Bwmwr ond! A dyna wedi eu cyflym yn dechrau'r canfers Platinham, the UK's leading stockist of luxury Volkswagen camper vans.  So, wherever you are looking to start working on a custom build project or find your dream Volkswagen transporter, this is a place to look. Ever dreamed of owning your own Volkswagen camper van? Are nows your chance As you can save £500 By using the code JAMES500 All you have to do is speak to one of the friendly sales team and say that James Ingle sent you there. Now, let's get into the episode. You can now follow me on all my social media platforms to find out who my latest guest will be and don't forget to click the subscribe button and the notifications button so you're notified for when my next podcast goes live I was born into a Protestant family actually, and all my grandfather's anointment, but he met a woman down in Cork, and she was a Catholic, and when they got married, she demanded that their children be brought up Catholic. Otherwise my life would be different from what it would be now, you know. I'll put your name down, I'll get you up here with me, so brilliant. Two days later he was shot dead, not too far from here.   And I decided what my brothers were trying to do all the time, make me join the Republican movement. You know, and I decided that was the only way to change things here, to join the IRA. After a few months of training and learning things, I started to change. You know, I didn't want revenge of such, but I wanted no longer to be treated like a dog in my own country, in my own city. I didn't want to be treated like a second-class citizen. And this was Ireland, it was occupied by Britain. I didn't think I had any right to be here. You know, Ireland wouldn't have a right to be in Britain, occupying England, London. So it was the same here. For me my attitude was there shouldn't be any British here whatsoever, you know. When I got out in 1976 and about eight months later I was captured in Belfast in a van where a load of bombs and machine guns. Myself and five other comrades. But the time in the Hesblocks was horrendous. I was there for eight years. I was naked. I was stripped of all my clothes. Soon as I came into reception the day I was sat in, they brought me into reception. So it's like a room like this. Six or seven screws waiting for you were battens.  Because you're not a criminal. I'm a political prisoner as I told them and I weren't it. So they just kept beating and beating and beating me, you know. During the hunger strikes we shot 30th screws dead. And I thought we should have shot more. I wanted as many, up 100, 200 in debt. Even today I check their names to see who's died. Who's died of cancer or whatever, you know. I hit them so much. They got away brutalising us and torturing us for years. Got away with it. They got big bounty money.  And these are war criminals. My father couldn't be broke by anybody or anything, you know. But the sight of me, that's where I broke me, you know. Bwm, we're on. Very good. And today's guest we've got Sam Miller. Sam, how are you brother? James, thank you for having me. Thanks for coming on. Pleasure. No, thank you. Bit of a mad story, Sam. I'm involved with the IRA. Ended up in America. One of the biggest heists in American history. Sent to prison. President's phone in White House. It's an unbelievable story. And I'm glad you're here to tell the tale. I'm still glad to be alive to tell the tale, you know. First and foremost, Sam, how are you? Pretty good, you know. But yeah, my life story is a bit strange, you know. Because I was born into a Protestant family actually. You know, my grandfather's an ornament. But he met a woman down in Cork. And she was a Catholic. And when they got married, she demanded that their children be brought up Catholic. Otherwise my life would be different from what it would be now, you know. Yeah, I spoke to a few people from both sides of the conflict here. Yes. And they said the exact same.  Exactly. It's just the environment you grew in. That's all I was. You know. Always go back to the start of my guess, Sam. Where'd you grow up and how it all began? I grew up in a street called Lancaster Street, Belfast. It's quite a famous street. From the 1930s, there's always been rats. It's a small nationalist enclave surrounded by loyalists. It's been like that for, since the 1900s. Quite a famous street. And in 1930, New York Times had front page because there were so many people murdered in the street by loyalists. Nazis and Catholics. So that's the street I was brought up in. It's a very, very staunch Republican street. And really, from that street onwards, that's where I was born and brought up. My family were Republicans, although I never really had an interest. As a wheeler, I'd grown up. I was more interested in discos, girls and beer. I was all my interest. My brothers were all politically aware. They were into all the politics and Republicanism. I had absolutely no interest.  One of them was my brother brought me to Dari in 1971. I didn't know really where Dari was, but he says he was going for a trip down to Dari. I didn't care as long as I was getting out of Belfast. That was the main thing. So it was a Sunday.  I changed my whole life because before it, I wasn't too much into politics. I didn't really know what was going on here. My brothers used to hammer it into me, but in the quality of being a Catholic, being a nurse, has been treated like a second-class citizen. So that practically started to change my whole life. Look about this place, you know. And about two months after it, one more event happened, and that was me finished with this place, you know. My friend Jim Kerr, 16, he had just got a job in a garage. Up here in the Lizburn Road, coincidentally. And I was working in the slaughterhouse. So I was quite envious, you know. And the slaughterhouse was a rough, rough place, you know. I was like 93% loyalist, 7% Catholic. It was a very dangerous place. I hated it, but he said to me, look, don't worry, give me a chance to get in. Once I get into this job, a few months, I'll put your name down and I'll get you up here with me. So I was brilliant. Two days later, he was shot dead. Now too far from here. Shot six times in the face and ahead by loyalist, murdered. Just from being a Catholic up here at the time. So with Bloody Sunday and the murder of my friend James, I was me finished with here. And I decided what my brothers were trying to do all the time, make me join the Republican movement, you know. And I decided that was the only way to change things here, to join the IRA. And that's why you joined for revenge as well, and to... I guess it was. At the time it was revenge, because I wasn't too politically aware. You know, I was naive because when the IRA found out what I was really joined them for, they ostracized me. They sort of kept me away from anything they want, because they don't want your personal fund, anything like that. You have to be educated first to find out is this what you're willing to fight for? You know, everybody thinks, oh yeah, getting you in there in the IRA will take you in. It's not like that at all, you know. They take your time to find out what type of person you are. You know, and as I say, it was very naive, too little. And after a few months of training and learning things, I started to change. You know, I didn't want revenge as such, but I wanted no longer to be treated like a dog in my own country, in my own city. I didn't want to be treated like a second-class citizen. And this was Arran. Yeah, it was occupied by Britain. I didn't think I had any right to be here. You know, I wouldn't have... Arran wouldn't have a right to be in Britain, occupying England, London. So it was the same here. For me, my attitude was, there shouldn't be any British here whatsoever, you know. What sort of training did you have to go through? Well, to start with all political. Just trying to get you to see how much you know what we're doing in history, about the real reasons behind not enjoying the area, you know. I don't want any maniacs for you. I don't want to say it's funny the area doesn't want any maniacs in the ranks, you know. But you do a lot of political stuff, and I was quite getting bored with it. I wasn't really into too much about the reading of stuff like that. But after a while, you got taken to camps down south where you get to learn how to train more weapons and explosives and things like this. So when you go back up to the north, you'd be better prepared to fight the Brits who were there at the time, the British Army. So you're training yourself to be... to handle conflict and take away the anger side where you want revenge, where it becomes more of an organisation that you're more in tune of what's going on and what you're fighting for? Yes, it changed me. It definitely changed me. I met men, you know, I was a kid really, but I started to meet men who had been doing this a long time in their life, you know, before in the 50s and 60s and all. They were hardened, sort of veterans and on. It changed me listening to them.  But once I started to talk to these men, they were showing me the bigger picture. It's none to do with Protestants and Catholics. That's sectarianism. Absolutely none to do with it. Because as far as we were concerned, we were going to fight for them as well. This is our country as well. But they had to treat people equal. And that's the way we wanted it. That's why we learned the training. Does that hurt you? Irish men killing Irish men? Does it sting really when you think about countrymen killing their own? Living from the outside, it is mad when you look in. Just a few miles across the water, we've got Scotland, but then there's a kind of war zone going on where people are killing each other, bombing each other and it's in people, innocent lives getting took. It is mad to think that this was only a few years ago.  Well, as I said, different advantages of my own life. I wasn't going to no longer be treated like a second class citizen here in my own country.  We had to learn from their mistakes the way they treated us. People from outside think about it, it's a Catholic Protestant conflict. It's a lot of nonsense actually, but it's how it's been given by the media. The media is a great manipulator of propaganda. As far as I'm concerned, I was born a Catholic, but never practiced, never went.  I couldn't care less about it. But when you're coming into my street, the murder of my neighbours and the murder of my family, I'm not going to stand daily by. That's what the whole concept was for me at the start. It was the only way to get back at these armour cars, British army coming into the streets, murdering people on dairy and getting away with it. The murder of 14 people, the par-troopers, got medals from Lizzie Windsor for doing it. For me, the only way to change things was to use force against force. I was terrified, I didn't like it. I was cropped myself, going to be killed. I wanted to go back to the school days, but it didn't happen again unless I changed things. But I missed them. I was on the course now, where force was the only thing I knew, because it was force being used against me by loyalists and better British. How was that scene with friends and kids? How was that mentally for a man to see that? I can still remember my friend Jim, talking to him on the internet, talking football in the next morning, he's dead. I still remember a few of my friends and their friends. I've seen arms and legs landing on the streets off their bombings and things like this. There was a very famous infamous bomb called McArch's Bar, where all these civilian Catholics were murdered. Two bombs put in the bar, and then the British media said that the people inside who were killed were making bombs. So where was poor innocent people? Damned again, condemned again. Once they were blew up, then their names would strike through the gutter. It's only lately, 40 years later, that the British have apologized to those pubers, you know? A lot of people looking from the outside think it's a Catholic blood, it goes a lot deeper. Can you explain to people what is the main issues and why it all started? Basically, in a nutshell, before trying to make it too complex, this is part of Ireland, this is another part of Ireland. Britain has occupied us for 100 years using force because we're a small country. Britain is a very powerful country to invade so many countries around the world. We're a very powerful country to invade so many countries around the world. For me, no country has a right to be in anybody's country. It's up to people who live there to determine their own futures. I don't care how many in our country have no right to be here. Marcus shouldn't have been in Vietnam. It's the same argument. Britain has no right to be in Ireland. Unfortunately, the British had the Unionists here and give them all different rights, of everything. They had all nice houses, a good property, good jobs, best education where Catholics were treated like gutters and that had to change. Do you get sent to prison as well? Well, when I was 16, I got sent to Lancash and I was done under what's called the Diplock Court. They just created this. The British created this. It's a non-jury trial, but it's a privilege to convict you. Now I was only 16 and he said I was in the IRA. There was no Evans to say I was in the IRA. Most people were getting fined £30. That's how much they were loyalists. They were getting fined £15 because they were in the UVF, UDA. The next thing, it hawns me three years. Now I'm only a wee lot at 16 years of age. Never seen a prison, never understood it. When he sent me to Lancash inside I was a political prison.  