The ex-council leader who is writing short stories in his retirement

Martin Shipton

When Hedley McCarthy stood down from the council he had led twice, he was determined not to fade into obscurity.

Instead, he decided to take up creative writing and produce a book of short stories.

After leaving Blaenau Gwent council in 2022, Mr McCarthy drew on his political experience and his holidays in Europe to create a series of whimsical and charming stories that have already delighted many readers.

His book is called Big Heads, after the giant masks worn by carnival figures at festivals in Spain – the subject of one of his stories.

Miners’ strike

He said: “I’ve only been writing short stories for two or three years. Years ago I wrote a book about the miners’ strike, but this was very different. After retiring from the council and having a bit of time on my hands, I reflected on some of the incidents which had amused me over the years.

“I wouldn’t say I’ve travelled extensively – to about 10 countries, I suppose. Most of the stories have an autobiographical seed to them. Often I’ve seen the funny side of something and thought that with a bit of imagination I could turn it into a story.”

Some of the stories include Mr McCarthy’s friend Pedro, who passed away recently: “I knew him since the late 1980s – just on annual holidays but he’d come and pick me up from the airport and I’d stay at his place or his friend Carmen’s place. He lived in Blanes on the Costa Brava. I first met him in the bar he ran, which had been recommended to me. I called in and we hit it off straight away. And we kept meeting up. Sometimes I’d go elsewhere, but virtually every year I turned up in Blanes at some point.”

Asked what it was about Pedro that he found particularly interesting and what brought them together as friends, Mr McCarthy said: “I think a lot of the stories he used to tell me. He was quite a character, well travelled and spoke half a dozen languages. We had mutual interests, football being one of them and so far as I could gauge it he was on the left politically, like me.”

Raymond Carver

In terms of the structure of his stories, Mr McCarthy said he tends to take maybe an incident and make a story out of it without any commentary – a technique mastered, for example, by the great American short story writer Raymond Carver.

“You’re just presenting a situation and saying ‘this is something’, and then hopefully people get it,” said Mr McCarthy.

While he says he isn’t consciously influenced by any writers, he has his favourites: Albert Camus, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Graham Greene.

Asked whether he had a Catholic background, he said: “Way back I must have, because my forbears were from County Cork. But that was a long time ago – 250 years. They came over to work in the ironworks or something, and the coal industry. Someone contacted me who had been researching the family tree, and they found out that the earliest one of the family who came over arrived in Pontypridd in the late 18th century.”

The Big Heads story, while set in Catalonia, also reminded Mr McCarthy of his early life in the Valleys: “I remember there being carnivals in Ebbw Vale where the procession was led by people wearing these sort of funny papier mache masks,” he said. “So there was a kind of parallel.”

Some of the stories home in on individuals and their eccentricities. Had they been inspired by people he’d met in politics over the years?

He said: “Some of it is drawn from that. Some of the best people I’ve met have been in politics, but so have some of the worst people I’ve met.

Double glazing salesman

Some people have got a very negative view of politicians as a class or as a genre if you like. One of the stories is about a politician who pretends to be a double glazing salesman. Llew Smith [the former MP for Blaenau Gwent] told me that one. He actually did it because he didn’t want to bother having to talk about politics.”

Would he encourage other people involved in politics to take up writing?

“Yes I would,” he said. “I think they should keep an eye on what’s going on and see the funny side of it if they can. Yes. Because some people can be very po-faced.”

Big Heads by Hedley McCarthy is published by Impspired at £8.99 and can be bought here and at all good bookshops.