“I was a very shy kid and suffered from shyness right up until my 40s”
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What childhood memories shaped Diarmuid Gavin's early life?
I'm now speaking to someone about the five songs that have shaped their life and it is German Gatlin. Good afternoon.
Afternoon.
Good afternoon to you. Listen, let's go to the very beginning. You were born in London.
I was born in London. My parents had moved over in 1959 as so many Irish had around that time before and after. But when I was a month old in 1964, we moved back.
And you've moved back to Coolock. Please tell me there was so much chocolate in your childhood.
There was. Well, we moved back briefly. I don't know where we moved to first, but my first memories are living opposite the gates of the chocolate factory.
And was it like kind of Willy Wonka living opposite it?
It was exactly that. Because that would have been, I suppose, maybe that was 67 or something like that. So it was the sirens going off, people going into work, walking into work, bicycling into work, and people walking out, flooding out. So it was like... Like an old-fashioned movie. And we would wait at the garden wall and there was some guy who'd lean up, collecting his son from work. He'd lean against our wall and he'd have bags of broken chocolate. And it was quite remarkable. And also, it had a greenhouse. So all the Cadbury's factory... I've just visited the Cadbury's factory grounds in Bourneville in the UK because I did a...
It's the dark chocolate, isn't it?
It's the dark chocolate, but Bournemouth is a place. So there's a river born and they were a Quaker family and they wanted to create not only a factory, but a place for people, their workers and other people to live in a good environment, in a green environment, in a kind of pastoral environment. And that became their modus operandi. So the kind of factory in the garden in Coolock wasn't unusual.
Yeah. That's superb. And I know it actually did a feature later. Did you deploy Willy Wonka in some of your garden designs?
Very many.
Talk to me about, you did move to Rathfarnham with your family and you were settling into this part of the city and something very, very tragic happened to your little brother, Conor.
Yes, Conor and myself, I think we were, he was five, I was six. Our birthdays were on the same day a year apart and there was an accident when we were going to school and... We lost Conor. Yeah. So that was that was very tough. And I suppose changed the dynamics of the family and very challenging to live with. But my parents had four other children, including a newborn. So they had no choice but to get on and persevere. But yeah, very difficult.
Yeah. What memories do you have of him?
I have very kind of definite memories, but for many years I kind of laboured under the idea that I was a terrible big brother who got him into trouble all the time. And then I had an aunt in Billericay in Essex who told me years later, oh no, he was a devil.
LAUGHTER
Now, I'm sure there were two devils in it, but, you know, that's a challenge. It's an awful thing for anybody who has been through it. I didn't like to talk about it for kind of a long time. Especially as he did live, he lived for his five years and I didn't think he should be defined by the way he passed because he wouldn't let that, nor would anybody else who kind of passed. It's not the way they go, it's who they were.
You've had a lot of loss in your life, including most recently, and none of us can avoid it.
No, it's part of life. This past year has been particularly difficult with friends and family. Early this year we lost the youngest of us which is just incredible to believe and But the lesson that I've had six, you know, I had a friend who's Vanessa, Vanessa Clark, who it started with, you know, six months ago or so. And Vanessa was one of the best mates and an incredible person and best friend to so many people. But I know what Vanessa would feel, you know, and I know what my sister would feel. Get on with it. Just get on with it. And the lesson that I take from all of this is just to live, just to be out there and to understand every day and what living is about, if you can.
Yeah, and those people, this makes it a huge impact on your life.
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