I started to get educated by these guys, teachers, professors, who were in there, learn more about what I was fighting for and how to fight better. So when I got out three years later, I really, really started to fight pretty earnestly, you know, and I really hurt them in lots of ways. What was it like being in Lancash? Was that what had done the hunger strikes and stuff? No, that's the second time I came back. This was in the early 70s and it was a big political camp.  You did a lot of gymnastics and all this and your education. That's all you did. Train and education, train and education, you know, until you got out. When I got out, I got out in 1976. About eight months later I was captured in Belfast in a van where a load of bombs and machine guns, myself and five other comrades. But when we were stopped by a British food patrol, we jumped out of the van. There was a lot of fisty cups. We started fighting hand-to-hand combat and we got away. Everybody got away. So I was wanted for a long, long time until I was caught by three months later. I was caught doing an operation. At this time, Margaret Thatcher had taken away political status from all the prisoners who were fighting against Britain. They tried to make it into a criminal enterprise that if you fought Britain, you were a criminal.   And that's the way it was. She tried to make us outlaws and be criminals, but we weren't going to have it. So when I went into the common road jail, status was taken off and I was sentenced to 10 years this time for having explosives and machine guns. And they put me in what was developed just built by Margaret Thatcher, these new things called the hit blocks. Quite frightening. They were actually designed from the Nazis to put the Jews away during a concentration camp. So this was the next phase that they had to hide these things around these hit blocks and that was the same design. And she always boasted that you can never get out their escape proof. Of course, usually later we proved that wrong when we had the greatest escape ever in European history where 38 men escaped, you know. But the time in the hit blocks was horrendous. I was afraid years. I was naked. I was stripped of all my clothes. As soon as I came in the reception the day I was sent, they brought me in the reception. So it's like a room like this. Six or seven screws waiting for you where battans.  I'm a political prisoner as I told them and I weren't it. So they just kept beating and beating and beating me, you know. And it was quite horrendous. And then I remember getting dragged by the angles up 20, 30 feet through tarmac and the tarmac was ripping my shred and completely naked at this time, you know. And so when you get up back in the hit blocks, you're only reaching the hit blocks now. You've got more screws waiting for you. You've got the governor waiting for you. And because you refuse to say, sir, he always says you'll call him sir.  My father says you call him no man sir. And I said, because I refused, I got an orb beating. And by the time I got into the cell, that tiny, tiny cell, the blood was pouring out of me. And that was my start. The hit blocks were eight years naked. Does that fuel you with most fire? It does. With hatred and rage? Not hatred. I would call it I secret justice. During the hunger strikes, we shot 30 of the screws dead. And I thought we should have shot more. I wanted as many, up 100, 200 in debt. Even today, I check their names and see who's died. Who's died of cancer. I hit them so much. They got away brutalising us and torturing us for years. Got away with it. They got big bounty money and they loved doing what they did. And these are war criminals. How do you survive then without either being killed or killing someone in there? In Lancash? Well, the screws killed in Lancash. I'm not getting into that. You know?  I call them screws.  There's a lot more she-hat dead. There's a lot of she-hat dead, but she-hat and survived. But for me, I wasn't enough. Some people said, well, it's a big number, 38. But I wanted to be hundreds and killed. And today, I still hate them because they got away with it.  They were doing their duty. That's what they were over here doing. I might not agree with what they were doing, British soldiers. But they were over here doing their duty. They had no option. Especially along come from working class areas. You know? Especially in Glasgow, somewhere like this here. Somewhere in London, poor areas in London. But these were guys who deliberately went and took us jobs at guard, at guard political prisoners, naked into torture them. Torturing me every day and getting beat up every day. You know? You're naked when you're talking about four or five schools coming into your cell. That's what you had for years. How can you forgive? Think about it. Think about it. How many prisoners was this happening to? It was 300 officers. At the start, there was only 10 of us. I was one of the early blanket men. They were called the blanket men at the time in the Hatch blocks. What does that mean? Because all they give us was this tiny blanket. Very coarse. It was like a billow pod. When you put it on, it was a tiny thing to put around your neck. It was supposed to cover your dignity, but it was a joke like that. It was more torture and more because you couldn't do anything, you couldn't sleep. Because it cut right into your skin and all. We got the nickname from people outside called the blanket men. That was a very famous blanket man. When you're a blanket man, you're very famous. People have an awful lot of respect for you. Especially in the North of Ireland. What about food? Food? Well, the food was basic prison food. But you were getting all sorts of strange things on it. You can imagine these guys are feeding us food. You know what they're doing. You know yourself. I don't want to start talking about what they were doing to the food. But I lost half my body with my father. He didn't recognise me. I remember going out to get after I'd done my time. I remember my father waiting out to get from me. He was still staring past me. I hadn't seen him for eight years. He didn't know who I was. My heart was way down my back. I was as skinny as that. Before that I used to do weights and everything like this here. He had no clue who I was. He'd just start crying. I'd never seen him cry. I'd seen him cry twice.  That time when I got a long couch. He was... It broke him more than it broke me. My father never got a word. He thought my son was going through this. Why did I lose? But he could do it. That's the way my father was thinking. He should have been doing things. He thought he knew what was going on. But it broke him. We allowed letters. Send anything out. No visitors. I never got a visit. Ever. I haven't seen my family. The day I went in until I got out of bed eight and a half years later roughly. I never seen any of my family. Never had contact with them. He might get a letter but most of the time the screws would burn them. Or rip them up and send you an envelope and laugh. It was a letter. So I had very little communications with my family. At the time. There was one particular incident that always stuck out my head when I was about eight. My mother walked out on us when we were kids. I never seen her again. I was eight years of age. I just walked out the door when they never came back again. So I had forgotten all about her. I remember this priest coming down. The corridor in the blacks. I'll never forget it. I remember this priest.  They wouldn't do anything for you. They weren't calling the sales priests and Christians. But they never did anything for you. So everybody called them the angel of death. Because the only time they were coming down was just to tell somebody had died. And you always knew it was bad news.   The next thing I hear them stopping out said my door. The cell door in the rut and the case and the screws are screaming.  Because I was standing at the door. The next thing a priest shows up and looks at me. I thought my father's dead. That's the only thing I can think of.  I had no clue what he was talking about. I said my mother? What are you talking about? She was found dead down Dublin. It took me about a couple of years later to get into my head that my mother was still alive at this time. I thought she died the day she walked out the door. When I was eight. Here's this priest telling me now. She's only dead now. It made me quite angry at my mother being alive. She never tried to contact us. So those kind of things. You had all that plus obedience and all sorts of psychological things. It was just terrible, terrible things. During the winter it took out all the windows. And you'd be freezing. And the piss.   And we had to use the walls.   And when you pissed, the ice cold from the night was freezing the whole floors. It was just like an ice rink. And then your skin used to stick to it. Because it was that friggin cold. I'll never forget the cold.  Get this over with. How far can I go? Because you were just getting tortured different ways every day. Hard I didn't go and see. It's unbelievable. Because you're so cut easy. So just want to slip your man. Completely crazy.  Wake up dead, buff the cold? No, nobody ever did. Afterward when they got out they couldn't handle. Men killed themselves and committed suicide. Act of prisoners and all. They just couldn't cope with the same things the world had changed. They hadn't seen their wives and kids in so long a time. So many years and all. Everything had changed. The torture went on in their heads. What they got, I guess like me, most of them will never forget it. We don't talk about it. Nobody talks about it. It's a problem. Especially on behalf of everybody. Everybody regards you as a tough guy, a hard man. You shouldn't be talking about things like that. It's only for sysys and softies. But that's how it was at the time. When did the hunger strike stop? It was in 1981. Yes, we had one hunger strike and it collapsed. The Brits agreed to give us our demands to stop treating us like criminals and give us our clues back and so on. But once the hunger strike ended, Margaret Thatcher reneged on it. It caused a lot of problems. So the second hunger strike started led by Bobby Sands, and then other men. This one was going to be different because we knew that there was no doubt whatsoever that Bobby and the other lads were going to die. We knew Margaret Thatcher was going to let them die because Erie Neve had been killed. Her personal friend had been blown up today in LN. She had this terrible personal grudge against Republicans for personal revenge. If Margaret Thatcher hadn't been in charge, there would never have been a hunger strike. It was through horror that men died. Horror determination to get revenge for Erie Neve.  She was a very evil woman. She was a very evil woman. It was incredible what she got away with. No compassion and no sorrow for what she did. It was a war criminal but unfortunately she died in bed. So she agreed with the first hunger strike and everything was back to normal. She agreed, just signed it, got the first up, that their minds were basic. They weren't big demands. We're army clothes, not convict, have a visit once a week, have a food parcel. That was the basic things.  So it was a fancy agree too. Because they were a wee bit scar. But once the men came off two weeks later, serenegd, and it wasn't going to give us anything. And the problem with it was we had started such a momentum with support outside. People were expecting the hunger strike and they were supporting and supporting and all of a sudden the hunger strike is over and I think we got what we got. So it's hard to get people into our heads saying look, we didn't get nothing. We're still down here naked.  We're still being tortured. So when the second hunger strike it took a long time to generate support. Whenever it started, the support was unbelievable. Because the second hunger strike food Sinn Fein, Sinn Fein never had a lot of support. But now they are the strongest party here in Ireland, north and south. They're going into Parliament up here and they're going into Parliament down there. They are the richest party because of Irish Americans. Donate until them. And it was all because of the hunger strike and the blanket meal. So when Bobby Sands died 66 days later and his funeral was over 100,000 people. Over 120,000 people. People from all around the world. The ambassadors from different countries came to it. It was the biggest funeral of all time. I'm worried. But his death has generated generations of young people who never knew Bobby Sands but now know about him. And now through them they have become Republicans during the Gaelic language. Things that they would not have done. So his death has really erupted for Irish freedom. When he died, it was a victory for Republicans really. Because what he died, his memory has generated such many generations. People around the world, you go down to the world and know Bobby Sands like Che Guevara, the names mentioned. Bobby Sands, the rest of us, they had a hunger strike. They destroyed market nature. The Germans have broke the back of the British government. And their legacy lives on today. I've had people on who was fighting for the other side. And they've said they've got nothing but respect for Bobby Sands because they don't think they can have even done that. Went to hunger strike willing to give up their life for protests for their rights and it's unbelievable to give up your life for that. Here's the thing. My business never went on the blanket. A lot of them and I talked them through them because I loyalist Francis and my family. My family split down the middle because my grandfather was an orange man. So I have orange relatives and we talk about these things. But their incentive is not the same as me. They have all the privileges. They had the good jobs. They regard themselves as British. They had the best of everything. So they don't fight the system because they believe the system's good. I'm a Catholic, a nurse and I have nothing. So I look upon it differently.  