these things, but we have to say, we have to call it out and say, murdering people is wrong, and it it, but we cant say, well, im going to blame you for this, now im going to, you know, im never going to have anything to do with you, unless this dialogue here, we have to, we have to, dialogue is really, really important, we wouldnt have had the good friday agreement without dialogue, and our organization. You can see it on tarp. Ie, but its its it was very, very successful in so far as it was bringing people letting them tell their stories, but theres a danger in that as well, that it becomes very sophisticated sort of very sophisticated what aboutary exercise, and youre inclined to want to balance the books, well if somebody here you suffer from one com in one community, because Neither Community has a monopoly on suffering or loss. But you somebody, you say, well, oh, weve now, weve heard the story of this person, we better get somebody from the other side and hear that story, so we, and that doesnt work, and its something that you know, in the years since we formed her, the trying to balance the books, is is not healthy, somebody who is impacted by one side or the other, is entitled to stand up and tell their story on their own, and they should be able to tell their story on their own, just as im doing here now, and they shouldnt have to have. Have somebody from the other side to tell their story to balance it out um and the people on the other side should also be able to tell their story without having to having to because what happens is you get this you get this phenomenon where when you hear these stories uh and youre trying to balance the books people who are are you know especially in this out or in the uk or wherever say ah one was as bad as another you know theyre all the same theyre all that. Should they should have got a bit of sense and it wasnt like that, its its context and every single uh killing, every single thing has has its own context, it didnt rely on something else, and you cant say, i was justified to kill somebody because somebody killed my neighbor, it isnt like that, so we have to hear individual stories, the other thing then is that that you know as i say cliches become this sort of firewall for us, we say you know we talk about uh what happened . On bloody sunday, but we dont mention the names of the people, you talk about dublin uh bombings or the dublin, we dont mention the people, they become a cliche, we talk about omar. And skillen, there are some people, you youll never forget Gordon Wilsons voice, but then again, at the same, the vast majority of the people who are who died during the troubles, they become, they become cliches rather than actual individuals, because it was inconvenience for people to have to say these were real human beings, but we do have to know the stories, because the alternative it is um, is uh, if you know violence, as i say, it doesnt work at. Is you can see its not working anywhere in the world and you know theres always itl go on for hundred years and another hundred years and itll still never stop so uh hopefully the message comes across that the only reason im telling these telling this story are are are talking about the actual horror of it it soas that people will say i dont want that for my kids steve thats always great to have you in belfast and i want you to do one last thing before we finish you said you had new book do you want to plug the new book . I thought, thank god for that, i thought you were going to ask me to sing a song, i was never seeing or play the guitar, um, yeah, we have have new book, the uh, the book we we brought out in 2007 was called obviously the miami show band massacar survivor search for the truth um and that led to the Netflix Documentary uh so it was brought the story to global audience, like your films on, you mean theres Nothing Better to you, than to get people into a theater or show it on television. This new book is actually called the base player, and the nature of base player, somebody sort of stands back, at least in my in my case, the vast majority of basepers like to stand back and uh lay down a groove and and work with the drammer and not be the one that has to get out there and and and and front the band and smile and. Jump around the place and all that, we were the the ones that stayed back, so in that context, i, i, i, i hope that, im im able to maybe talk about the things that ive seen, talk about the things that were in front of me, anybody could write a book about the miami chopan massager at this time, but how how it how how it changes your life, how it makes you different from the person that i began at 24, complacent, arrogant, somebody who who couldnt care less about what was happening in the north um to somebody who cares passionately now about about um about what happens to our people all on this island and and on these islands, but it was learning corve and its taken me next year will be the will be the 50th anniversary and its taken me this long to realize that every single incident my uh my experience everybody experience whether its you know all of these wellknown atrocities or whether its the ones that people never get an opportunity to speak about, you know, theyre all connected, were all connected, and together i think theres no better antidote to to violence, no better deterrent to uh um any of these evils that brought brought all of all of those deaths about than the voice the victim, i think the voice of the victim. Is very very important and there are some ill ill never forget listening one morning i was listening to uh i think it was the nolen show now we dont get that down s but i live in cark now but i could hear somebody rang me and said turn on the internet and you can hear the this theres a discussion on about the the troubles and there was this lady and she came on and she apparently she had been on the day before and she had been talking about her husband who was killed 40 or 50 years prior to that and and i hadnt heard that particular conversation, but she unusually she was back on the following day, and she came back to say thanks very much to the presenter uh for having her on, and she said, the reason i want to thank you for having me on yesterday, she said, because before i was on your program yesterday, i was nobody and my husband was nobody, but since i spoke on the program, she said, i am somebody and my husband is somebody and i felt guilty because i mean ours is very high profile case and the rock and roll element in our thing you know actually gets the attention of people generations in the future all because theres always this this rock and roll rebel type of connection that you you know young people have so we have that advantage but i remember feeling very guilty listening to that lady and thinking to myself you know im taking it for granted that that our story is well known, so whenever i speak about about these things now, i also like to remind people that, im im only one of over three and a half thousand people, you know. When it came to to to people who were killed, but there was 44, 45,000 people injured in that, so if by telling my story uh, if if that makes somebody stop and think, theres a better way to do this, theres a better, lets lets talk about it is not going to be easy, so the difference, the journey that ive had from being this uh, you know, couldnt care less about what was happening, just up the road from us to to. Where i am now, im a slow learner, but at least think i think uh, its important, my journey is important, so the bas is that journey, its the story, the the new book which will be out at the end of this year, its a story of the journey and the arc of the journey and where and and and how i got here, so hope, hope, hope thatll be my legacy in at this particular book based, well we all be looking forward to to reading that dave. Thanks, once again want to thank you for coming to belfast, always good to have you here, its always great to be in belfast, thank you, thanks, and that does it for another week, wed like for you to join the conversation by sharing the link to the days program to help us grow our audience across all our social media platforms and once again like to thank our special guest Steve Trevors in the meantime, the conversation will be back next week with more investigations and analysis, im sean murray, bye for now. This week on expose Benjamin Netanyahu vows to reject any calls to hulk the rafah invasion as he and joe biden intensified their staged public spat over zionist israels genocide in gaza. Now following the statement made by former President Donald Trump that there would be a blood bath if he is not elected in november, leftist politicians and media personalities completely lose it on social media. And lastly, a recent politico ipso survey reveals that 50 of americans think trump is guilty and ought to be tried before the 2024 president ial election. Stay tuned for expose. The truth is just the revelation away. In todays show well be covering the growing popularity of cudsday and the frantic efforts of xanist extremists to undermine and sabotage it. Well, it tells you that they uh intend to intimidate, bully and harass any organization that gets in their way, and they intend to be able to occupy those organiz organization so thats its been saying, these were organizations which did it off their own bat, the designers didnt even have to lift finger in some some cases because the organizations took each other to court, they contacted every uh nonbrown named person individual um back in 2017 saying you work for an antisemite, how do you feel about it, but they didnt contact anyone with a brown sounding name which shows uh where theyre coming from really, but yeah it really does take it out of you but thanks to friends, thanks to supports, thanks to people like yourselves, weve gone through what you guys have gone through, and that energy helps. For us humans, air is the most important natural element along with water, food, fuels are used properly, i think most polluted cities would become pollution free. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. First of headlines this hour seven foreign aid workers are killed in an israeli air strike in gaza as the death f from the regimes genocide near 32,850. The ones presidency says the. Israely attack on the countrys consulate in syria will not go unanswered, also the headlines the israel regime conducts fresh raids across the occupied west bank as part of his intensified crackdown against palestinians