A Life Through The Lens: David Peat

In your mind, what does a great documentary do?

I think a good documentary opens eyes,

often takes people into a physical place or an emotional

journey that they could not possibly witness or see for themselves.

So that is the great, great satisfaction for a film maker,

is taking an audience in to meet people.

These wonderful, and we're always lost for that word,

ordinary people, but they're not ordinary because these are remarkable

people who have just great tales to tell and so to take a camera in

and record that and tell it back and show people I think is just fabulous.

Here we go.

For the past 40 years I've been earning my living as a cameraman

and documentary maker,

from behind the camera observing the world anonymously.

Now I've been tempted in front of the camera

and given the chance to wander back through those four decades

and revisit some of the films and people I was privileged to record.

The reason?

I've reached a certain age, 65, but also I've been

diagnosed with an incurable cancer so my time left is unknown.

Yes, I won't make another film so, I do miss it, I love film making.

People have never stopped loving documentaries

because they educate, they illustrate, they illuminate life.

Hey!

My wee friend, a wee tweak at the viewfinder, eye to the viewfinder.

And of course your eye had to be completely sealed to the

viewfinder so that no light could leak in and fog your film.

There was one very emotional shoot in Northern Ireland where a woman

was crying about her murdered child and I had to have my eye to

the camera and it slowly filled up with tears.

So that by the end of the ten minute roll I couldn't see a thing because... Anyway.

That's the down side sometimes, not the down side but that's...

I'm being light hearted but sometimes the things we filmed were anything but.

My big break from assistant cameraman to cameraman

was in 1971 Upper Clyde Shipbuilders which was the most extraordinary

moment because here were all these Clyde shipyards in danger

of failing against the Japanese who were building ships cheaply.

The Tory government was just basically wanting to waste

the Clyde and close them all down and the workers said no.

'8,000 men from all four UCS yards voted to back the shop stewards.

'12 men voted against.

'The men said "no" to redundancies,

'"no" to negotiating with the government

'or anyone unless the labour force and all four yards

'were kept intact.'

And they didn't say, "We're going to go on strike."

They said, "We are going to take over the yards and we're going to

"work in and continue to build the ships and deliver them."

And that was revolutionary.

The joint shop stewards are utterly unanimous,

we're going to fight this and we're going to fight it with

a determination that Britain hasn't seen from any section

of the working class this century

let alone since 1945, and we'll do it.

CHEERING

I as a young 24-year-old filled with zest and energy

had dropped into this extraordinary chemistry.

One minute you'd be up in Govan, then you'd be down in Clydebank,

then you'd be in Scotstoun.

It was just so exciting. Every day was a buzz of meetings.

I remember driving up pavements in my little Renault 4L just to get

past a queue of cars to get into a yard in time.

When we dashed into those yards we were behind them,

we believed in the spirit of what was happening on the Clyde then

that lets all of us join together

and if we in our funny wee daft telly way

are helping to contribute to the saving of that,

there was so much spirit around

that you absorbed that, and said,

"Yeah come on we're here to help."

-ALL:

-Heath out! Heath out! Heath out! Heath out!

£100, Scottish National Party, Glasgow Clydebank Branch.

'This money will pay the wages of redundant workers.'

We're not strikers, we're responsible people

and we'll conduct ourselves with the dignity and discipline that we

have all the time expressed over this the last few weeks

and there will be no hooliganism,

there will be no vandalism, there will be no bevvying

because the world is watching us and it's our responsibility to

conduct ourselves responsibly and with dignity and with maturity.

To be there when Jimmy made his "nae bevvying" speech,

fabulous to be there to witness that.

You're recording history and that's very special.

This is extraordinary,

I'm about to meet a man I haven't seen in 35 years.

He was around at the time supporting the shipbuilders

when I was filming him, so a tricky man to pin down.

He's only in the country for a short while

so we've come here to Blackpool where he's performing.

-Here's the first time we can be connected.

-Brilliant.

Do you remember in 1971?

Oh that's Glasgow Green. This is you?

This is me. Right beneath you. Weird.

And then look, spot me there.