We have a different incentive. They went on hunger strikes but they weren't. They were on hunger strikes for five days.  They didn't have that same incentive that Republicans have loyalists. Now don't get me wrong. I have more in common with a working class loyalist than I do a middle class Catholic. Why is that? Because we're both working class. They don't understand it. They have been used also by the system. They think that they're living above it. They're not. They seem as me. They're being used. They're getting their bills now and they have no money to pay their bills. They still believe in their queen and all and their queen's laughing at them. People say middle class they never helped the working class. The Catholic working class never helped and turned their backs on them. I would trust a loyalist any day of the week working class than a middle class Catholic. That's mad. They regard themselves as different because they lived in all their nice neighbourhoods had good jobs because we got a middle class education had plenty of money. They did that like working class fighting. They should turn their backs on them and say what are they fighting for?  We've got our nice cozy houses that we've had there twice a year and those days it was no holiday it was like what's a holiday, you know? But these were doing that. That was regular for the middle class Catholics. I haven't done what contempt for middle class Catholics and the Catholic Church. I did test the Catholic Church. I love to see them all closed down. So, see when Bobby Sands died what were you thinking then? Did you think change was going to come out? Did you just think that was just there was going to be more fuel to the fire? I thought Bobby died. When he elected the parliament he demanded and commanded such unbelievable things.  One of her own MPs, you know? Plus the support that he had around the world was just unbelievable. Americans were giving us millions of dollars when I say us, I mean the Republic of Movement sending guns, machine guns that they never had before once Bobby Sands died was the support we had around the world. People started to recognise us as freedom fighters. That terrorist, as the British come and try to come across they spent billions trying to put the propaganda that Irish Republicans were terrorists and it caused them a lot of money and all of a sudden it was destroyed by Bobby Sands. People around the world started to look at a difference that these guys aren't terrorists far from it and that's when the world started to support us and that's changed forever. When you got ten years, was there a release date at the end or did you just get a chap at the door and say, look, you're free today? Did you know you were getting out? Well, here's what happened. It's very, very strange. There was a big escape. A third of the prisoners escaped. Now I had already done eight years, so I'm sending myself. Look, I've two more years to do but I remained on the blanket protest.  Six of us refused, but they all seek him down to us. Without your help, we can't get these men out. We've got all these men doing life and we've got a chance of getting these men out. Now this is a pregnant prison. You've got 30 gates to get out through each gate. It's like a nightmare. I saw a way and said, I was laughing. I said, are you crazy? Do you really believe this is going to happen? It's not going to happen. It's impossible to escape in this place, you know? But once they escaped, it changed everything, you know? So you didn't want to escape because you didn't know you were? I had no... If I was doing life, I would have escaped with them. Because I was only a year and a half left, there was no point. What's the point of going on the run? It's not worth it. Then what happened was they closed the whole place down and about six months later, the governor comes to me and says, Miller, your time's up even though I still have a year left. I don't know why they were just glaring at me to get me out or whatever. And he came and I was butchacked because I, you know, getting out and then all of a sudden it was a daunting. My head was like getting out. What am I going to... My heart started going overboard. Getting out to what? I don't know what I'm going out to. I don't know what my families are, what's going to happen to me. So it was nerve-wracking. It was more nerve-wracking the thought about getting out the freedom than it was remaining in my cell. It was a horrible thought of walking the last yard towards freedom. That's crazy. Is that because you were so used to being in that like a torture camp. You didn't know, were you thinking every day you didn't know if your whole family and friends were muddled? You don't know what's going on there. What's happened? What's changed? Who died? Did you ever get any news? What was going on from time to time?  They're coming to tell you if he ever sees you. We think like that. But your world wasn't no longer. You didn't care about your family anymore.  This is for all the sins that I'd done because I'm getting this every day. There's no lineup. It's not like once a week you're getting it day after day after day. It's just coming down on your bombarding. Beatons and beatons and beatons and all kinds of torture. Using the weather, the heat, the cold. And it just went on. That's all I could think of. I could never think about it. I'd never thought about my family because I was thinking about me surviving. Hardest effect. Don't be thinking about it. I'd say that's only going to torture you. And see the day I knew I was going, it was unbelievable. It's like walking a table. I was so, I thought it was going to throw up. A name when I seen my father. I knew it was him because he's a big, big man and my brothers. But when he just kept staring because there were about 10 of us getting out and he kept looking to see if he could see me. It was just sad, you know. But I broke him. My father couldn't be broke. By anybody or anything, you know. But the sight of me, that's really broken, you know. Sorry for that. Okay, does that bring back a lot of emotions?  They come through those gates and having every day whether or not your dad is alive or not worrying about his son. I don't think... When you think about it, imagine your son was inside and then all of a sudden you found out he was being tortured every day. What would you think about yourself? You'd think of letting him down, you know what I mean? I've got my son and I thought I would never allow my son to go to jail. I would never allow him to be in there. You know, I've done enough. None of my family is going to do it. I would never, my kids all went to university. Fuck, I've got good jobs. And I would never allow them to go through what I went through. And I don't know how my father allowed me. You know, not that he could have stopped me because I was quite headstrong. I don't know. I just would break my heart if I thought my son was arrested for a week for anything. I would break my heart to think that he was in there. There's nothing I can do to help him. I think your dad blames himself as well because of the way I ended up and that plays a massive button on your heart. Big time. My father hardly drank. He drank big at the weekends. You know, we worked all his life the Saturday night to have a few beers. Became an alcoholic, you know. I can't blame myself, you know. But I know it's because he thought he left me down, you know. That's the reason why, you know. So when you get out, what's in your mind then to automatically get back involved and fight again or are you thinking I'm going to get out and move away? No. I went back to active service. I wanted to deal such a hard blow against the British that they didn't know what hit them. I wanted to do so much damage to them, you know. It was all building up to me and I wanted to do the same to the screws, you know. And then the strangest thing, it was like a strange change in my whole life. I was only out about two days and I didn't know my father had this plan in the back of his head, you know. I had this plot going and he introduced me to this young girl because my father used to be in charge of the Republican clubs. You know, he'd be watching all the security and they'd only call me over one day. I didn't really talk to my father much because I'd changed so much. I didn't like talking to people, didn't like to be with people, you know. It's very, very, very hard to communicate. And he says, listen son, can you just stay here for a couple of minutes? I need to go and talk to somebody.  I wasn't even going in, but I wasn't even drinking. The next thing is a young girl comes out and she says, you want to talk to me? She says to me, I looked at her. I says, no, you've got the wrong person. I was covering for my dad, you know. She says, it was your dad that sent me out. A little bit I know he had been plotting for a year for this girl and me to meet up because he believed this girl would take me away from the era, you know, if I fell in love with her and I fell in love with her, you know. And I started to go sift myself from Republican movement, you know. People say, oh, when you're in era, you're in era for life. It's a lot of nonsense. You leave anytime you want. But I never, there's no way if you just said to me, you're going to leave era. I looked at you as if you're crazy. It was my life era. It was my life. But all of a sudden I'm changing. I'm looking at this girl and I'm starting to fall in love and thinking, where the hell does this come from, you know? Why have I got these feelings again for a human being, you know? I thought they were all dead in the hits blocks. The next thing I started going away slowly, pushing from era and being more of a whore, holding hands, going to the park, going to the pictures, something I'd missed all my life of love. You know what I just didn't realise at the time?  And then another thing happens. Next thing, my mates who's in New York, working in casinos, they sent me an envelope. I couldn't believe it. I opened it up. 10 $100 bills. Almost fainted.  All of a sudden I'm looking at $1,000. I said, Sam, get you and Bernie over here to New York. There's a job waiting for you in the casinos. Get away from Belfast. You've done enough, you know? That's what I did. How were you treated with the Republican Army after you'd done that sentence? Were you treated like him?  Not a king. I know what you're saying. You were treated differently because people knew what you endured. There was people who couldn't. There was a lot of people who came off the protests. We called them squeaky booters. They left their friends behind. Every time they came off it, the screws thought they were winning. They said, we're winning. These guys are coming off it. A bit more. A bit more. So you started to resent your comrades who left. For a long, long time I hated them more than I hated the screws. It's only over the last few years I've started to reconcile myself with these guys. I had legitimate reasons. Sometimes their parents died or their wife died or whatever reason at the time I saw them. We've all got reasons. I've got reasons. We've all gone off the protest. You don't hear me cry. When they leave, if they knew you're in for good literature, they're getting a bounty. They're getting bonuses from the British government. Everyone you can put off, they're getting wages beyond their wi With the money they were making they more spending. There's choses coming from England. Things coming from Dublin. The money was incredible, Cyndi i ddoch gennym? Cyndi i ddinkarwch er mwyn i'r tynio, cwb er eich rhai fynd i am i ddysgu'r mynd, yna arnod y byd ymdangosawd, rydyn ni'n rhai fyddi a chymill ond ti'n gwell nhw. Fwy oed i'r hyffred, cydnod mae yna'r rhagleniaid llwyfyn ymdangos, nid o'r iawn eichur. Rydyn ni i ddweud i ddwy'r bobl yn unig, yna, ar y cwrthbarth i bach. But mae gennym, Ac y cwbwyswyd yw y gof yn ei wneud i gwybod i'r bywyn yn ymlaen yng Nghymru yw'r cyfryd iych chi'n brin y byd o'r defnyddio, a fyddai'r cyfryd yn ymdweud, gan hynny, ac mae hynny mae ei hwn yn arwet a'r tynnu. Mae hynny'r honau'r teiriadau, yn cael eu cyfrifiadau. Gweithio'n ddiogelio. Mae hyn nyfrailov. Rhon ni'n gydawd i chi i'w lleif, mae Gweithwyr, Gweithwyr, EP, Cwysyddur, Lleidwyr. Mae'r all ar y haf. Mae'n bwysg angen i gyd-dangos eu bod yna, yna gyda'r cyflwyno, fel yna'n gwybod sy'n gwneud i'r ymddangos, ac mae'n ddillu'r Bryts. Mae'n ffordd yn yma. Mae'n ddillu'r ffordd yn cymdeithas i fy moddol. Mae'n gweinio'r ffordd yn rhaid i ddiwedd. A mae willodd yn agos yn gwneud eu ddillu. Felly mae'n meddwl ar y cyflwyno'r ffordd fel gallai ddarparu, Llywydd, cynghoroddol eich ile mwy. Rwyf wedi bod opponentau yn unrhyw gwaeth iawn. Felly, wnaetho, wnaetho i yn gweithio gyda anghal lnod teimlo'r hynny. Mae wedyn yn mynd i ddych chi'n bwysig. Eu cofyniwn i gyd i'n gallu i'n ddechrau, Felly, wnaetho i yn gweithio'r rhaglo? Felly, roedd i'n gweithio i'n gweithio'r rhaglo? Prydyddai'n gweithio – wythnosio. Ewch, mae'r cyllidau i'r dragoch o ffiyth fel'r newid. gydych chi am ychydigol i'r cwylio'n gondol o'r cael ei parg wyath, dyma'n fwrdd sydd yn salnt yn ymweld wedi'u gyrfa'r unig a'r holl arwain, yn fawr, yn ymweld ymweld a'i gael ysimio, yn ymweld yw gyrfa'r holl ymweld i'w pob at y joint a'r holl yn fawr hwn i'n holl, ymweld ymweld, dechrau'n holl? Rwy'n yn ymr� o'i gwneud. Yr brofyddoedd, mae'r haml yn cwymdeithasio Eich Gwyddoedd. That's my goal. My Britain's here. I'll use any means. I'm no longer involved in the area or anything. Now, I'm a writer now, so I've given up the sword and I have the pen. And for the first time, when I started writing books, I realised, you know something, the pen really is made here than the sword.   