Granda Harry and the Coathanger Horse

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BBC Radio 4 - Granda Harry and the Coathanger Horse

A Belfast writer imagines an artist's life for the grandfather who raised him.

A Belfast writer imagines the artist’s life that the grandfather who raised him was never able to pursue.

Reggie Chamberlain King shared a bedroom with his dying grandfather Harry for 13 years. In all that time, he never knew what Harry dreamed about – now Reggie wants to imagine the life that Harry never got to live.
Unusually for a working class Catholic in Belfast, Harry had attended art college in the 1930s, but spent his life working as a painter & decorator trying to provide for his family.
Now, a discovery of a box containing his grandfather’s paintings inspires Reggie to take a magic-realist journey of imagination in which Harry becomes an artist.
The Irish painter Gerard Dillon and Reggie’s teenage idol David Bowie both appear in this fantasy, alongside archive recordings of Reggie’s own mother. As new conversations with Harry begin to take shape, what will they reveal about Reggie himself and his own life as an artist? 
Written and presented by Reggie Chamberlain King
Harry O’Hagan played by Lalor Roddy
Produced by Conor McKay

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