Examples – Good and Bad
Hooray for the South African rugby team – they played well and won but more than that, they proved that they are gentlemen not forgetting to give a hug to the surly losing team nor going round the ground with the Webb Ellis trophy acknowledging the delighted crowds but bowing their heads to the platform party in respect. What did the English team do? Scowled and either refused to have the medal for runners up put round their necks or immediately took them off – churlish or what. Rather than being proud runners up they were poor losers.
Looking Back In Amazement
Hallowee’n is always a time of magic, visitors from other places, fireworks and parties, and this was the happy scene last Thursday night in the Europa Hotel as we celebrated Ulster Television’s birthday.
For those of us of a certain age Hallowee’n Night means memories of sitting round a tiny screen inside a big wooden box, probably with a coat hanger sticking out the back and waiting for the tinkly Mountains of Mourne theme tune, seven spots joined by zig zaggy lines and the legend appearing below – ULSTER TELEVISION.
Down through the years this new ITV company became an important part of Northern Ireland family life and the early days were the most exciting, I know because I was there. What a time it was, imagine a ten day holiday in Italy for £25.6s 6d – over £570 60 years later.
It was 60 years ago when the big double doors of a renovated shirt factory and handichief hem stitching factory were flung open to allow Ulster Television fly out and into the homes of Northern Ireland. On a small street off Ormeau Road in Belfast, Havelock House glowed in its powder blue paintwork as dusk fell on the afternoon of 31st October 1959. Crowds gathered, a string of cars came and went, bouquets filled the foyer with their perfume, workmen with last minute jobs to complete as the clock ticked towards 4 p.m. when the ‘On Air’ sign lit up. The great and the good streamed into the building for drinks in Studio One, the only studio there was in those days, the studio where soon Tom Jones would strut his stuff in black leather trousers and a ruffed white shirt, where Lulu first sang ‘My Boy Lollypop’,
Elsie Tanner from Coronation Street arrived, Frank Carson cut his teeth on a live commercial for Jacobs Water Biscuits. He was never one to stick to a script; he showed the orange packet, said what he had to say and then stopped, thought, looked into the camera, held the biscuit aloft and said: “That’s a cracker!” And so a catchphrase was born.
Havelock house that Saturday morning of Halloween was a hive of activity, I remember vans drawing up at the newly painted front door and delivery men carrying in swathes of sweet selling flowers, Hoovers were busy on the carpets, carpenters finishing last minute jobs and front of camera personalities nervously fussing over their wardrobes, girls in rollers and men with razors sharpened.
Mega handsome Ivor Mills and Anne Gregg, Adrienne McGuill, Brian Durkin, James Green and Ernie Strathdee. Only Jimmy Green, who lives in London and Adrienne living in Co. Down and awarded an MBE for her charity work, are still alive and well.
Outside the doors our neighbours from Posnett Street and Outram Street had gathered laughing and joking with photographers from far and wide. There was the aroma of fireworks and apple pie in the autumn air. The great and the good began to arrive, stars from the arts, politicians, captains of industry and the church were all represented.
I was in my element.
Still a teenager straight from school, I was a clark typist earning £200 a year and I was so happy my Jaeger elastic belt, the fashion of the time, was almost bursting with joy. And then to meet Laurence Olivier, later Sir, in the corridor between the film library and the board room was something of a thrill. He was charming just as he was when he appeared on screen to welcome viewers to the new studios, having tasted the hospitality of managing director Brum Henderson for most of the day his greeting to me was somewhat slurred! Undoubtedly he was relaxed as he did his earlier party piece smiling at viewers who’d tuned in at 4.45 p.m. and remained tuned in through the years of Romper Room, Roundabout, Good Evening Ulster, Counterpoint, UTV Live and I’m pleased to say, Ask Anne.
In Ballymurphy Da Taylor had a bicycle with a basket on front holding boxes of ice cream tubs which he sold for a ha’penny each but he was special, he had the first TV set in the area. It’s said that he’d the bright idea of placing the set in the front room, lining up rows of apple boxes and inviting local children in to watch Romper Room – at a penny a time. Then, during the ads he would sell his ice creams to the young audience, great entertainment but also great entrepreneurial thinking!
With the likes of Charlie Witherspoon and James Boyce, whatever was happening in Northern Ireland was reflected on the screen of this phenomenally successful local commercial company envied by stations the length and breadth of the UK and Ireland and throughout The Troubles reporters and camera crews excelled in a way unimagined in 1959.
31st October 1959 was a day of famous faces, politicians, society belles, thespians of all shapes and sizes and us, the staff of about 30 at the time. It was heady stuff and the beginning of a dream that came true day after day.
