Beautiful morning looking out of the window hope the kids can get out and build a snowman. Beautiful inauguration when Joe Biden and Karmala were sworn in in such an inspiring ceremony, the young poetess, Amanda Gorman, has no doubt that she will some day be president herself and not in a boastful way just delighted that she has overcome so much and can see the way ahead. Lady Gaga got my vote, what a powerful woman and so happy her friend Joe has taken over. Arne’t we all.
The stories about Trump’s exit just leave me flummoxed – how can he be petty enough to sack the man who was tasked with opening the front door and allow the Bidens into the Whitehouse at 11.30 am after the ceremony. As he hoped it spoiled the whole photo opportunity! And then there’s the surprise of Tyson Fury being technically knocked out in round 2 of the championship overnight. What a let down when you woke up especially for it! And my chilblains.
A DAY TO PAUSE AND REMEMBER
HOLOCAUST Memorial Day on Wednesday will be very different this year as it’s a zoom event rather than individual gatherings all over the UK. I’m sure it will be as poignant as ever, the commemoration of six million Jews murdered and millions of others killed in what was to become known as The Holocaust. In more recent time Cambodia, Rwandal Bosnia and Darfur were added to the list of genocides to be remembered. I made a programme for RTE a few years ago during which we went to Poland and traced the fate of Jewish communities, in Warsaw we stood in the huge cemetery with a circle of white stones in the middle where men, women and children were thrown into a pit to die. We went to Auschwitz, my second time and every bit as harrowing as the first although, because it is treated as an educational visit, you’re swept along without time to dwell on the horrors you are being told of. Then you get home and break down as the awful facts hit hard and the memory never leaves you.
Last year the commemoration was held in Belfast City Hall and for me the highlight was a speech by Fionnuala Jay O’Boyle, Lord Lieutenant of the County Borough of Belfast a woman I admire greatly.
“For the dead as for the living we must bear witness, there may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice but there must never be a time when we fail to speak. The horror of Holocaust should challenge us always.” She continued:
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference,
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it is indifferent.
The opposite of life is not death, it is most certainly indifference.”
I found this profound. She also emphasised that through remembrance we are holding the souls of those we love and care about in our hearts. This is very relevant at the moment.
PRESENTS TO CHEER UP A WEEK OF COLDNESS AND CONCERN
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I was having trouble with my laptop during the week, I don’t have a good relationship with any electronic equipment, I was told in the BBC by the engineers that it was my own electrical make up fighting with their gadgets. So often I have introduced a force field that has jammed the works, once on a very important shoot in England where the camera refused to work and the sound man had to go back to base twice because the personal mikes just died when he clipped them onto me! If I leave the room for five minutes and come back again usually the negative link is broken and we can resume but the laptop isn’t playing ball. Not too bad at the moment but it likes to die every so often which is a real pain in the butt. However, my genius computer man tells me that metal encased laptops don’t like cold weather and to cover it at night when it’s sitting shivering. Better than that, daughter Susie has made a special bespoke sleeve for the poor thing to snuggle into. It’s beautiful, hand crocheted in colourful wool and I know my little laptop will just love it, snug as a bug in the rug without the bug. She also provided me with a pouch to sling over my shoulder to carry my phone, keys and specs, a bag for my makeup and a couple of gorgeous blankets and a hot water bottle cover so I can hug it and keep myself warm. If you need warmed up with crocheted covers and blankets, let me know.
GENTLEMAN JIM
A lot has been written about James Greene who died at the beginning of this month but not a lot about the Jimmy Greene we knew, one of the original Ulster Television personalities back in 1959. Jimmy was from the Ormeau Road, his father worked in the shipyard and, although there was no theatrical influence in the family, he dedicated his life to acting. Until his death he was one of only two remaining members of the Group Players, Barbara Adair being the other one. She remembers those vibrant days of theatre and how the acting fraternity met with artists and writers in the famous Campbells restaurant. She recalls going there with Jimmy to the coffee lounge on the first floor, overlooking the flower sellers on the pavement outside Belfast City Hall. A famous meeting place for the glitterati of the arts world and a place where, after shorthand and typing school, I’d go and sit in the corner and gaze on the likes of Sam Thompson, J.G Devlin, William Conor, Joe Tomelty, James Boyce and Rowel Friers little knowing that years later I would meet them all through working in Ulster Television. How fortunate am I to have such memories.
