Two Walls and a Roof (44 page)

J
ust last week I met Al
an by pure accident and he told me that the previous night he had been dreaming of Channel 3, and the fun we had i
n those wild days.  By sheer co
incidence I too had been dreaming the same dream on the same night, and we met a day later. There are no accidents in life, and
it’s completely possible that A
lan did get the same idea as me at the same time all those years ago, possibly because we are all connected in Conscious
ness. Even now as I write of Al
an, Margot, and Dessie, I am smiling
broadly
and remembering the last night Channel 3 had its silent announcer.

We had hardly begun broadcasting as a legal
entity when it dawned on us all
that this was a very different kind of environment to the one we were used to in the
pirate days. From the beginning
I worried about our ability to continue in business at all. We had found an excellent CEO, Colm O’Connaill
,
who had put together a great broadcasting team, but we only transmitted to a small area i.e. North Cork, yet we had the costs of a very lar
ge radio station. Our Board was
equally concerned for our future, and then one day while driving along perusing the problem, the answer came to me. We were supposed to be a radio for the people, so why not get the listeners directly involved in keeping us alive. To do this I came up with the idea that we should start a small local lottery, and have collectors
selling books of lottery tickets
to the listeners.  We
would then do a draw every day
and announce the numbers at regular times. This idea would later become known as ‘Radio Bingo’ and it still goes on today.  Anyone having
matching numbers
would then get a real good cash prize, and the whole idea would get us both listeners and revenue. It was without a doubt one of my best ever ideas, and I remember the night I proposed it at a Board meeting in the Hibernian Hotel. It was not hard to convince our Board that we should give it a try
,
and it was agreed to put it in train. Then having come up with the idea I dropped out of the administration of it completely, and concentrated on doing my job which was engineering the station.

We were very fortunate in having a brill
iant legal advisor on the Board
who formulated the court application, which was later granted. Now we had hope at last. The money began to roll in, and so did the listeners
.
I was secretly delighted that my idea had worked because I had given up my own successfu
l video repair business at home to become a full-
time engineer with the station, so I had a vested interest in its success.

We were still small, but at least we had the potential to grow
. T
hen
,
at a crucial time and by a total accident, we had a great stroke of good fortune fall in our lap. A major publicity coup would happen for us.

At that time our governm
ent was formed by
a coalition between the larger Fianna Fail
party
and a smaller party known as the PD’s. It was a very rocky government indeed and the head of it was Mr Albert Reynolds, who was a business friend of Jack
’
s
from their dance
hall days. He had kindly agreed to be interviewed by us in a hotel near Kanturk, in County Cork.  Mr Reynolds gave a very pleasant interview to our Head of News, John O’Connor and I engineered the recording. Then later in the night, John and I were sitting in the public bar having a drink and simultaneously Mr Reynolds was giving a private speech to his Fianna Fail faithful in a different part of the hotel. Unknown to him
,
his private spee
ch had become a very public one
as it was inadvertently piped into the hotel’s public address system, and as such it became available to everyone sitting in the bar. We had been given a copy of his speech and the loudspeaker carrying that speech was situated right above my head. As we sat having a drink, I
realize
d quite quickly that Mr Reynolds
’
speech was becoming excited and he departed
from it almost immediately. A
s we listened in, I recorded it on John’s advice, never thinking that it would soon contain the political bombshell that it did. Mr Reynolds assured his faithful that the coalition with his partners the PD’s was
,
“Just a temporary little arrangement
,
” and our Head of News almost knocked over the table when he heard it. Within hours it was released into the newswires and the government almost fell as a result of it. Our recording became immediate national news. It launched us into the spotlight with the national media and immediately gave us a credibility we did not actua
lly deserve at that time. The ‘t
emporary little arrangement’ is now so commonplace as to have its origins almost forgotten, and I only write i
t for the posterity it deserved
because it helped make our radio station a huge succe
ss.  On a personal level
I felt really sorry for the problems it had caused for Mr Reynolds, who seemed to be a really nice man. He had been kind enough to give us a very valuable interview, and as far as I was concerned we had stabbed him in the back, but all seems to be fair in love, war, and politics. By comparison to what goes on in the media today, it was a very mild accident of good fortune for us
,
and Mr Reynolds was a tough
businessman and
a
well seasoned politician. The government survived but only barely so, and we were launched at last. Now we had recognition, we had a cash flow that was the envy of everyone, and we had a CEO who wanted to take out his main competitor
:
96fm in Cork City. In time he did just that, and also added anot
her licence to our little group;
the combined licence for West Cork and Cork City, probably the second most valuable one in the country.