I said, you use it as an excuse because you are too afraid of fright. You won't fight the British army.  But as I became a writer, in respect I started to generate throughout France and Italy, you know, in the newspapers, major newspapers, I used to do interviews.  I'm getting interviews where I've never got interviews as an IRM on. Now, doors opening to me everywhere. I sat down to recharge the gold's nephew not too long ago. You know, after you read my book on the pranks and I'm sitting, is this crazy?  So this is the exclusion here. I'm sitting in Paris with George the Gold's nephew, you know. What can you say?  I always say this. You don't know what tomorrow is going to bring.   It is mad. So when you got the thousand dollars to go to New York, was it an automatic decision to go, okay, I'm going to change my life or was it hard to leave the cause? Well, I remember talking to my father and, you know, the thousand dollars that gave me a burn out was my future wife, the girl that I met. My father introduced and to get her ticket and get me a ticket. But I had a big problem was I wasn't getting into America legally. So I knew it was going to have to be smuggled by Irish Americans. Bernie could get in. She had never been in trouble with her life and she's getting in no problem. But here's the thing. I thought to myself, there's no way I'm leaving Belfast, you know. There's no way to, I lost too many comrades. You know, I lost about 50 friends, personal friends killed during the conflict, fighting the British, fighting the Lordess. And that sits in the back of your head, you know. You keep thinking about them, you're thinking about them, you know. But I remember talking to this woman and I was talking to her, I was thinking about the conflict behind my head, you know. I was thinking, I feel guilty, you know. She looked at me and she says, you feel guilty. Why would you feel guilty? You have all people, you know. What you went through, do you not think you deserve a life? No. Do you not think you've done enough, you know. And I was off the clock on the horn because her son, two sons had been killed, you know. And once she started to tell me, and I felt better because I thought if this woman says, how could you think I even leaving Belfast, you know, your comrades had died, but she didn't. She said the opposite.  And that was it. I had said to my father, dad, it was a Friday, I'll never again. I said, dad, I'll be back next Thursday, I'm going for six days to New York. And I stayed 14 years. I couldn't believe it. The first time I ever knew what freedom was, was when I walked into New York and I thought, what is this? What's this sensation? Something's doing something in my head and my heart. And I realized it was freedom.  And I loved it. Yeah, was that a good feeling then coming?  Yes. I will never go back because I never tasted this thing as freedom. I was like a little kid giggling and people were looking at me and like, what the hell's wrong with her?  He's dronking on you. It's not, you're just saying, fuck, I never had this. And then for a while, you're thinking, all my friends never had this.   I couldn't get it over me.   What this sensation is? And afterwards later, I'm sitting back, it's freedom. And that's what I was going to ask that. Does that make you think about the friends you've lost, lives lost on both sides, but does that make you question that people never got to have a taste at, taste the fact that they didn't have to be in the war zone where you're fighting each other? And then when you taste that, you're thinking that's another burden that comes on your hat because you seem to me, you carry a lot of pain brother, but it's totally understand what you went through. But when you're walking in, you're thinking, wow, that you don't have to look around your shoulder.  And when I was there, I tried to organise as many people as I could, ex-comrades who had been through jail, get them over with me.  Just don't know what it's like, the experience. And I thought, what are you talking about? And I said, when you come over and we organise about six or seven people trying to get ex-prisioners to come over, give them jobs at the casino, this was a way to relieve my guilt.  But you go to bed at night and you're saying, this is the best thing. Now my wife's pregnant, it's just going to have a chain. I thought, imagine you are going to have a chain. When you're in the Hates Blacks, you think you're going to die. Now you're in New York and your wife's going to have a baby born in New York. I thought, how did my life change?  What made this all change so dramatically and so beautiful and so powerful? Unbelievable. See if you never met your wife though, do you think you've probably died here? I would never have left and I'd been dead. I'd have died in Belfast if I hadn't. Simple as that. She changed me and sometimes I laugh at the point because you made me get out of the area and she laughs at me and she knows where I'm coming from, you know. How many close calls were you? Two deaf? Obviously in the Hates block, but outside the bombs, guns. I've only a couple. I wasn't reckless. I was always very shrewd about what I was doing, you know. But afterwards I talked to a couple of loyalists, you know, years later, because I've got a lot of loyalist friends and they're playwrights, you know. I playwright and all the same. We get the talk, you know what I'm saying. So I may be surprised how many times we went looking for you, you know. You just weren't there. Those nights we were told that you'd be there, the cops were telling them I was there, you know.   I don't know who it was or whatever, but somebody up there, the first and up there was looking down on me, because I had a charmed life, the fact that I'm still alive.  So I'm not trying to get corny, I'm not trying to be religious mate, you know.  See if you did get captured, what would have happened? Captured by the lawless, or been tortured, tortured to death, you know. Did that happen to a lot of men? A lot. Well, this is a strange thing now to IRA men, Catholics. IRA men are too shrewd, IRA men are always on alert, you know.  But an IRA man will always be waiting, waiting for the worst to come, always alert, you know. One day he's walking down that way the street next thing, he'll take himself away around here, even though it's away, six miles away to get home, you know. So you ended up in New York, he started tasting a bit of freedom, your wife's pregnant, you should be thinking to yourself, well, do you know what, I'm going to live the good life, but you end up involving one of the biggest heists in American history, eight million dollars. What was going through your mind that, even though did you still have that in you, you needed to survive, make some money and still have that buzz about it? For four and a big robbery, I had one of the greatest jobs I've ever imagined. I was working at casino and I was getting so much money every day, I was getting paid, you're getting a tip every day. I had so much money, I couldn't deal with it, you know. I'm talking about thousands of thousands of dollars. You're seeing all these actors, famous boxers coming to casino. I didn't like to go home in case I missed something. I just loved working. I worked seven days a week. I was working at Hollick, you know. But I met this friend of mine who helped get me into America. He was an American cop. Now here's a contradiction. Here's an IRA man and his best friend is a cop. See, I've been hopping over here.   You know.  You know what I mean? I think it's a strange thing. But this guy himself was a legend. He highly decorated for bravery, numerous occasions, stop armed robbers and all this sort of stuff. But he was also Malcolm Axe's bodyguard. When he came to New York, he was one of the cops assigned Malcolm Axe's bodyguard, you know, because he was so highly respected, you know, among the black people up in Harlem and all. So he was a guy. He worked in this place.  And the Brinks was like a big fortress where all these armored cars come from the whole of America. And he deposited all the money from the banks and he sits in this big fortress. It's like Fort Knox when it's called Brinks. You know, it's very, very famous in America. And he worked as a security guard there on extra money. And a few times I was up during the Fourth of July, we'd be sitting eating hamburgers during the Fourth of July, just celebrating America and kicking the brits out of America. And the next thing you look at all these safes that says this room filled with money, not even lacked.  This is absolute. Now you just say, why isn't that closed? I said, what's the point of closing? We're going to take it out soon and get it burnt or moving on to another part of America. So they're that lazy. They got that lazy and complacent. They didn't even lack the safes and all the money's just coming out, spilling out, you know. And then I go back to New York and thinking I'm talking to someone, but I'm not. I'm thinking about all these safes for all this money in this fort. And I couldn't get out of my hand. And now after a while I finally say, you know something, it's just aggravated me. It's like a cheeky thing.  And I did it. You know, I said, I'm going to rob the brinks, get as much money as I can. I'm talking about I wanted a couple of hundred thousand because I said, if I can get a couple of hundred thousand, that's enough for me.  Would you think that was a test from God to see if you were changed man? I shouldn't have done it, you know. Maybe it was a test of God because I regret doing it. How the f**king done it is. No, yeah, I did it and I loved doing it. It was more like, back to the old days, you know what I mean? It was just a whole adrenaline, the cheekiness off it, you know what I mean? But afterwards I regretted and that's in it because, oh yeah, I seen religion. I should never have done it because America was good to me. The first country I ever tasted freedom, I got a good job. I looked up to my wife, my kids, you know. It was a great country and I love America. I love America and afterwards it's sort of why my family disowned me, you know, after my friends disowned me and it took a long time for anybody to start talking, talking to me again, you know, I was ostracised really once I was caught like, you know. Americans are good, they're loving Americans as well. They're crazy but they welcome people from all over the world. Oh yes. A great place but so when you're thinking about doing that then, did you never think about doing the casino you were in? No, oh no, no, no way. I was putting charge at casinos by a guy called Johnny Mack, second generation Americans and because I was spent time in Longkais, he was a big Republican supporter, he trusted me without a thought. I would never ever do this, I would never take a penny and all the ones that worked in casino half of them were all IRA men from the hit blacks and he knew he was well guarded that nobody was going to steal a penny out of that place and I worked my way right up the ladder. I became what was known as a Baxman. I took all the money from all the boxes inside the casinos, all them every night, filled them hundreds of thousands of dollars, taken away to safe place and he knew there wouldn't be one dollar missing and it never was. See when you go there for the clean life, as part of you Mr Old Sam though, living in the war zone, living in the madness because you were so used to it that you thought you wanted that extra buzz again. Yes, I didn't know what it was at the time but you used to look back and think oh I've got a great casino, a lovely house and wife but you're getting bored. It's a terrible thing to say you're getting bored because you don't see a war going on, it's nothing like that but there's just something missing in the back of your head so when the pranks came up I was like oh god this is great, this is like something being sent to me. Back again to see if I've still got the balls that I used to have and that's what it all came down to, I was testing myself but when I went I had this target in the back of my head, 100, 200,000 I thought it'll do me, it'll be nice. That's what my target was when I went in the brinks to Robin Lake and I wasn't going to take anything else. How did you plan it? The plan went on for about two different, well went on for basically for two years.   You're 100% right?    I don't want to rip it back out of him because he's not here to film himself although he ripped it back out of me, magazines and newspapers all over him.   There was a lot of tragedy involved in the Brinks and one of the biggest tragedies was there was a guy from Liverpool, a nice guy, he was involved, he wanted to do the first robbery but we got up there and when we just, it was a winter and just as we got approached in the fortress, he turned away, he chickened out, you know. And he always thought that he should have parts of the robbery even though he wasn't going to take part in it, you know what I mean?  So when he found out two years later that the Brinks had been done, he just went one on one as two, he knew who it was. So he started coming round as priest who's a well-known figure in the Irish American, looking off the poor people down the village, you know, and he knew he and I, the priest, had had a friendship because they had to get all this furniture and all and give it to him so she'd give it to the poor and all this sort of stuff, you know? So Ronnie was watching and he knew Father Pat, as he's called himself, knew where I was and he went to Father Pat one day and he said, look, tell Sam I know what he did but all I want is 100,000.  Now Father Pat was against me giving him money, you know? I says, look, it's only 100,000. Look at the money, we have a bit of room.  