When he was 27 Jimmy also joined the new independent television company, one of six original ‘front of camera’ along with Ivor Mills, Ernie Strathdee, Adrienne McGuill, Anne Gregg and Brian Durkin.
Jimmy was an elegant gentleman with high standards and a dry sense of humour. In those early days of television at ‘close down’ and just before the Queen atop her horse indicated a sterned face goodnight to the sound of the National Anthem, there was a short interlude called ‘End the Day.’ It was the idea of Sir Laurence Olivier when he opened and closed the new station on opening day 1959, he finished off the evening viewing with a quote from the Bible. This started a trend and each continuity announcer had to come up with their own little homily. Adrienne Catherwood, in those days McGuill, says she had books of quotations and sayings on her desk every day. “I was always looking for something deep and meaningful.” But Jimmy had it down to a fine art. “One night he smiled at his public, read them a recipe complete with method and then said ‘And if that doesn’t work out just open a tin of beans! Good night.’
Playwright Graham Reid held Jimmy in high regard: “Both as an actor and a friend, a quiet man, you didn’t hear him before you saw him unlike many actors!” He appeared in Graham’s TV play You, Me and Marley playing the part of Father Peter a priest in west Belfast coping with wayward boys during the Troubles.
“I remember him telling me about one experience he had with two school friends. Jimmy Ellis, Ken Jamison and Jimmy Greene all went to Methody where they were known as the Three Musketeers. In later years they planned a boy’s trip to Paris and, with a few hours to spare in London, they decided to visit the Courtauld Institute, the leading centre for the study of art history, meat and drink to these young men. Despite being a Sunday morning they went to the front door and rang the bell. To their surprise the door was opened by a distinguished gentleman wearing a dressing gown. Jimmy Greene introduced the party and explained they were on their way to Paris and had some time to spend and would like to see round the Institute. The man in question was the director and such was Jimmy’s charm that he invited them in, and after showing them round, entertained them to tea and toast. Only afterwards did they realise they’d had breakfasted with Sir Antony Blunt, one of the five famous spies working for the Russians.”
On another occasion Graham was standing outside the Theatre Royal in London’s West End when a man in an overcoat resembling a bearskin sidled up to him. “He pounced on me and demanded in a real Belfast accent: ‘I claim my £5.’ that was in the days of an advertising campaign featuring Mr. Presents who, if you could identify him, would hand you over a fiver. We had a great chat and caught up on everything going on in theatre, he often reminded me that he never got his fiver!”
Jimmy’s film and stage work covered a multitude of performances from the Old Vic to Dublin’s Abbey Theatre and the Lyric in Belfast. A shout would go up in our house when he appeared on television – “Jimmy’s on” – Wolf Hall, Dr. Who. Downton Abbey and the head of science in the David Walliam comedy Big School.
Tragedy visited his family one day in August 1968 when in a fatal car crash at Ballynure on the Larne Road a trailer broke away from the cab of an articulated truck, it veered on to the wrong side of the road and fell on top of a Renault car returning to Belfast after a family day out. The driver David Marshall was floor manager at Ulster Television and a dear friend to us all. David died, so did his wife Annette and two of his three children. Annette and Jimmy’s wife Diana Payne, both actresses, were sisters and immediately Diana and Jimmy absorbed baby Maggie into their family.
The last time I saw Jimmy was about five years ago. I was having lunch in a restaurant in Bedford Street when I saw him walking by. I was out of there like a dose of salts and down the road after him. It was a lovely meeting, a modest man with all the warmth of those Ulster Television days when we were such a close knit bunch of enthusiasts.
Certainly the boy from the Ormeau Road made the right decision when he said ‘I want to be an actor’.
A FINAL THOUGHT
Through Susie I know so many crafters especially at the Country Markets in Donegal, they are all lovely people who seem to be smiling most of the time. Whether it’s crocheting, knitting, weaving, painting, photographing, baking, making jewellery, working in stone or wood or selling fresh vegetables, we love you back.