-My God. Is that you?

-That's me.

-Oh, that's fantastic.

-But fantastic days, I mean, look at this.

-Look at that.

There, I think that's Govan, the Govan yard.

-Wonderful, that sea of faces.

-It's brilliant.

Did you take any strength from that whole UCS thing

that's carried you through - a kind of belief in it?

-Of course it has.

-So you could always trace it?

It's given me a strength and it's given me an unbelievably strong identity.

-Right.

-I was always really proud to be a Clydeside worker.

-Right.

Most of what I did I learned on the Clyde, you know,

how to be funny without telling a joke.

It just... When those gates closed

and that sort of garrison mentality came on,

you know, it's the same as prison or factories,

anywhere where the gate shuts,

people become very profane and very funny.

Yeah.

There was that incredible shot you get on the Clyde at closing time,

the gate opens just enough for one man to come through

and then two, three, four, five, six and then you get this flood of men.

And then it just vomits on to the street!

You've got the words. You see, I'm an observer.

We share in a way a common bond in that I'm an observer of people

through a camera and capture that.

You observe people and then choose the words. That's your genius.

Where did that come from?

In there, in the Clyde.

Which brings us to Banana Feet, which was just fabulous.

That was extraordinary.

1975, on the road, the first road movie,

and it was, I was pushing myself.

People will look at the film now

and think, what quality, but we were right at the limits of,

of technical quality then,

with just, totally observational documentary.

It was still loose, you know, you're just following me along

and letting me speak to people.

# Oh the cuckoo

# She's a pretty bird

# And she warbles

# As she flies

# She don't never

# Holler cuckoo

# Till the fourth day of July. #

CHATTER

Oh, that's good. So is that.

Because when the lights go out I don't know what shape it is,

if I don't have a wee look first. That's fine.

That was a 74 minute film and we shot it in something

like 36 hours, 40 hours, cos land at Dublin, do a gig.

Aye, there was no time cos the gig was on.

You either get it or you don't.

-Yeah, it was totally on the move.

-Aye, we did Belfast as well.

Oh, that was the key. What's extraordinary is you had

the courage to do that because just four months before you went to

-Belfast the Miami Showband had been stopped.

-That's right.

Five guys, three of them murdered

and every other performer said, "No way Belfast".

You're a family man, you've a wife and two children right?

Yes, yes that's right.

You're over here this is sort of a frenetic scene,

you know people enjoying themselves.

But you're going to Belfast.

You could be blown up tomorrow night?

I don't think so somehow, my wife thinks like that.

I've never really thought much about it.

I'm frightened to think about it really.

People have forgotten how scary Northern Ireland was.

It was a scary place.

And we... It was even scarier for me. The first time I toured there

they gave me a special branch guy who was drunk

and he had a sort of little sub machine gun and he kept tripping

and falling and it kept falling on me, this gun in the back of the car.

I'm sure I was going to be shot.

Well, do you...? I don't know whether you were aware of this on the night

-but at the theatre they took over 30 weapons off people.

-That's right,

I remember.

Was that fed back to you?

-Yes.

-Because that scene when you are waiting alone...

Magic moment for me in the dressing room. Real observation.

You're just sitting there nervous. Clearly nervous.

There's nothing said.

Even going down the corridor you're alone, there's a kind of reluctance.

Ladies and gentlemen... Billy Connolly.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

'Remember I pretended the flowers exploded?'

'You were right on the edge there. How would the audience take that?'

'Oh they loved it.'

-That's very nice.

-MIMICS EXPLOSION

LAUGHTER

Have you got your banjo here?

-No, it's upstairs.

-I know, but it's in the hotel?

-Aye.

Will you do me a wee tune up cos I loved that, in Banana Feet

there's that lovely...

There's that sound that creates, real memory triggers for me.

-Oh aye, will I go and get it?

-Yeah, that'd be lovely.

-See just, just that sound transports me back 35 years.

-Aye, it's weird.

PLAYS BANJO

See I'm already in on the....

THEY LAUGH

I'm not as agile as I was.

I didn't wobble the camera in the same way in those days.

