Phil Coulter’s life story to be published later this year

The memoir, ‘Bruised, Never Broken’, is scheduled to hit the bookshelves in October.

Published by Gill Books, it will chronicle Coulter’s life from growing up in a two-up, two-down terraced house in Derry in the 1940s/50s, through to his breakthrough in the music world in the 1960s and his subsequent worldwide acclaim as a performer.

Gill Books says the memoir will recall “how, in the face of extraordinary personal and political upheaval, he went on to become one of the greatest musicians of his generation.”

In partnership with lyricist Bill Martin, Phil Coulter has composed a number of global hits, including ‘Puppet on a String’ (for Sandie Shaw), ‘Congratulations’ (Cliff Richard), ‘Shang-A-Lang’ (Bay City Rollers), and ‘My Boy’ (Elvis Presley).

In Ireland, he is much loved for songs like ‘The Town I Loved So Well’, with its stirring, emotional lyrics inspired by growing up on the troubled streets of Derry, and ‘Scorn Not His Simplicity’, the heartbreaking ballad he wrote about his first son who was born with Down’s syndrome.

The title of the book is, of course, a line from his anthem for Derry, ‘The Town I Loved So Well’.

Coulter’s father, also called Phil, was a “cop on the beat”, one of the few Catholic constables in the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

He has written that the most valuable and valued piece of furniture in the family home was an upright piano.