Couldn't spend, you know, we had eight million dollars sitting in this room. I says, you don't want to give him 100,000, it's only chicken feet, it's crumbs. So he says to me, okay, okay, okay, I'll give it to him. Weekly I met the priest, he says, yeah, it's okay, take him care off. I'll give him it, you know? I didn't find out till the trial started that he didn't give it to him and that started the whole shit. That's what causes all to be caught. Fought you over, you know? I found it underneath his bed, you know? I says, I probably won't talk to me, he said during the trial because he knew this was going to come out. We didn't know they had video tapes office. It was terrible, like, you know? So on the way to the job, how did you plan it out on the day of it? Well, I lived in New York and it's up in Rochester. It's an air drive and it's quite, quite, you're going up through it through it, it's lovely, but it's during the winter. Quite treacherous, I mean when snow falls in the market falls, it's not like a snow falls here.  But over here it's nothing. A bit weary driving up here, but I met this guy, worked on the casino, he was one of our big guards, you know? And he'd done, he was a marine at the time, retired, got a lot of frigging injuries and all this sort of stuff. And I thought he's the guy to go with me because Ronny was supposed to do it with me as a guy from Liverpool. And I sort of, I thought that's an oman, not to do it. The fact that Ronny chickened out, that was the first time. And I sort of, I believed it, or I can say with myself, this wasn't supposed to be getting done. It was a sign, forget about it, but a year later, starch going through my head and we got up there. And I knew it was, you had to go in the way I told him. I knew the cap would be on. I knew how to get in with that and I wasn't being hurt. I was a priority. No one could be hurt, even though we could be shot dead. I says, nobody should be hurt. Nobody should be killed. If I do it my way, swift or balls, you know, and that thing about it, we'll do it. We'll get on. And we'll do that. Ronny'r oes corpus, he will worried about it because you know he would shoot.   So I was warned about him, said, see the orgards, they'll do the right thing.  They're not there to see the money, you know what I mean? He said, but that's the guy you got to watch.  So I was listening all this and I thought, this is a guy that's going to shoot me. I thought, oh, I forget the name we had for him, you know?   I said, kept saying these things, you know?   But he was the one I avoided. But he's about 70 years of age. You think he'd have more sense, you know? Well, I think he was just living a second life, you know, as a kind of guy or something, you know? Seeing you're driving towards it, what's the feeling you've got? Dread, excitement. This is it, you know?   You can't. But there's something saying you fucking, what? You're crazy. Turn back. Turn back. So shame.  Set yourself.  Let's get up there. Change your life, you've got everything going, great making, dollar, and then, yeah, that is fucking.  Stupidity. Yeah, but. So when you're in there, how many guards were there? There was two, four, six where we were. There was different guards over in the arts section who couldn't hear what was going on. It's a massive place, you know? All the money from the West, from the East Coast, sorry, we'd come there. So the night that we went in, there was over 40 million. We went up in this little van, and we had tenny vans, no burger on that table.  Be happy, you know what I mean? More and more and more and enough, you know? But we went in and we started packing all the money in the van, packed it right till you couldn't put a penny in, you know, close it.   Because there's too much weight on it. So we're sweating like pigs because it took us so long to get the money in, then we're getting out again. So we started pulling the money out. We don't know how much money we're taking out. We don't know how much money we've left, but we've finally got enough money in to get out. The car's still going.  So we've found out there'll be left about 20 odd million behind. We took with us just over around about 8 million, 7.5 million. So the alarms went up straight away? The alarms went up within minutes of us leaving. When helicopters were in there, cops everywhere, state troopers were out everywhere. Now we had to get back to New York with just eight hours away on the three way, driving down where all the money in the back. So you can imagine what we were thinking.  You hear the helicopters all the time, you know? And you're thinking, this is where we're going to go into those guards. The cops are waiting for us. They have their shootout.   I was a long, long trip home back to New York. But did you tell your wife that name? Oh, she didn't know it. She thought I was working in the casino as a manager, you know?  She doesn't know anything about it, you know? So I went and make a phone call. So I says, okay, babe, harsh things.  I said, I'm doing a double shift tonight. So I'm going to get home at about four o'clock in the morning, you know? So she says, okay, take care and I get home safe. No need to be careful at Subway because I always talk at Subway and to work, you know? I mean she's always worried about somebody stopping me in the Subway, you know? Now I see when I hung that phone up, little did I know that phone call came back to haunt me because they were able to track it to my house that I called.  And did you not know that then? I thought about it then. It wasn't a thing to do. They're on the line to stop my brain thinking.   Yeah, because then there's no cameras. There's no DNA. No, no, it's themselves. If you're kinder in it now, you're driving away with the money. There's a good chance, a good percentage that you're not going to get caught. That's it. I mean, we got right into New York, got right into the house. I parked the car in a garage, open door garage, I imagine. All these people parked their cars in like a public garage. I left it and went to bed. We're all the money sitting. You know?  And you ended up getting surveillance from the FBI for six months. And you never knew, did you? No, never knew a thing. You never even have that inkling. Usually you get a gut feeling. But if I'm not, I don't do anything anymore, but I still have an inkling that he's a copper. That's it. That's what I was. It was one time, there was only one time during the whole Nansen's, I was in, down the village. I was coming out with all these big bags of money. We were moving it from one place to another.  It was hard to freaking lift. So I'm going into this place where we're putting the money in this apartment.   But he was actually opening the door so he could follow me in the elevator to see what was on in the, he was in that bag. He was in charge. He was the main at bag guy. This black guy was undercover. And he was there to try and get in the elevator where he was by his stop. And I said, well, go your head, sir.  So he was trying to get me go out because he wanted to see what floor I was on. And he knew his flats. But I knew him, I mean, Southern's wrong, you know? So when you think you're doing a job for 100, 200 grand and then you start counting the money out and you realise you have nearly $8 million.  Why?  Go on for a couple of months, people looking for you. But when you take out sort of money, you're going to get caught. Your fans say, yeah, I bet he's going to go out for you.  You had to change the tires on your van or something?  Because we got a tip from a cop. We had friends, lots of cops, friends, you know? And they says on the phone, a quick phone call, this is. Get rid of the tires. They're off to the tire print. You left the tire print behind because it was snowing. And we went in this big fort. It was all snowing. It was all nice and dry. So our prints go on. It's like licorice. I left the big print there. Of course, I didn't know it at the time.  The tire print was like a fingerprint, you know? And that was an hour reason that they caught me, you know?  What are you thinking after 6-1 for that? No. And that you have no idea that the coppers are following you.  Were you spending it though? No, I wasn't. Were you buying cars? Jullery. No, this is a terrible thing about it.  I never, I wanted rid of it. I was getting migraine headaches because the smell, the smell is paper money. It was horrendous. You wouldn't need a gas mask to go in.  And I was getting sick of it. And I was just trying to get rid of it. I was getting that money left for it in the centre. Do all the homeless, the hobos down in the Hell's Kitchen, Vietnam vats. I'm not trying to sound like Robin Hood here. I was just trying to do it to get rid of it, you know? I couldn't get rid of it. That seemed to grow.  And I just, that's when I contacted Pat. I said, Pat, I've got some money. You know people. Maybe you can head it for me. So he's thinking I must have 20,000. I'm a legal alien. I'm working on the casino. You know, put some money away from me. And then when he's seen it, he's gone away like he was shocked. But he didn't turn his back. So he says the thing. He says, yeah, okay. You know?  But that's, he's not here to defend himself and that's what I'm going to tell you about.  We'll leave the link to your book. I'm very good. So when you get, how did you get caught? Well, there's a queen's ride I was living, eventually, there's a big post office out there to go in there and get all the money chains in the post office, money orders, you know? And I'd had a shop going, a couple of shops going. So I was using them to clean this sort of thing. It was a very armor change. It wasn't really a thing. I was getting complacent because I thought I got away with it, you know? But I remember this Monday morning I forget I went down. Just as I went in the post office, a place was buzzing. There was fruit stalls everywhere, owned by the Koreans and all, you know? Bakers, it's always buzzing Jackson Heights. Never stops. So I never thought of anything else when I went in, got myself, got the money chains, and came out in the middle, I opened the door. You couldn't hear a pin drop. All the fruit stores now are locked up. And there wasn't a sinner in the streets. This is a street for thousands of people. And all of a sudden there's not a sinner. And do you think you go, something strange here?  And I knew there, I was caught, I was finished. So I just went up the street, McVan was parked two streets away, and I just knew it was only a matter of seconds before I'm going to be arrested, you know? And I went up, and then I put my hand on the door handle off the van. They came from everywhere. Yeah, yeah. You know, started screaming. Some, where's your guns? Where's your guns? I never had a gun. Never had a gun, you know?  And that was it.  They're at that second, my life's finished.   My wife, kids. Never thought of anybody else. Wife and kids.  I mean, I'm never going to get out of it. Potential life sentence? Oh yeah. No, I'm never going to get out. I'm down. I'm going to down pan of time. I said, I had it already. It all came flourishing at me, you know? I mean, knew exactly what was waiting for me, that sort of money. No way. Especially tying up people in... Tying up people, you know?  So when you get to the cop shop, was that straightforward, or was it still trying to charge you away? See, here's the thing. The FBI never dealt with anybody like me, because I already know interrogations.   Did you ever meet them?  It's insulting, but I just sit there and I refuse to talk to them. And I get angry because I've never understood, I've never met anybody in America who's never talked to them. They always talk to me. All Americans talk to me. I'll give themselves away. They'll stop talking, you know? But I refuse to talk to them for three days up in Police Plaza 1, where they were holding me, you know? And they said, you were going to penitentiary. Your wife's been arrested.  Your kids are going to go to an orphanage.  We're giving you just one and only chance to get down first. That's what's called in America.  That's what's called. They come to you and let you come, go first to squeal on your friends. So it'll kind of start going, look at the priest, look at my heart's beating fucking, you know, and sailing, you know, and I'm still trying to keep my face straight, you know? And we got your friend, the cap o' Connor.  And we've got this, our guy Charlie Macaulay called me, I never heard of Charlie calling in life. He says, yeah, we know him.  Finally, he's a guy down in the apartment. He's away in Hawaii. Father pat behind his back uses his apartment without telling them to put all the money in. So to have him, to bring him in, a teacher never been in trouble in his life, never had a parking ticket.   I didn't know who he was or what he was. It wasn't until during the fall I started to find out who this guy was. He owned the apartment. He was a good friend of Father Pat's. Father Pat knew he was in Hawaii. So he says, could I borrow your apartment for a couple of weeks? Didn't say like, I've got eight million stolen of dollars here anyway, just as could I borrow it. He always thought, well, Father Pat looks off of immigrants. He's probably going to put a couple of legal aliens in there. That's probably what's going through Charlie's head at the time. Felt, felt terrible for Charlie. Shattered out of his world. He wasn't in that sort of a world, you know? And he goes, I see, it's terrible. Felt when his mother and father and all was there and not the court hearings. That was a terrible time. How long did it take for you to get charged? Two years. Because what they were doing for me, the priest, the teacher and the cop was so funny. I got it in the New York Times. Had it was the priest, the teacher to decorate the cop and the IRA revolution. Like a joke on that?  