-I was kind of wobbly over here myself.

-Lovely. Thank you.

-Magic.

-Well done.

-Thank you.

-It was nice seeing you leaping around and doing it right. Takes you back.

-Instantly takes you back.

My action man days, which I loved, I mean that was me

as camera man etcetera and as film maker.

But I did a lot of world class rallying, chasing cars.

We would only film the top ten cars cos they were rally champions

and you trusted them to come as close as they like throwing stones

at you, but you knew that they could drive and they wouldn't kill you.

It was a real craft, film camera work.

Exposure, focus, all of those things.

There's the image everybody craves.

You're in your chunky flying helmet, your oxygen mask.

Although I did six sorties in that

and vomited in five out of the six with an oxygen mask and a beard.

Not nice, and I used to come back

and this wee vomit bag would be handed out.

"Sorry I've done it again."

Cos he was doing aerobatics round another aircraft

so I was upside down, right way up looking through a camera.

Very disorientating I assure you.

Northern Ireland. Crossmaglen.

This was one of the hottest spots in Northern Ireland.

Out with the... Out with the troops. Yeah.

And in fact Northern Ireland too,

this again, look, doing my beloved aerials.

Compared to today's wonderful gyro stabilisers mine's

a couple of bungee clips some gaffer tape, sit out.

The tragedy is the day after flying, this pilot flew into some wires

and was killed.

It could have been me.

'The Royal Victoria Hospital Belfast,

'a teaching hospital with a war right on its doorstop.

'Medical research was never nearer to a battlefront.'

Fighting For Life was extraordinary,

a BBC documentary that we made in Northern Ireland in 1978.

Simple concept, there they were experiencing high velocity,

head wounds, small entry wound, massive exit wound

and this brain surgeon and the dental surgeon had come up with the idea

of constructing plates, rebuilding a skull to save people's lives.

'No one can know what the next ambulance will bring to

'a hospital in the frontline or whether guerrilla warfare

'will again invade the grounds of the Royal.

'But the Army makes its presence felt,

'patrols every approach road as the healing goes on.

'Constantly on guard in a war in which everything has been said

'and no-one can win.'

A weird, weird time to be part of the United Kingdom

and you flew across into this place where you,

you checked under your car in the morning, was there a bomb?

'There were 1,000 explosions in 1973.'

Remember over 3,000 people died in Ireland on our doorstep.

You know.

All we know was that there was a bomb blast just a few hundred yards

from the hospital in which this soldier was involved.

What's he suffered?

He's had...lost his right leg

and he's had very severe injuries to his left leg.

He has lost a great deal of blood

and Doctor Young our anaesthetist is giving him a great deal of blood.

He's already had about eight pints.

Our key sequence was a lieutenant

who'd been blown up by a lamp-post bomb.

His leg blown clean off at the groin, filled with shrapnel.

And we ran into the operating theatre and covered all of that.

What do you think you're going to do?

That's got to be left open, there's no question.

I mean, for us to go in and witness that was quite extraordinary

and very powerful to see the horror and film it and try and make

something positive out of it because that's what these guys were doing.

'I wasn't a news cameraman, so I wasn't running up

'and down streets with petrol bombs and bricks flying and everything.

'But we were trying to reflect a positive story out of horror.

'But equally a story which reflected the horror

'which was Northern Ireland.

'The last time I was here was about 1977.

'I was still working as a cameraman in those days.

'I think we were here for two or three weeks,

'because we were on standby

'for a horrendous injury basically, and to watch the team at work.

'The ward sister was Annie Murdoch.'

-It's not, is it?

-Hello, David.

-Hello.

-How are you, darling?

-Lovely to see you.

-And you too, you too.

-The years fall away.

And a young ambitious surgeon, Alan Crockard.

-Look at this.

-Look, man without glasses.

-Who am I seeing here?

-Annie, how lovely to see you.

-You too.

-Whose worn the best? You rogue!

-Look at you. How wonderful to see you.

-Lovely to see you.

-Yes. Gosh!

I was just thinking it's so unusual for you not to be behind the camera?