Ulster Television spawned many talents but little known were the Thompson twins who achieved their big break appearing on Teatime With Tommy. Derek and Elaine were 15 when they sang ‘Yellow Bird Up High In Banana Tree’. Such was the unsophisticated nature of television at that time props man Isaac climbed a ladder and held a branch of a tree over their heads – with a bunch of bananas tied on. They became famous locally but Derek Thompson’s fame today is as Charlie Fairhead in BBC’s Casualty.
Tom Jones didn’t expect to be a sex bomb 60 years on. When I knocked on the door of his dressing room and asked him to sign his 15 guinea contract I wished him well with ‘It’s Not Unusual’. “Love,” he replied. “I’ll enjoy it because it’ll be a one off.” How wrong can you be.
Technology was also in its infancy. On screen white shirts drained face tones so male interviewees had to change into pale blue shirts, ministers of religion swopped their dog collars for UTV blue; no one escaped. Denis Ireland, later Senator, a giant of a man whose luxuriant white hair had to be powdered down with Creme Puff ‘Tempting Touch’, even a roast turkey taken out of an oven on an Ask Anne Christmas show had to be rushed to makeup to be basted in Revlon ‘Toasted Beige’ foundation to help it look more succulent.
My memories are legion especially of the ‘live’ programmes. Brigadier Ronald Broadhurst describing a World War One battle made all the more realistic as someone crouched behind the map and, through a small hole at the site of the battle, puffed cigarette smoke through as the cannons raged. On Roundabout Ivor Mills topic was the new fangled dictaphone and he expressed the opinion to a secretary that she might well be out of work soon. She rose to her feet, moved to Ivor, sat on his knee, took his face in her hands and gave him a passionate kiss. Then turned to the camera, winked and said: “A dictaphone can’t do that!”
Those early days of live television were indeed groundbreaking but the most important time was covering The Troubles, the newsroom was frenetic, visiting reporters and film crews from round the world vied with our own crews, a different dynamic. These visitors waded in, got their stories and left, our boys and girls had to go back time after time and it took its toll. I recall Ivan Little coming back with harrowing footage to edit and then sitting in the canteen face to the wall, back to us all trying to come to terms with witnessing the latest atrocity. On one occasion a call came through to the news desk that there was rioting on the Falls Road, “Send a film crew.” Ten minutes later the same caller, “Hurry up, we can’t start without you.”
The doors of Havelock House closed last year, little was taken to the new home of UTV, now owned by Independent Television, on the top floor of a glass cube overlooking the River Lagan, a place much less of creativity, much more of space age technology.
And still Coronation Street carries on regardless.
We’ve had anniversary celebrations over the years but last Thursday’s will be the last one. Time marches on and we’ve lost many friends but down through the years, like any happy family, we’ve all kept in touch, many of us meeting in a downtown pub every first Thursday in the month and Christmas dinner can number as many as 30. Friendships made that day and since remain firm, both within Havelock House before it closed its doors last year and in the surrounding streets, viewers still faithful, now number millions.
A time to celebrate something that began in an old hemstitching handkerchief warehouse and gave such entertainment and information through the years now stretches into the 21st century from a new hi-tec centre overlooking the cranes and the river, more technical today than creative but still serving the public in an exceptional way.
More Inspiring Memories
I remember inviting Mary Peters to appear on Ask Anne to talk about packing her suit case! Rather than placing clothes flat she rolled them up and we had a competition to see which method meant the case would hold more and Mary won. But then she’s used to that and she has just added another first to her repertoire – ‘Passing the Torch’ a chronicle of sportswomen who have inspired both Mary and thousands of others through sport. The book is fascinating as there are names and stories completely new to me – Maira Costello MBE motorcyclist with a clutch of firsts and the fastest woman round the Isle of Man TT course, Georgina Bullen, Paralympic goal ball champion, Shelley Jory-Leigh who in her youth found horse riding too slow so eventually took up Powerboat Racing travelling at speeds of 90 miles per hour and of course our own water skiing champion Janet Gray MBE who was robbed of her sight when she was 17 and had a horrific accident in 2004 when she died four times on the operating table, despite all this Janet competed successfully and holds the world record in slalom, tricks and jumps.
And the woman who supports and inspires so many of those who also inspire, Mary P, always time for others, always smiling just as she was at the launch of her book at the athletics track in south Belfast which holds her name with pride.
What a lady, literally a Lady, Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter installed in London’s St. George’s Chapel of the Order, on Garter Day in June this year. A women we are proud of for her achievements and loved for herself.