So, and they all got bail. It's the only in America.   But the only reason I didn't get bail because there's no legal alien.  You know? Because they want to give up my Irish citizenship. So they couldn't help me because I was classifying a legal alien. So I started doing this thing called me no diesel therapy. What it is to put in these trucks, pick up trucks, where we prison or we sail made up inside the truck, two guards at the front and start travelling through the mountains. This is during the winter now, you know? So I've only got a wee jumpsuit on. I'm handcuffed all over the place, you know? I start taking this to all the mountains, you know? Tiring you out. You're not getting any food.   So it's called diesel therapy. If I use it to break people down, then when I think I've got a potential person who's going to turn, and turn states' evidence, so I thought that, but after about three months, the new, they weren't going to get any of me. This one, I couldn't believe it.   Was that easier for you compared to what you've went through anyway? Oh yeah, it was a lot easier in the hedge blocks. You know, it was nothing.  It was a nice thing. He was like, don't get me wrong. It was a nice thing, like having to go through the mountains and on, going to prison.  You get into the cell, you don't know who you're getting put in the cell with, you know, fuck, you know. The next thing you make a bed, you're just getting into it, you're beat. Next thing, come on. You're getting moving into our prison, you know, 20 hours away. So we're doing this for two years, a break you down, you know. Well, a ghost run. It's terrible.  Yeah, this is the only on the market, you know. So my we had these lawyers, one of them was David Bowie's lawyer, you know. And I came to set, maybe we're all having a big meeting.  So one of them is going to listen. We're going to put this proposal to the judge somewhere. I'm not listening because I don't believe it. I know I'm going for life. You know what I mean? I'm going to try and not listen to that anymore. I don't want to listen to that anymore. I'm feeling all wrapped up in self pity.  They're saying we're going to put this proposal to the judge at your human rights, you know. We're broke.  I said, hey, they shouldn't have moved you from New York.  So I didn't believe it. I went back to my cell in the county jail, you know. The next thing this guy says, you know, you've got one of the best lawyers in New York, Tony Morally and all this here. I said, yeah, whatever. So I went over to the court the next day and the judge dropped all the major charges because my human rights have been valued.  Only in America, do you know what I mean? I couldn't believe it. And then I found out I could only get five years. It was like I won the lotto.  I can only get five years, you know. It's unbelievable. The people have a question at that you were going for life and then get five years as if you had Tom Queens on anyway. Oh no, no, no. It was all, no, because of press. It's always so much of the press and the lawyers and everything in the press what the judge says. And then the editors would look at that and say, yeah, that's why it happened.  Like, you know what I mean? Like, you know, and then of course, once in a home sentence, I get five years because then the judge said to me, he says, you were up your eyeballs in this, but I can't do anything about it, you know. So you're always sitting there and you're feeling we've had bars when he's saying that.  What was he caught with when it was a chat with conspiracy? Cos conspiracy to have stolen money. I mean everything was dropped. And over five million was never found? Oh, I found a half million. I found a half million. Of course, you might make it still think. I've got it hid the garden and all. Yeah, you did pull. Come up every night again with those shovels.  So, you know, that's behind us something. Yeah. But so you've got five stretch. Yeah. Like, to being still here and to still tell your tale like, you're definitely protected from something. To get all these chain of events to kind of, it's kind of mad. It is like a fiction book. It's not really, it's unbelievable that I've done over 250 interviews. Like, this is one of the best stories I've heard.  It's just mad. So, what was it like in the American Jewels? Well, I was lucky once again. I was taken care of by the Hells Yansles and the American gangsters. You know, Hells Yansles have this affinity with the IRA because I think the IRA is out to destroy the system that the Hells Yansles have that sort of thought in the back of her head. You know, when they hit the system, hit the cops on anybody, hit the cops. It's good enough for us knowledge. I was always taken care of. All the prisons I went to, you know, I was very lucky, you know. I was like a hard of horseshoe up my horse. You know what I mean? Wherever I went, everybody just took care of me. You know what I mean? So, I was taken care of pretty good. Just sat there waiting for my days to count down. One of us getting something back there and, you know, back the bell first. What was it like then? The Irish have always got connections all around the world because they are loved in the run New York as well. There's a high percentage of the Irish in New York who are a lot of people. What was the Hells Yansles on that leg? How you treated that with it? Who's it? They've got so many different gangs in these kind of prisons that they'd ever try and save the Republican army to try and get you into the gang. They had so much respect and fear about the IRA. They always, you know what they knew, but they were capable of doing it. Because they always thought I was going to get a helicopter in a prison.  Like, you know, they said, yeah, we know Sam's not going to be here long. You see a helicopter is going to come and pick him up now.  Like, you know, but they always take care of me, but I was never a failure with them. But, you know, if somebody's helping you to stop from getting stabbed, you know, like you're not going to refuse to take it, you know? I mean, I had the right wing, not cases of skinheads, you know? And they all had this thing.  We're going to take care of you.  You know what I mean? So I was taking care of wherever I went, you know? Do I know you never agree with them? I mean, the skinheads and all, I don't understand that directly, because I was left behind. It's anything, you know? But they were good. Funny, you know? They're good people. See, you get to know them personally. They're the people you can sit down and have a drink with.  Yeah. Who run with you? Who ran it? Everyone had their own, you know? Black community had theirs. The Whites, you know? Maxons had them. It was quite dodgy sort of a place. You just had to be careful, you know? You have to be on your toes more then than you had. No, no, I was quite chilled. No, no, it was... The thing is, it hits blacks with a horrendous nightmare, but you always had your comrades. And that's one thing, you know?   Over there, you're on your own. Is that a single sale?  You're on your own. There's nobody else going to friggin' attack you. But when you're there, is it at bars? You can see through the bars. No, no, no, you get bunk beds. No, it's quite... It's a fabul system. So it's quite like... One side looks serious, but the sales are done nice. No one, like, you've all got your own privacy sort of a thing. Like, you know what I mean? There's two people in the room, you know? And funny enough, I put me in the cell and I couldn't believe it. The guy I put in was from Dari. He was a gun runner for the IRA. So they tried to keep all these IRA mails. There was another guy who worked for NASA. He was an IRA man. He was making rockets while he was working for NASA. Yeah, the IRS on him. So we were all together, you know? We were keeping us in his prison thinking, well, in case there's a big escape, we'll keep them all here together, you know? A mean sort of thing, a cop, thinking that he's going to help. Ever going to help me, you know?   Well, let me show you. You have actually lived it where people have escaped.  Like, you have been in that life of conflict and madness and involved in one of the biggest robberies in American history. So you're going to have question marks.  And then the climax was when Bill Clinton intervened. Yeah, that's mad, yes, so... I was absolutely scarless. You'd have been there for five years, but then you get a phone call from the White House and you're thinking, it's a joke. Yeah, well, it didn't happen. Like, it came down, the scar comes in on, he's saying, Miller, the governor wants to talk. The governor lives up in this big hill when we were looking at prison, like, you know?  The guard was shocked.  You can't proceed.  Well, he wants to talk and that's all I can tell you. So I refuse. Next thing, but a week later, try that again. Next thing, I got a message sent in from outside, you know? He says, you're going to get a phone call. Make sure you go up to governor's office.  So I went up. Governor's aren't just a bit shaky, you can see him a bit nervous now, you know? And the office left me.  I don't know how he's been. I mean, this is half bad. They're going to come through the door. They give me more charges. They're going to blame me on things, you know? Cos during this time, Ronnie was murdered.  All these thoughts going through my head. Next thing, a phone ring.  No, a woman's voice. I never said, I just hung the phone up again. I thought it was there. I just playing tricks on my main. What kind of mess are we? So I went back to my cell and I never thought anything off it. Two weeks later, I got a message saying, a woman, it's work for Bill Clinton. You're going home. Next thing, Irish news. That's our local paper here in Belfast. Had the headlines. Muller's coming home to Belfast. Part of the good Friday agreement. Pardon? Part of the good Friday agreement. Bill Clinton agreed to it.   I know you're thinking. You've got some luck.  I'm starting to think you've just got some serious poo. No, trust me.  I don't know what it is. I'm going to pay for it later in life. I know I'm going to pay for it later in life. I've got a way over too many things, you know? Who's Ronnie? Ronnie was the guy from Liverpool who wanted to get on the first robbery. But he chickened out. He was the guy at far. Pap was supposed to give him 100,000 to keep quiet. He got done in? He got, well, this is what it says. They were trying to hint that he went to the FBI and told them who was involved in the Brinks robbery. I've never really believed it so much, you know? Although it could be true, but I've always don't think of it do it at the end of the day.  Far Pad had to give him the money. Who knows? Yeah, a lot of politics involved as well. When you start things and you don't know who to trust. Yeah, this is what it comes down to, you know? You don't know who to trust.  You find out who?   Don't they bastard? You know? Yeah.  He's good, he's good, he's father, he's strong. No, he wants the ladders.    Like, how's this body of him on intimidating them in the head in this money?  Nobody believed him, but he had tried to count himself convinced, you know? Yeah, I believe in you. Yeah. What was it like in there? Was there much violence in that prison? Well, quite a lot of violence. What was it? Kind of stuff, did you see? Sort of a place. You can see the violence common, you know?  So you always knew where to avoid, like, you know? Where else did you become friends with in there? Oh, different guys, different, mostly gangsters. Chicago was a lot of Chicago gangsters, and all that, you know, well-known gangsters. Different, different people, you know? Ain't that a mafia, inn? Oh, God, a mafia is. A mafia are funny. All they're worried about is food. You know? They have all the cooks in there. Had to be right, the lasinian, all this here, but I got well on. I'll tell you what happened. One night, one of the prisons were moving me down the freaking... I think it was down to Lewisburg. It was a real nasty place. I was like, I'm going to cast a convert in this prison, real nasty place, and we're pushing someone in like cattle, you know?  That's all encouraged. See, a guard's encouraged fed. They don't want any unity.  They could change the whole of the American system, but they never do. That racism comes in, you know? But I remember being forced into this room, squeezed in all these black guys and Mexicans, a couple of old white guys, not too petty, man. I actually got a seat. It was very rarely you got a seat, you know? But I was in first, I got the seat, and everybody's squeezing up against me.  You're bashing on sticks on?   You know, I got up, and I offered everyone a seat. Thanks, you know, all this here. I never thought not enough of it, you know? It's just the way it was brought up, like, you know?  It's all run by the mafia, you know? Come in, come in. Godfars in New Jersey. It gives me a big hug and all. So there's a risk back what you did to me, you know?  It's where the fuck? It's generally where I went, the Italians, big meals and all waiting for me, and I don't like Italian food. That's what I was about, you know? That's what some godfather said. You know, one of the such strange me getting up to that one old guy, and that changed, you know, so much. Do you think you feel presents of people in power and people who are high above the ranks that you just know that some of these...    Was that an easy sentence for you even though you're still doing a five because you were getting visits, you were getting phone calls, and made it a bit more easier compared to what you're used to? Oh, it was easier because you were freedom, you were walking around this big yard, were gardens and trees and all, but you weren't getting tortured.     