I know. It's a very strange feeling,

I can assure you, being in front of the camera.

'Crockard's been at the Royal since he qualified

'just before the start of the Troubles

'and he hasn't always worked under the quiet calm

'of today's operation on Mary Smith.

'At the height of the fighting,

'he operated round the clock for days on end.'

The only intensive care unit

in Northern Ireland was at The Royal.

-Here?

-Here.

So all the police, all the army,

all the terrorists of every hue

and the civilians were all in the same intensive care unit.

'The wards can be trying places to nurse in.

'It almost needs a split mind to try and heal both soldier and gun man,

'who may then go out and kill.'

'How did you stay neutral?'

Well, you had your own feelings about things

and you were brought up a certain way and obviously, yes, it's there,

but patients are patients. You didn't think what religion,

whether they were a soldier or a terrorist.

You just got on with it.

Oh, you're doing very well.

'A soldier takes his first faltering steps

'since his Saracen car was land-mined.'

You're doing well. You really are. I'm proud of you.

Doing very well. Is the way clear there behind me?

I don't want to land in a bucket, Keith, sure I don't.

'The skills of the surgeons may have saved this soldier's life,

'but he'll owe his recovery as much to the patience and compassion

'of the nurses and physiotherapists.'

All right? Keith, you're nearly there.

I think we'll get him into bed, actually.

Almost there, Keith. Just a wee bit more, Keith.

Either of you know what happened to the young lad

-in our film with the brain injury?

-Oh, yes.

Up until a couple of years ago,

Keith sent me flowers every Christmas.

Wow! What does that tell you?

Yeah. It's really nice.

'He was a very special young patient.

'You know, he went through quite a lot and I suppose we got

'very attached to him, which I know we're not supposed to do.'

But you can't help it. You do.

And his family were very nice. I just felt so sorry for them,

you know, their young son, this had happened to them.

Maybe one of my countrymen has done this to him, you know?

Did you ever feel anger?

Oh, yes.

When you had lost friends and family, of course you do.

How did you suppress that anger?

I'm not sure, David.

I really don't know. I like to think that it was my training,

because we were always trained that everybody...

You treat everybody the same, no matter what.

The films that I was shooting for other people then

were reflective documentaries, almost always based round problems

and The Troubles and the after effects

which, of course, were just as strong.

I think somewhere in the dots and dashes of my DNA

was a happiness to be reflecting a gentler side.

So I think I've always been drawn towards the, er...

In search of humanity, if you like,

and many of the films we made then,

we were in search of humanity with a small 'h.'

I love that and I think that's continued on into my own film-making.

You know, observing people,

often under stress,

but just digging that little bit deeper.

As a cameraman, that was the beginning of becoming immersed

in the way people were

and that carried on when I became a film-maker.

I've been lucky enough to witness that same belief

in an industry that I saw on the Clyde,

that passion for their industry,

when I made a film down a mine, here at Monktonhall Colliery

just outside Edinburgh 20 years ago.

'We're not militants. We're just ordinary working guys

'who want their rewards and the fruits of their labour.

'But give us some say in it, and we'll prove we can do the goods.'

The men were faced with British Coal closing the pit.

The end of their livelihood.

And suddenly they themselves, led by one other man,

said, "No, we are going to lease this pit.

"We are going to show the world that we can run a pit."

The way we're geared up, because everyone owns the business.

Not me or the manager. Everyone has an equal shareholding.

We pay ourselves the same dividend at the end of the year.

Each of these men

was prepared to invest, borrow £10,000

of their own money, and follow this man, Jim Parker,

back underground,

open up a pit and make it all work.

Extraordinary idea.

Going into the mine itself for us was a huge exercise.

I think Monktonhall was the deepest pit in Britain,

a 3,000ft vertical lift shaft.

You were entering a very, very strange world.

For us with a camera, which is a delicate thing,

going into this warm, dusty, moist environment.

We had to prepare ourselves physically, but also prepare

the camera, because very rarely did we change a tape below ground.

You become like them, because you become covered in coal dust

so you become a miner. There you are in your boiler suit

and black face when you come out.

