THE date is Saturday April 30 1994 and it is destined to be a red letter day. People gather round their television sets in excitement; we have an entry that, if all goes well, will establish Ireland as having the most wins in Eurovision history.
Brendan Graham had written it, Charlie McGettigan and Paul Harrington sang it, and sure enough Rock 'n' Roll Kids won the coveted prize and we all went wild.
It was also the year of Riverdance and as Charlie told me: "Who'll remember our winning song when the Irish dance interval act became a worldwide phenomena?"
Well Charlie, people do remember, audiences sing along knowing every word. Beatles producer George Martin complimented him on the song, even Louis Walsh was captivated by this gentle story of teenage love.
But there's a lot more to Charlie McGettigan's story and during lockdown he put pen to paper not to write another song - he has penned over 1,000 already and counting - but a book of his journey through music, song and stories. It's fascinating, telling the story of the life of this songwriter, producer, musician and now author.
Forever A Rock 'N' Roll Kid begins at the very beginning when he first realised the power of music. In his Granny Buckley's house in Dublin the young Charlie heard O'Donnell Abú, a short piece of instrumental music which was played on Raidió Éireann before the day's broadcasting began.
He was a very young child but it heralded a love which just grew and grew as the boy became a man and his fascination with guitars and making music brought him to becoming one of the most popular entertainers in Ireland, especially with his group Jargon. Eventually America beckoned, touring with Maura O'Connell and guesting in Tommy Makem's New York Irish Pavilion Bar.
His growing up was filled with a deep dislike of the cruelty at school, his love of comics, cowboy films, the Everly Brothers and Radio Luxembourg.
"One night I heard a piece of music played by Duane Eddy. There were no words, just the huge sound of his guitar. I was smitten," he recalls. Charlie requested a guitar for Christmas and his £10 Egmond arrived and life was good.
He had toyed with the idea of life in the circus when Duffy's came to Ballyshannon in Co Donegal, where he then lived, and instead he wrote a song, The Day the Circus Came to Town. That's what happens - Charlie chronicles his life in song.
He was 13 when his parents sent him north in the county to Falcarragh to have the Gaeltacht experience and learn Irish which he loved: "Because I could always hear the music in it."
And he loved the céilí dances when he experienced the magical feeling of first holding a girl's hands...
YOUNG LOVE
By this time he had already met the love of his life in primary school. "She had a lovely freckled face surrounded by a mass of ginger curls and she always had a contrasting coloured bow in her hair," he remembers.
"When I was a teenager I became very aware of her presence again. Ballyshannon, being a small town, made us boys and girls really appreciate each other."
Charlie writes that Goretti Gallagher had some kind of mystique about her that haunted him and today they are married and living in Drumshanbo, Co. Leitrim.
What makes this book a delightful read is that the author expresses his emotions without embarrassment and no more so than when he comes to writing about his son Shane, a young man who brought his dad pride and companionship.
Shane was a musician too, received a distinction in his piano exam but this vied with football and football won. Charlie talks of Shane progressing through all levels of the GAA to the Leitrim senior panel.
"I had one of my proudest moments of all a few years later when Shane ran out in Croke Park for a game against Dublin," he says.
In Dublin Shane took on a course in media studies and one project was to create a photo essay where the main character was a tramp and he asked his dad to pose for him.
"In an attempt to look more like a tramp I dressed in some dirty rags clothes and dirtied up my face with dry mud."
IT LED TO A WORRIED PASSERBY
"Suddenly a car screeched to a halt and a woman got out. I realised it was a friend of mine, Maxi, who was a radio and television star on RTE," says Charlie.
"'Are you OK Charlie?' she asked, all concerned... she thought I had hit bad times."
Sadly that bond between father and son was cut short: "We lost Shane in August 1998 when scaffolding he was working on in Boston collapsed and he and a work colleague Ronan Stewart from Dundalk fell to their deaths.
"I could fill three books with my thoughts on this tragedy but the family and I just try to live day by day with the pain of our loss."
Charlie worked for a while with ESB but his desire for a musical career won out over the electricity network and resulted in Charlie and Paul Harrington captivating an audience of 300 million viewers that Saturday in April, 28 years ago.
"I wish I could tell you all the backstage secrets of 1994 Eurovision, the aftermath and the return home," he says. "A year of travelling all over Europe, television studios, radio and newspaper interviews, non-stop appearances and charity events..."
He's still very much in demand, has his own radio programme on Shannonside but more and more he and Goretti are happy at home with their daughters Tara and Ciara and their husbands and six talented grandchildren including 18-year-old Padraig who is now joining his grandfather on stage.
One of the delights of this book is the inclusion of a QR code (quick response) printed beside certain lyrics and by scanning this with your phone, up comes the music - in our case three of us were able to sing along with Charlie and it was party time.
:: Forever A Rock 'N' Roll Kid is published by Battlebridge Press, €16.99