So when you get out, you get deported? Get out? Well, I get deported, I go down to this, I get sent down to JFK, if I'm silly, there's a bit of hassle. The guards come up from long case. I hear this big Belfast voice.   This is in the American Panitantra.  I couldn't believe it, these bastards would come over to bring me back to Belfast, you know? And they said, you're not going to give us a slice of cheeky back.  They're saying you cheeky bastard, you haven't changed. I don't know what else here. I said, we'd be back to get you to Marlborough. We're going to have to enjoy ourselves here in New York, and all that, you know? But we've got the J.F. County, and I'm in the Vaughan, it's all blacked out, and the cops have all surrounded it, you know? It's all specially arranged, you know?   They're terrified of me, and I'm sitting there thinking, what the fuck, he's the one you're most at.  I hear him saying like, you know? Next thing, BA. British Airways. We got on and refused to take off, because I'm on it. I fur-played the screws. I had to give them a bit of credit. They stayed on it. They said, we're not moving either. So next thing, we're doing a stand-off on the plane, this big plane sitting in JFK. Next thing, FBA gets on board the Washington, comes in to your Monarch captain and says, you're going to be arrested. You don't fly these guys back there, and it's up to you. She's got an iron to the side. The captain come back in, all the stewardess, you know? Flews out. And that was a loss. That was my loss, wasn't it? In America. Were you handcuffed? I was handcuffed until I got on to the plane, and they took the handcuffs off. Even though this is where it all started, the captain, the guy flam, says, he has to stay handcuffed. And I said, no, no. We've got him. No need for handcuffs.  And it was funny. See when we reached Belfast, or London force there, and we had to change planes, but everybody had to get off first, just set me in the four screws. The screws started to be on all the towels, you know? No, they'd be sacks and all.  And everybody would call them out. But I had to give them a bit of credit. It was the first time I ever gave a screws credit, you know? Because it says now, we're all staying here. He's not going, we're not going, we're all staying here. He's not getting handcuffed. That was it.  Did you have any conversation? I admit I did talk to him, you know?  And we're showing movies and all that, and you say, Sam, you're going back here, and they're going to believe it. You're not going to believe what you're going back to, and it's all changed, and all. No, it's here. So after a while, you finally go, yeah, really? You know, and all.  Like when, after a while, he starts to talk, he's like, oh, yeah, it's all different now, and all, you know?  That's what I was like, you know? It's mad that to have all that anger and violence and rage and then changing your life and end up bang involved again, and then coming back, and then did you ever think in your mind though that you were going back to what you went through the last thing? No, I knew I wouldn't go back because the IRA wouldn't have me. But do not want you to out your anger? No, no, no. What I did in America took a long time for me to be forgiven for what I did. That connects, yeah. Because to try to bring the IRA into it, the IRA didn't have to do it.   So a lot of my friends, comrades and all stopped talking to me, my family stopped talking to me. Because it was bringing a lot of negative heat towards... Because the sun done it. Yeah. They were sheen. You know? They just, it was a criminal act. What were you expecting to come back to it and prison when you get another sentence or were you just to finish off the sentence? Or were you getting released? Yeah, I was supposed to finish it off, go back to Belfast and finish it off and I think I had nine months and the government come to me and said, we don't know why you're here. So let me go on next day. And I got the train home. I couldn't believe it, you know? I didn't even spend two days in the police, you know? I suppose I'd be here for about six or seven months. Just forget exactly what the long was, you know? And I remember, it was down in Dariam, McGilligan or somewhere to call the police and I just remember getting the train home. They gave me a train ticket. That's all I had. No money, I had no penny. Just that train ticket. I went in the Belfast City Centre for the first time 15 years, you know? Did you ever think you were going to get beat up in that prison? In what prison? Belfast. Because of his political status, he's been taken away and we're mixing loyalist prisoners with Republican prisoners and, you know, Protestant and Catholics. But nobody, but there was no fight. I don't know how hard, everybody just was very calm. How was that to see for you? Pardon? How was that to look at? I was just happy to see that there's no nonsense, all the nonsense about jail, you know, people fighting each other and all that there.  But different ways. It was almost like having political status again, like conditions, you know? Because the Screws really didn't care. You could just see that they were just there doing their job at that time, you know?  And totally different oligar, you know? How long were you in America for? Oligar, about 15 years. So you came back and everything's changed and then? Chains big time. So how was it to come back in here and at that? Was there ever any... Were you ever worried about the loss?  So you get two sides, kind of, against jail? Yeah, of course. I was more concerned about the IRA. You know, my brothers are all Republicans and all this sort of stuff and all. You know, they wouldn't have showed me any favour, like, you know? So I was always sort of waiting, maybe something bad was going to happen to me, but I never did, you know? But I noticed from my friends, they sort of always shadowed away from me, you know, the streets and things like that. You know, you just know the hint that's there. You know, you just feel it.  I mean, the troubles that have come an end, but 30 years later, 1999, 1999... Well, yeah, the Good Friday Agreement had started developing on...  And do you feel safe here now? Safe? Yes, you feel safe here.  Like, it's protocol I had here.  But Brexit and things like that, and the union is thinking they're getting left behind, they're going to get through and they aren't, and the united aren't. So all nonsense by politicians wind them up, but, you know, innocent people will suffer. They'll go out and just... Loyalist could go out tomorrow and shoot a Catholic just for the sake of saying to the British government, well, we're going to start shooting again if you just try at nonsense leaving us behind now. You know? Things like that just worry about it. I worry about my son, my daughters, you know? That's what I worry about now. More or nothing is taking the world. I don't worry about anything else that's sat down, you know? What was it like writing your book? It was brilliant. It was cathartic. It took all the poison out that was in me. I never thought it would be published. I wrote it in the penitentiary to give me something to do to save me from the violence that was all around me in the penitentiary. So I just sat down, right at longhand, and it was great because you look back as a kid, you know, and I actually tried to forgive my mother when she walked out on us and never came back. And things like that started to do things with myself, you know? But it was good because I was bringing back memories of things I'd forgotten that I'd deliberately suppressed. And I knew if the book ever was published, I didn't think it would ever be published, you know? But I thought my family was going to fall out and make a game because I'm bringing out dirty laundry of the family.  But I did it. It was the best thing I ever did. Fetipi fell you. Pardon? Like Fetipi? It was great therapy. It was cathartic. It took all the poison out of me that I had in mind.  I found it just took like a big weight off my shoulders, you know? Was there any people like worried in the case that were mentioned, that things like that shouldn't have been mentioned? I never mentioned anybody. But I was sort of like, someone came to me and said, like, some, you know better than mention names.  You know? Like who are you to tell me it, you know? But I would never do that. I've never disclosed anything like that, you know? And that was your first book on the brink? No. It was the first book. But my publisher decided he didn't want me to become well-known through this book. So I wrote a little book prior to it a few months before it called Dark Souls about child abuse. And I was forced to turn, so people wouldn't go, all the only reason he's got that book published was because he wrote on the brinks, you know? So he wanted me to get this book down on my own mirth. Dark Souls on its own. But he had this book on the brinks waiting to come out a few months. And when it came out, it was World Headlines. CNN, everybody carried about it, you know? Within 24 hours of the book coming out, Warner Bros, I called the Bayer de Rites for the movie.  I mean, I just thought this was a little book. Nobody's going to buy it, nobody's going to read it.  I want to interview Warner Bros, just bought the rights to it, blah, blah, blah, you know? So where have my words started again? I couldn't get a job in Belfast. The next thing, I wrote this bestseller.  It's unbelievable. So the book Dark Souls, where does that come from?  And he died very young. Never got justice, you know?  I never thought it'd be at me.  But people that know, people in that area know who I'm talking about, I know who the victim is, I know who the perpetrator is, you know? So that was a good way of getting poison out of my system too, you know? Plus it established me a wee bit as a writer. No, but it wasn't a big book. Never got big, big refusion in, you know? I wasn't really worried, because they were just one of this book to come out where people wouldn't say, oh, he wrote Dark Souls after on the Brinks, because everybody wants to see what he's like, you know, because after on the Brinks was such a great book, got great reviews and all this here, you know? So that's how it started. If you've ever seen a psychologist at a therapist to talk about your past? No. I've been offered to different people, my publisher and all, and he knows some of your carrying isn't good, but I hide it a lot, you know?  And they think they were horrified, you know? So strange really, you know? It's something I avoided showing on the book, even though they knew about this book, and they kind of went and bought it and all, but they knew I didn't want them to read it till last year, and I said to them, it's up to you if you just want to read it. Nah, it's up to you. This is your daddy.   Oh, for a quick sake, it's stubborn and it's not that we're right about something, you know?  But to be there and still kick on, and then to then change your life, and write best-selling books, it shows you your character, you never ever gave up on life, you never had just accepted it, yes, you've made mistakes, but every man in this planet has, every man and women, but for you to then go, do you know what, and still kick on, and with everything you've been through, your mother leaving is probably the catalyst as well, to then get involved in other things, to feel part of something, the mother figure's not there anymore, so you tend to see a lot of people, and of you, that they come from broken homes, no mother or no dad, but they want to join a gang, and they want to join something to feel part of a brotherhood, where they feel as if they're getting loves, even though sometimes it's fake love, but they just want to feel part of something, that everything you've went through, that it's still to be here to tell the tale, that I take my heart off to you, brother, that it's unbelievable, that how many books have you written? Now 14, 12? 12, 12, I mean, I've got loads of books out in France, Italy, Germany, everywhere, I just came back from a big, or my books just came back, a new book out in France, I couldn't believe they're a sapson received, every major newspaper magazine praised it as the best book I've ever wrote, and that comes from all in the Brinkswis, was worldwide critically acclaimed, you know, and it just keeps him away.  Well, as everybody's back again, they don't get me praise again, you know?  It's unbelievable, you know? Are you not used to that, Sam? No, I'm always suspicious, I guess, you know, I just shy away from it, you know? I never really look to see what's happening, you know? I had a stage play here and there, and it caused a bit of trouble, you know? It was one of the biggest sound stage plays ever, you know, sold out everywhere, but the BBC caught on to it, and it caused a lot of problems, like, you know? And I thought, I'm not going to write it again.   What was the stage play about? It was called Brothers and Arms. It was about me getting a dig at Sinn Fein. It was like two brothers. It was actually about myself and my brother, you know? I remember at my father's wake, and the truth is, you know, there's a sort of resentment among both of us, but we've always capitaled close because we don't want to cause any more risks in the family, you know? And my brother's a big Sinn Fein supporter.  Where, as I detest Jerry Adams, you know?  And it came out in the play, like, and then the BBC gripped on to it. The next thing on the newspapers has started all going around the whole of Ireland, you know? There's a lot of trouble going on here with so-called dissidents. I don't call them dissidents. I just call them Irish men, Irish women who want to fight, you know? It's up to them as I've given up fighting, you know? I've done what I've done, you know? And I'm not going to condemn anybody who wants to fight, you know? But they were trying to pop me on the pressure to condemn Republicans who were continuing to struggle, continue to fight. And I said, I would never condemn them, you know? So I got a lot of abuse about it, you know?  