That's that thing of becoming part of the people that you are observing.

# We're in the money, we're in the money

# We've got a lot of what it takes to get along! #

So coming back, I mean, even for me,

it's a strange emotion coming back

to somewhere that was a complete

hive of energy, that you released in men...

..just an extraordinary zest for life, for their life.

So for you to come back and witness

something that failed, how does that feel?

Well, over the...since '92 I think,

I've been maybe here about 12, 15 times.

It does rankle a bit, but you've got to forget that stuff.

There was nothing special about me.

It was that 107 that did the job.

-That was what was extraordinary.

-The men you led?

Aye, that's right. I was just doing what my father taught me

and what I learned at university, you know? Nothing clever in that.

The thing is getting the job done and these blokes did it.

Are you proud of the fact that it survived for five years?

Well, I'm proud it survived for five years,

but I'm desperately sorry it's not still going yet.

So, all the men got their £10,000 back effectively?

They got five years wages.

What, £150,000 over five years?

-Fascinating.

-Not a bad investment that.

Nobody else apart from the miners

is allowed into that environment.

You went into your own world and we were allowed into it.

Why did you let us in?

You might not be aware of it,

-but you weren't the only people that approached us.

-Right.

There was a couple of other groups.

That Sky group, they sent people up.

-So why did you choose us?

-Well you were, obviously...

You were a different stamp from these kind of people, aren't you?

Eh, maybe that's too narrow minded but you see it looked like you

were more sort of in tune with what we were doing.

You were more sort of practical with nuts and bolts.

Frankie, turn your face, It's no' a horror movie!

LAUGHTER

Certainly.

Because Ayrshire boys are on this shift.

Ultimately, was it good for you that we made that film?

Oh, that was great.

That was one of the good things about it.

That was really...

For the ordinary man in the street,

and lots of people have told me this, that's the best record.

When you saw that film, that saves hours of talking, know?

That's, er... Well, I'll treasure that.

I mean, I treasure that.

Making this film, of course, I go back and look at the old films

and I go, "That wasn't bad."

But it was also for us

to witness that sheer, basic...

I mean, what height?

As we went along that...

Four feet?

Duck down, what height would we have been to work in?

-About there, maybe there.

-So we had to keep running

in and out with the kit.

Backwards and forwards, 600ft along that face line.

I mean, you're at... Sorry to interrupt you.

And you know I love you, ken?

You're asking what made us choose you.

That's what made us choose you. It's still there yet.

You're missing this more than anybody else.

You're missing doing your filming more than I'm missing the pits.

Aren't you? That's what made us choose you. It's obvious.

-Do you no' think so? Huh?

-Yes.

I mean, at any time I lift a stills camera,

or a film camera,

a video camera to my eye,

I go into that world. That is my world.

It's a wonderful world

where it's held by this very precise frame

and I'm then observing the world

within the discipline of that frame.

And I'm completely within myself

looking out, watching.

These have been hidden away for 40 years.

So I took them, I processed them, I made tiny little contact sheets

and I thought when I'm retired or later in life,

I'll get round to doing it.

But then of course things have speeded up.

When I became ill recently,

there was a sense of, "Nobody's seen this stuff."

But I believe that there has to be some gems in there.

I just can't bear for these

to be thrown out and not to be seen.

So this is a selection of my street photography,

which actually, like my career,

is about 40 years. 1970 to 2010.

And these are very, very personal.

These are literally my eye on the world.

There's an absolute example

of a favourite of shooting faces.

There's about four frames on the contact sheet.

That can only be France, can only be Paris.

He never knew I took that shot.

I blend in.

Part of my skill is just going in quietly with my camera

which is a very silent stills.

Small stills, click.

Street photography is about observing.

You hunt an image. You are in your complete zone,

a nightmare to be with.

So I have to do often on my own

and you're just zoning in, looking, looking, looking,

cos you go out and you've no idea what you're looking for.

You're just wandering the streets,

waiting, waiting, hunting for something.

I'm looking all the time

for that moment where I capture a little bit of humanity.

So the qualities of still street photography

transfer perfectly to my observational documentary work.