Over the next ten years this fledgling radio station
,
which had begun in my kitchen becoming known as County Sound, and later 96FM and C103
,
would grow beyond all expectations. Over those years I was directly involved in many worthwhile schemes to help people through the power of the radio medium. The one I am most proud of happened as a result of a terrible famine in Somalia when millions of people were dying of hunger. I was asked if I could set up a system which would allow for a joint national radio appeal by all of Ireland’s local radios. Mick Mulcahy
, one of our DJ’
s
,
was the driving force
. H
e and I were good friends, so having seen the terrible images on television and knowing Mick
’
s sincerity
,
I agreed. We got fantastic co
-
operation from the IRTC, particularly Michael O’
Keeffe the
CEO, and every one of the local radios got involved for that famous
one-
day appeal. The hub was a studio that my son Kyrl and I set up in a warehouse in Cork, and on that day I believe we raised over one million pounds nationally. I was presented later with a certificate of thanks by the little committee, and it means more to me than all of my technical ce
rtificates to date.
To this day it gives me great pleasure to know that my work, in conjunction with that of the many, many others, helped save the lives of people I will never even meet.
That radio appeal
,
which was started in a pub in Cobh by a group of ordinary people, showe
d me that each of us can
make a difference in our world, especially when the motivation is sincere.  On that morning, as I sat at the sound desk listening to a nurse describing how their work had saved the life of a little boy in a mud hut in
Africa, for some unknown reason
it brought tears to my eyes, but I hid them well.
I knew for sure in that moment
that Nannie was smiling at m
e and saying, “Sure I knew the s
enna would give you brains one day”.

My
pen chance
for practical joking would reach a peak during the early days of our new legal radio, but I was not the instigator just a pa
wn in the game. My birthday is the
day before ‘
Fools D
ay’ and it was traditional for radio people to try and fool the public on such a day, or at least way back in those days we tried
to,
before it became uncool. My radio friends
and Etta
had secretly combined my
birthday
party with a big Disco gig
that
we were holding
in a hotel in Mallow,
and the place was packed. The
atmosphere
was great and du
ring the celebrations the R
adio
Talk S
how host
,
a man by the name of Derry O’Callnan came up with the idea that we should try and convince our listeners that the Blackwater River was drying up. This
river flows through Mallow
,
and most of the towns in our listening area are located along the river.
It’s
also a famous fishing
river with
anglers from all over the world try
ing
their luck along its banks
every year,
so a dried up river would have dir
e consequences for our area
. Derry c
onvinced me that I should be his
‘reporter’ along the river due to my travels to mountains as part of my job, and in a moment of weakness I had agreed to be part of the broadcast. The gig
and my party
went on all night
long
and about four in the morning I fell into bed happy in the knowledge that I was supposed to be off all the next day
,
and I pla
n
ned a late snooze. My phone rang about ten and it was Derry asking if I was ready to go
‘
on air
’
with a report. I woke from a deep sleep and could not even remember what day it was
,
let alone do a live link
,
so I told him to call
me
back in ten minutes
when I could get my thoughts together
.
I switched on County Sound and
heard him talk up the river disaster so convincingly that even I almost believed it
myself
. He had so called experts from America who knew
all
about climate change, a man from Arizona I believe
,
and also he had some local politicians in on the act. It became very real even before I added my bit. Then the phone rang.
“And
we go over now to John Cahill who as you all know is always out and about in our area,
what’s
the story John”.  I got into my imaginative mode and
said, “Well
Derry, I am out and about
,
but what the listeners don’t know about me is that I studied
weather patterns for years as a hobby
,
and specifically the critical factor of water shortages in Africa, and I am sad to say, and I don’t want any panic, but the Blackwater is actually four feet lower than normal”. Derry questioned me more and I added more and I thought that would be the end of my part in the show
,
and
so I
got back under the blankets. The phone rang again with Derry on the line all excited. “John, John boy, you have to do another broadcast, you were brilliant, the phones have all lit up and people are now ringing in confirming your belief that the end is near for our river, you have
just
got to come back
on again
later”. I was
flabbergasted
,
as I thought I only spoke to the people as if it the event was real
,
and now it seemed that my words were making magic happen, so I agreed.
In the meantime
,
Derry took callers from all along the river and each one convinced him and the listening public that it was all true
the river was indeed lower. S
oon we would have
only
a dry riverbed and no fish. Then he added his ace card and brought on the local politicians
,
who each blamed the other for not draining it
,
or for building on it
,
and they had a field day slugging it out. All were in on the gag of course so it was great fun
, and
then the phone rang again.