Newspapers won't reveal, magazines won't touch them, you know?  But I am who I am, you know? I'm never going to change.  This is what they've done to turn their back on me, you know? Because it's only like what I write. Is that hard for you? It was for a couple of years, especially when I go to different countries and I see a praise and all, I'm getting awards. I got so many literary awards, you know? I'm thinking why is my own country, you know, not giving me the praise or anything. It's just a simple reason as I turned my back on the Good Friday Agreement. I'm a strong advocate against it. I think it was a sell-out by Jerry Adams and Sinn Fein. And because of that, I've been blackball, blackmailed, blacklisted, censored, everything. But that's where it is, you know? I'll take it on the chin. How do you deal with that now? How do I deal with it? Yeah. Well, I read another one and I know it's going to go to France, it's going to go to Germany, it's going to get praised for, you know, eventually going to this movie. There's going to be a movie coming out about my life. It's going to stick in them, you know? Because we're going to have to show it in movie houses. I can't censor it blatantly, you know? Because I'm going to start writing the British press and saying these are always complaining about all these countries oppressing writers, you know, these are points of hypocritic. I've been oppressed here for the last 12 years. My books have all been censored. They're not a peep out of any of these, you know? It's a lot of hypocrisy among writers, you know? I heard Mel Gibson make me play in your part. Mel Gibson, don't mind.  I'll hide him on. How? It's just, it's hard to explain it, you know?  And he's had the top writer writing it. It's beautiful. But he wanted himself to see when the book first came out were Warner Bros. He bought the better edge off Warner Bros. He wanted to act it. He wanted to direct it. There's no use of stuff.    I have a lot of respect for him. Some of the movies he's made, you know?  I think he done the semi-brave, aren't he? Directed it, produced it and played the one part. It's just... Is he a nutcase, yeah? He's a real man, I think. But he's not bang on the booze. He's not an alcoholic at one point. I don't know about that, you know? He changed his life. Yeah, I don't know. I think he got involved with an extreme Catholic organisation.  I think he's a volume-seller, you know? That's where his outbreaks about the Jews and all, like he's been made a lot of anti-Semitic remarks and all, like, you know, that's where it stems from, you know? Have a hot time for that sort of thing, you know? Yeah, they do not do the following. Christ of Christ? The Passion of Christ, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they changed this, yeah.  Who do you like to play the part? Benny Hill. Do you probably don't even know Benny Hill? Yeah, yeah, the comedian? Yeah, he's dead now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's what people say.  And I said, Benny Hill, that's the type of life I've had, you know?  Like, listen, I don't care anymore. But 20 years ago occurred, you know, people would ask you, who do you want? Who do you want? Sean Penn, you know? See now, I don't care. Lost all interest, you know? Yeah, there's been some great Irish films all that in the name of the father. And you've got Daniel Day Lewis, who's a mad actor. Oh, Brennan Turner. Unbelievable what you've done. But he's done that. Actually watched Gangs of New York last week, man. And it's about the fourth time I've seen it. Unbelievable film, unbelievable actors in that. So where do you go from here, Sam? Like, you seem to have kind of done it all. You seem to have lived a mad, crazy, beautiful, successful life. Yeah, don't know if it's successful. Like, but then I sit, you've got... Yeah, don't get discredit yourself, man. You've rocked with certain books.  Like, you've fought for something you believed in. You never gave up. But it's unbelievable achievement. But where do you go from here, Sam? I'm still writing. I'm writing a screenplay right now. I'm hoping that there will get me out of the movie. I think I've done everything. I've wrote poetry. I've done everything I can do with a pen, you know. I've never thought I could do anything, you know. So that's been my pride and joy, you know, at the moment, you know. So that's about it. I just take each day now as it comes. I enjoy life. I've got my kids. I've got a granddaughter now. And I, you know, I'm so happy.  There's only like one, you know. I've got to have the keyboard and just letting on to be writing and all. Like, you know, I post on Facebook because he's writing a new car came book. That's my Belfast detective, you know, like. So I have great times. And I'm just loving life. What do you think now talking about your life and bringing up a lot of emotions because there's a couple of times you've got emotional and rightly so bad.  Yeah, I can just think about my friends who died very young, you know. I lost a lot of friends very young. Didn't they make it to their 20? All died in their teens, you know.  I think about them every day, you know. And I think about me. Am I going to go to a real bad place one of the day? You know, that's where I'm getting all this good stuff like, you know what I mean? Like, so I don't really know. It's strange, it's strange life. Was that the darkest time of your life? When was the darkest time of your life, do you think, Sam? I was thinking the hedgehogs because it was never ending. It never stopped.  It might be us as hell. You know, I know it sounded a wee bit crazy, but it was just hard to believe it could go on and human beings could just do it every day. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it to an animal, you know. Couldn't do it.  It was unbelievable, you know. I just worry strangely enough, you know, it was one we knew and he was called a human mort. And we just knew it was a bad, bad chap. And that too long group was charged with being a pedophile, abusing his daughters and nephews. And we saw a way new end, you know. And that's what makes me think of these people who were able to do this.  I couldn't see if I got a lawless prisoner or not. Couldn't do it.   Couldn't do it. Would never do it. I'd go mental even thinking about doing it. These guys did it gladly for years, you know. So that's the problem. See if they came and asked for forgiveness, it would mean a lot to me. I think we got a lot of poison in my system. But they've never done that, you know. I mean, the British government have apologised. Tony Blair has apologised. Then all the British soldiers have apologised.   They got away with it. You've changed your life now, but what happens if you ever seen one of these men who... Well, I've seen them. How was that feeling?   Because they thought, I didn't think you'd be in this here, you know. They've got to come within communities. They can't hide in their houses. They've got to come out sometime.  Don't do anything, because there's no war against them anymore. But I've seen a couple of them, you know, stirred them out. When's the best time of your life, Sam? Best time of my life was to have my kids born babies. It's funny, they were all born in the place where all the Titanic survivors came to when the Titanic sunk in New York. You know, it was just one of my ironic things on the mainland. That's where they were all born like. And my neighbor born, it changed me.  But I think it matured me as a father, you know.  I want them to go to the best good. I want them to have a life that don't struggle, you know what I mean.  But at the time, my head wasn't, you know. I mean, maybe I'm just making excuses for doing the brinks, you know, I don't know. But I know I changed when I became a father, you know. But at the end of the day, nobody gets harmed on the brinks. Do you know what I mean? It's not as if. No, no, obviously. Which is a main thing. No, absolutely nothing. Yes, it's wrong. But nobody died. Do you know what I mean? Like the question, like looking back at that, I asked people that would you change anything? People say that hindsight is a great thing and I wouldn't change anything because I wouldn't be the person I am. But would you change anything that you've done back in the past? Yes. I've never done a brinks. No. Yeah, go ahead. And that's because I've never done it. I destroyed so many people's lives. I didn't realize the consequences of it. Far reaching the people who looked up to me suddenly were shot, what I done a criminal act. And the people who were dead, who my friends were dead, political prisoners, you know, she am I brought on? Can't do it, can't really do it. You know, that's it. You know, I think I've suffered enough for it, you know what I mean. Yeah. I beat myself up all the time about it. But after where you beat yourself up so much there's no more blood left, you know. Do you do that a lot, Sam? All the time. Yeah. But it's a little bit, you know. And going forward for the future, that hopefully we get a follow-up out, you're going to write more books.  I'll die writing, typing stuff. You know what I mean? I'll just love words. I've always loved words as a little kid, you know what I mean? Put that back to my love of comic books, American comic books. I started my love of writing, you know, and love of reading. You know, I love words. I just love how it's formed, you know. I think I've never had, see if I went back in the long cash again and I took books because I've never had books more and I had books more and I had nothing. And if I had the gold without theirs, without a book, I just couldn't. I don't know what would happen, you know. Yeah, but listening to your story, that is an unbelievable story that what you've went through and what you're achieving, like I say, man, you should be proud of what you've came through to then writing best-selling books and being a family man. And you know right from wrong, but being an island and involved in the troubles of Northern Ireland, that was just the way it is. Back then you were going to fight for someone and it's just... Exactly. It's just the way it is. And like I say, I've spoke to people both sides and I'm only a man from Scotland who loves to know a few people. I just love to know how they get involved, why they get involved, how they feel now and get a better understanding of it.  They can push their own narratives to what people want to believe and people actually believe what they read. But when you actually get a better understanding of why you started it and losing friends, getting shot six times and family members and friends getting blow up in both sides, like you can understand why both not big time. Everything erupted. My brothers, my son-in-laws, unionists, you know, I've got lots of loyalist brothers and friends and all.  And how was that for the first time to speak to a loyalist to understand what they went through what they did? I always had the loyalist blood in me because of my grandfather so I used to stay with my aunts and Tiger's Bay which is a substance loyalist area in Belfast, you know. So I always had that from both sides and one thing that made me they couldn't get it. When I used to say about bad things that happened in Tiger's Bay when I was a Catholic kid there they couldn't turn and go how would you know anything about that? You've been around Tiger's Bay you've seen how they don't like it because I lived both sides. You know, when I read I said the way it was you know because they don't like that because you're saying from both sides you know what I mean? As I said, there's scumbags on both sides and there's great people on both sides, you know. What would you have done if you were in charge of the whole thing in Northern Ireland but what would you do to then make it a better place? What do you think was the right thing to do to calm it down and make people happier? It's a question. Well, you're not going to get that for a long time because Unionists are terrified that their privilege has been taken away from them but why should you have a privilege over me? Why should you be treated differently? Why should I be a second class citizen? Why should a black person in South Africa be a second class citizen to a white person? You know? That's what it all comes down to treating people with respect and equality. You can't have justice. You can't have peace without justice. You know? And you always got to remember equality. Why would you not want to treat a person equal? Why do you think you're superior to them? You know? I've never thought that.  I think that's the thing of Unionists fear that we will treat them the way they treated us and I would be one of first to go and fight for them and fight against anybody who tried to put a price on them. For anybody watching somewhere can they get your website books? Get on www.mullercrime.com and you get the books anywhere. Thank you very much. What about social media or anything that you do?  You seem to have battled a lot of mental health as well through the years, Sam. Like for anybody watching that's maybe struggling themself. What advice would you have for them? Don't do what I do. Go on, find help. There's somebody or can help you. Sam. For coming on today, brother. Sam, thank you for coming all away from glorious Glasgow, you know? Thank you, man. I appreciate it. But for coming on today and telling me your story, I thoroughly enjoyed that. Thank you.  I look forward to seeing what you do for the future, brother and look forward to seeing you for them. Thank you, James. Appreciate it, man. Thank you. Thank you, pal.