I will make myself disappear.

I am in the background, and I will let life go on naturally.

Do you think you have the ability to capture an emotional core?

An emotional core of a man especially?

Yes, I do.

I certainly think I have the ability

to capture the emotional core.

In the same way I can totally blend in when I'm taking my stills,

you know, people are unaware of my presence.

In a funny way, because I'm a good listener

and people want to tell their story,

I sit back. I'm not coming in

and going, "Hi, I'm the filmmaker!"

I'm here as a listener

and you tell me your story,

and I nod and whatever,

and they say, "Oh, at last - somebody wants to hear my story."

And so I think through that osmosis,

I extract their emotional core, definitely.

I think you always put a little bit of yourself into your boat.

This boat tells a story, it tells a story about us.

And now it's away to be scrapped.

Really this boat has become a part of me, in a sense.

Not so much the end of a dream,

it's the end of a part of my life.

-VOICE BREAKS:

-The end of a big part of my life.

But you've just got to get over it.

Fraserburgh Harbour. Last here eight years ago,

when I came up to make a film

on the plight of the Scottish fishing industry.

And at the heart of that film was a father and son,

Sandy and Zander West.

They've fished here for generations.

There was a lot happening in the fishing industry at that time.

Brussels was slashing fish quotas,

the UK government was saying, "OK, we'll destroy boats

"in order to bring down the quotas."

And Sandy and Zander were confronted with having their boat destroyed.

Emotionally a very, very difficult journey for them.

It's just a graveyard.

It's just a dump, isn't it?

Looks very eerie.

Very strange. Strange feeling.

The time of morning as well.

That's what Mr Fischler and European Commission

and our own Fisheries Ministers think of Fraserburgh,

Peterhead and Aberdeen, that pile of rubbish,

that's what they think of us.

Well, that's what we think of them.

'Even as the boat ties up there are bargain hunters waiting to pounce,

'first aboard, an Icelandic fisherman.'

-I'm looking for an engine.

-You're looking for an engine?

-Will this engine be good for that boat?

-It's a similar size.

It's a good engine.

-I'm just glad I won't be here to see it cut up.

-What?

I'm glad I'm not going to be here to see it cut in pieces.

I can understand.

Vultures flying above you waiting to peck at the scraps.

I might be interested in that radar.

I hope he does take the radar cos it's buggered!

Hey, the smell of the sea again,

it's fantastic to be back in the harbour.

Look at all these boats.

Brilliant. Where are they?

Fantastic.

Great to see you, long time since I've seen you.

Look, he's grown up, he's got a beard.

-This isn't Danny!

-That's him.

-Is it? You were just that high

-when I last saw you. What age are you now?

-Nine.

-Nine. Fantastic.

Lovely to see you. Magic.

A lot going on since I last saw you.

-Really?

-Yeah, a lot.

-Well, I want to... Cos I have no idea

-what you've been doing.

-Oh, well, we'll let you know.

I'm a wee bit suspicious

that you have been unable to break that time in the sea.

-Yup, yup.

-Come on.

-I've never left it. Never left it.

-You've never left it?

-No.

-Are you still hogging cod?

-Not really, no.

-No?

-Prawns now.

-Prawns.

-Aye, we're on a different fishing now.

-We're mainly on prawn now.

-Fantastic.

Where we was on fish before.

Is that reality biting or is that you just going ducking and diving?

Just going in another direction.

-Right, but successfully?

-Yup.

-You've survived. Hurray!

Come on, where? Show me the boat.

So what's she called?

-She's called Mia Jane.

-Mia Jane.

-Yeah.

-From?

-She's named after my daughter.

Really? So you've had a another bambino since... Magic.

If you look at the film now, how do you look back on that time?

Well, I only look on it back with...

When I think about it for me, I was younger so I was angry,

I wanted to kick somebody's arse.

So at the time we filmed you, there was anger,

there was emotion at the loss of the Steadfast.

How do you feel now about that?

-I wasn't angry really at all about that.

-Really?

No, not really, no. I was just caught up on it.

Do you think then, Sandy, that the EU were right

to force you to decommission the boats?

