Born in 1937 in inner city Dublin, he turned his back on the family butchery business and travelled to Beverley Hills, arriving in the heat in a Donegal jacket and overcoat. He worked the usual waiting jobs before joining the army and was stationed in a small town in Southern Germany. It was there that he met Howard Branch, a young African American private and they bonded, mainly through their great mutual love…jazz. It was a bond that was to be cruelly broken.
On 27th April 1959 Dick and Howard sat in the back of an army truck during a military exercise. There had been a misunderstanding between them but Dick had made room for Howard to sit opposite him. Minutes later the truck careered off the road and tumbled down a hill. Dick was thrown clear and scrabbled to find his friend. When he did, Howard was dead.
When he returned home, Dick ran an (in)famous furniture shop on Dublin’s Quays but began to suffer from strange symptoms. Lack of concentration, difficulty sleeping and anxiety. Dick had been left with the memories of the death of his friend. To make it worse he has been privately wracked with guilt; wondering if he was partly to blame for what happened almost 60 years because of something he had done that fateful day.
Dick’s symptoms were treated for decades but it was only a few years ago that he was finally diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder by the US military’s psychiatrist. However to get the treatment he needed, he was told he had to prove to the military that his condition was related to the accident all those years ago. To make matters worse they say they’ve no record of Howard’s death. And now they’ve put the onus back on Dick to prove that as well.
He enlists the help of his daughter Mary Elaine who begins to privately wonder whether Howard had died at all or whether his death might be a symptom of her dad’s trauma.
The battle lines are drawn. It’s 81 year old Dick Tynan versus the US military. His task? Finding Private Branch.
Available for podcast/online from Friday 28th September
Narrated by Mary Elaine Tynan
Produced by Mary Elaine Tynan and Donal O’Herlihy