Little sparks of colour….
I first met Gary McMahon on the beautiful September evening that was our first appearance at the Aspects Literary Festival in Bangor. With the help of Northern Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive, we had put together some memories from all the podcasts I’d completed up to then along with old film clips of the area and invited people who came to let me record their memories.
Some also contacted me beforehand and one of the emails was from Gary McMahon with his poetic lists of his Bangor memories. We recorded some of them and included his piece in the final collection from that evening, but I was intrigued, so afterwards asked if we could chat some more about the inspiration behind his writing.
All photographs courtesy of Gary.
If you are of a certain vintage, you will recognise the brown Renault 5 in the first image. It was Gary’s and a head-turner around Bangor’s streets from the late 1980s! In the centre is Gary with his father Norman and a photo of his mum Renee admiring the academic prize from his Conor House days. Now retired, Gary married Amanda in 2022 and lives in Bangor, recording music, his memories and just recently, producing prints to illustrate them too …. and I like to think that our conversation sparked his latest burst of creativity!
Gary has had an amazing career in banking, technology and even held a commercial helicopter pilot’s license but we didn’t meet to talk about that….it was all about his little Bangor memories … and he has a challenge for listeners at the end!