-Yep. I've never gone back on saying that.

-Really?

Many a fishermen does, but I've never.

-So even though you were angry...?

-I saw it before it happened.

So why did you feel so passionate and angry

about what was happening at that time we made the film?

Well, mainly because, I lost my business because of it,

I was caught up in this at a bad time.

If we had built the Steadfast probably two years beforehand

we would have ridden the storm.

So did I make the wrong kind of film?

-No, no.

-No.

-You captured what the feeling was at the time.

Hindsight's a great thing, isn't it?

It reflected a moment in time and nothing more.

It reflected a moment, a period in time when that was the feeling.

But you move on.

Since I've been home, I mean, every night nearly I go to my bed

I'm thinking about fish.

I remember my father saying something about fish fever

so I think that's maybe what it's like.

Go away now do my monthly stand-by to the best of my ability.

Get paid for it and then come back to this guy.

And someday I'll be able to pass on the story to him.

The decommissioning scheme especially locally and nationally

was really well documented,

but you never really understand people's plights.

Just reading a paper about it.

It doesn't come through but I think when folk

get the opportunity of seeing it in film

they may be understood a little bit better,

the harshness of the reality.

There was a lot of sympathy from people in that film.

Yeah. And at the end of the film there's a lovely wee sequence

when I'm wrapping up the film

and you're sitting with Danny on your knee

and you say I hope to be able to tell him tales of the sea.

Well, now he's got a chance to see

his own tales of the sea. Yeah. Possibly.

Yeah, well, aye, I think there's... he maybe will.

Come to sea with Dad? Nae free rides.

Magic. Well, it's been fantastic coming back.

-Extraordinary.

-It's been great having you back.

-Yeah.

Yeah, it's nice, nice to see you again.

Terrific, I'm going to stop.

Bringing back old times it does, it does. Bringing back old times.

Gutted. And they're still here.

Magic. Yoo-hoo! Well done, guys! Keep fishing!

Great. It's great to be back. Lovely.

What is it with these macho industries that you like?

I don't know whether it's the macho industries which I'm drawn to.

I think I'm certainly drawn to taking a camera into places

that people can't see, the public can't go underground.

The people cannot ring up and say to a fisherman I want you

to take me out in the wildest conditions and show me what you risk

your life in order to feed me

and so the great... it's a word I use quite a lot,

but the great privilege I've had is to be able to take that camera

on behalf of the audience into places that they can't reach. And in so

doing I get that personal pleasure of actually experiencing

A - through the camera's eye which is my great love

but also for myself to go in

and come out, have that ability to tell that tale.

And if I'm being very selfish to tell the tale to my children,

to pass on, I went down there,

I went out there. That's great.

Great fun, great memories. No, terrific.

'Hey, Donald. You know it's not only Flora you love

'but all this homeland of ours.

'Oh, I know well enough what's on your mind. The big city.'

The younger ones started going away to jobs

but then what else could they do there was nothing, there was

no way of making money.

And I mean everybody wasn't like me - penniless

and happy but that was the way I looked at it!

Scotland On Film. There was a kind of a complete change of tack for me

was away from observational documentaries, so, but the idea

intrigued me. Quite simple interview people between 60,

65 and 100 and whatever we got to, about life in Scotland.

and television allows us to put it down in a different way from

books and all sorts of other things, it's one thing to read an anecdote,

but to see that face, give you that anecdote is something else too.

It's simple but it's there forever as a piece of history.

Out of all these people and all their wonderful tales

the one who left the most indelible mark

was a lady called Madge McQueen

who lives in a croft up near Aviemore.

And she was the most content person I have ever met.

There was something about her that was at peace with the world,

with her world.

How many years have you lived here in the glen, what age are you now?

Well, I'm 88 now. And I've been here, as I say I was born upstairs, moved downstairs

-and that's as far as I got.

-A long way to travel?

-A long way to go.

I must have been carried, unless they threw me down I don't know, but...

Are you looking forward to spring and getting a bit more colour in the cheeks?

Oh, yes, yes, looking forward to the spring. I love the spring time.