“You ready
John;
its going great beyond my dreams boy, sure the whole place is listening”.

In preparation and so as t
o add realism
to my location on the river,
I had put an extension
cord
on my phone, those were the days before mobiles and I had the bath taps running full belt and I was standing in the bath as well. “Over to you John”.

“My God Derry, I can
only
say that I am seeing a
terrible thing, there is a
fissure in the ground
right before me now and thousands
of gallons of water a
re pouring into it every
second
, can you hear it” I put the phone down near the water and Derry assures me that he can almost see the water
it’s
so clear. “
I think we are done for with the river
Derry
,
what are the listeners
saying
to you in the studio”. Derry then took another
few reports from the public, one
was
in Castletownroche
and one in Fermoy
and they
both
confirmed that the Awbeg River
,
as well as the Blackwater
was
indeed
drying up
,
bec
ause they could see how much lower they were now
.
Then he began getting calls that people were lined all along the bridge in Mallow staring in at the little island which I had earlier confirmed was ‘way out’ of the water. Being a true professional Derry took me back on
and
this time
he was
playing the skeptical card and he says,
“John
I know you know about this stuff
,
but could it be imagination at all boy
, could you be wrong it’s very serious
”. I tell him that I have had ‘measuring sticks’ in the river for the past two years
,
and the water is definitely two feet lower than ever before. Then I add that I have also had friends in Youghal who tell me that the river is only flowing through two of the eyes
on the bridge,
when it was normally going through six. That was it then he hung up and I thought it was all over for the day, not so. In five minutes he was back telling me that he had some official from the fisheries board on the line going mad about it and would I talk to him. In my innocence I thought that Derry had made him wise to the prank
,
but he had not
,
and so I once again got into my disaster mode. The man was really going wild. He attacked me saying I was a fool
that the river was tidal
and what qualifications did I have to make such a serious allegation
,
and I defended myself getting more and more heated
,
but all the time I believed he was in on it. He got so mad that he said we would hear more about this
,
and he hung up on me as did Derry. The broadcast ended around midday with Derry in
hysterics
telling the listeners that they could relax it had all been an April Fools Joke. The next day we got a demand for the broadcast logs of the show because it had not gone down well in ‘official’ circles and a court date looked likely. I was all for my day out
in court,
as I believed no harm was done and a Judge would see the funny side of things
for sure
and it ended at that, but a week or so later the Phoenix magazine carried a story on Fishy Business in Mallow, fame at last I believed
and for years people would meet me in the street and laugh at the prank we
had
pulled on them. I heard too that one of the
other
bridges was blocked
up
with onlookers trying to see the water dropping and arguing about it all. I still laugh at how innocent good people are, and even today a convincing liar will make believers out of almost anyone, sure politics is based on it.