Ian Kemish

And he passed away some years ago.

He, like this Ronnie, he's not quite like this Ronnie, of course he's not, but like this Ronnie, he's somebody who was touched by his own experience with conflict and who found meaning in his life through helping other people.

And that's Ronnie.

So, you know...

He's an important voice.

There are four voices, and I think we've mentioned two so far, Nico, Anita, our policewoman, and old Ronnie.

Yeah, it's interesting that people respond that way.

And it's lovely that people respond that way.

I've actually had one of the lovely things about writing fiction is I didn't know this, but you receive these lovely messages from people you've never met on, you know, Instagram and email and sometimes even text.

I don't know how they get that number.

But the people are responding to that point really well.

And perhaps that says something about the state of the world, anxiety about some pretty awful things that we've seen here.

But in my view, the truth is that good things are being done by people amidst all this all the time.

And, you know, my experience of conflict situations is that people do help each other out.

My experience of small communities, I'm sure this applies here in Australia in adversity, it certainly applies in the Western Islands of Scotland, is that people help each other out.

My experience is that...

Suspicion of strangers and even racism often doesn't survive contact between two individuals.

And, you know, that's actually, I think, how the world largely is.

And I think it's worth reminding ourselves of that.

Yeah, I am.