Author and broadcaster Barney Rowan writes on his developing archive project with The Open University and on the launch of the second publication of his work at Féile an Phobail last week.
It started out as a conversation on prices - supermarket cafe prices in west Belfast in the summer of 2005.
Two pots of tea at 80 pence each, a scone at 95 pence and a slice of Veda at 89 pence. The total cost of the conversation was £3.44.
I still have the receipt; crumpled and hard to read through its lines and wrinkles.
There was a reason for keeping it.
That Saturday, July 23rd 2005, I was chatting with Richard McAuley - a senior aide to the then Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams. It was one of those meetings of words and silences.
At the time, I was a BBC correspondent in the Belfast newsroom; and the peace process was waiting on a statement from the IRA - its response to a speech by Adams months earlier when he asked: "Can you take courageous initiatives which will achieve your aims by purely political and democratic activity?"
CAFÉ CHAT: Jim Gibney (left) and Brian Rowan at the Féile talk
Following that cafe conversation, I believed we would have that answer within days.
The IRA spoke on July 28th; its statement read to camera by the Belfast republican Seanna Walsh, one of its longest serving prisoners.
An order to end the armed campaign would take effect from 4pm that afternoon and all units were instructed to dump arms.
In 2005, I made no mention of who had briefed me, but as part of an archive project I am developing with The Open University OpenLearn facility, I joked with Richard McAuley that I was applying my twenty-year rule in naming him.
Had he objected, I would not have done so.
PAST AS PROLOGUE: A section from the new OU publication
We met again for tea on July 9th this year - two decades after the historic events of 20 summers ago. This time, the receipt totalled £8.60, and, on it, McAuley wrote these words: "28 July 2005 was a huge historic and challenging initiative which has delivered decades of stability advanced the peace process and enhanced the growing potential for a new Ireland."
Both receipts are included in the archive project; a work-in-progress with The Open University, whose Ireland director John D'Arcy said: "It builds on The Open University's commitment to open access to knowledge and understanding. We hope this latest work will inform public dialogue, education and reflection for years to come."
At a Féile an Phobail event last Friday, I mentioned the rising price of tea and peace, and the horrific human cost of conflict - witnessed in the slaughter and starvation of the people of Gaza; victims of a world where power and ego masquerade as leadership.
PEACE PATH EXPLORED: Jackie D'Arcy and former Sinn Fein MLA Rosie McCorley with OU Director John D'Arcy
And, in an interview ahead of a Féile Derry event this Friday, I commented: "When I hear Trump's name being mentioned in the same sentence as the Nobel Prize, I just think that stains the word peace."
The second of our archive publications was launched last Friday; the event attended by a number of contributors - Richard McAuley, Rosie McCorley, the former MP Lady Sylvia Hermon, Séanna Walsh and the solicitor Kevin Winters.
In just a few words, Gabi Kent of The Open University, captured the significance of the occasion: "It was a fascinating discussion and quite extraordinary to witness and feel history being made in the room too with some of the people who spoke, the welcomes made and the quiet conversations afterwards."
The archive publications are designed by Ciaran Hurson. Photography is by MT Hurson