I like when the birch leaves come out, the smell of the birch.

-Oh, super, yeah.

-And what are the wee secrets of life?

I don't know what it... I've always been contented.

-I'm never angry about anything really.

-Really?

No, no, no. There's no point in being angry.

You use a lovely word there you say you've always been contented and that's why I wanted to come back

because I'm looking back over my life and all the people

I've met, you were the most contented person I've ever met.

-Really?

-Uh-huh. And so I just wanted to come back and I wanted

to tell you that. Maybe you didn't... that you have something very special.

Yes, always contented. It doesn't matter what it is I do I don't get into a fluster over anything.

-Right.

-Because it always sorts itself out, it doesn't matter what it is.

-Do you, do you fear death?

-No, no, no.

-Why not?

No, no, I don't fear death at all.

When the time comes, well, I know we'll all have to go and that's it.

So I've got a serious illness now, what should my attitude be?

Well, just keep pegging on, pretend you haven't got a serious illness,

pretend you haven't illness at all.

Just do what you do normally every day

and you'll find it'll work out all right.

-Great advice.

-Yes, yes, yes.

-Put it out at the back of your mind.

Out the way, the back of your mind altogether.

-Pretend you haven't got it at all.

-Keep laughing.

-Keep laughing, keep happy.

-Can I keep coming back?

-You can keep coming back if you like.

THEY LAUGH

The illness that I'm living with at the moment is an incurable cancer,

it's myeloma which is one of the blood cancers so, yeah,

there are days when you put it to the back of your mind

and you have to and get on with it.

And yeah, the joy of waking up to every fresh day is good

and you get on.

And there's lots to motivate. You live your live life at a higher level

when you have a life threatening illness, no question,

and there's an intensity to what you do

and the pleasures that you draw from things.

Simple sights, sounds, smells.

You're going "Oh, look, oh that's just lovely." Yeah.

We're all going to fall off our perch at some point

it's just when it's closer than you think then you,

then you get more from life in a very strange way.

so, your film Life's Too Short,

does that have much more resonance for you now?

Yes, yes, I mean, there's an irony now of course in that,

having made a film at a cancer hospice

that I'm aware of cancer and its effects on people etc, so, yes,

I'm living with the irony of having made that film.

It's enlightened me, but, hey...

That's life.

-You getting back to your old self, pal?

-Aye.

-That's good.

Back to the Evelyn I knew.

Maybe tomorrow you'll be up out your bed. You're looking better.

-Eh?

-And your eyes are more wider and a lot brighter.

Aye, you're looking, you're talking and all that now

whereas you couldnae talk. You wouldnae talk.

-I tell you, I feel a lot better.

-You feel it now, you feel a lot better.

You feel a lot better.

-I feel like myself.

-You feel like yourself now?

If that doesnae sound a bit stupid.

No, it doesnae sound stupid because you were in a state

when you got brought in.

And we were touching on taboos, you know, very, sailing,

not close to the wind,

but we were looking at an area of life which is difficult

for people to watch and listen to.

So we were aware of that and trying to make that,

accessible to an audience.

What taboos?

The taboo of death. You know, it's not something that

should be done lightly. but it's not often done on television.

Surely it must be depressing working here?

It can be, aye, because you can get attached to a patient

if you know them and that, cos Sharon used to work

in the wards as well. So you get used to the families,

you get used to the patients but everybody's nice,

it's actually quite a happy place to work in,

it's no' depressing.

You don't want to make it depressing, do you know what I mean?

Patients, maybe the relatives come down for a cup of tea. They're looking for someone,

like a smile and, "How are you?"

And the lassies, the chefs they go up when it's

special diets they talk to the patients their self.

We felt very proud of that film

because we achieved levels of access and intimacy which I'm

intensely proud of today.

For me it was a fundamentally very deep and it was a difficult film

to make, no question of that, it drew on all our emotions to open

ourselves up to people and for people to open up to us at a time,

at a very difficult time of life.

It's been fabulous making this film.

I've thoroughly enjoyed it, the trip back, the discoveries,

the relationships.

And in making this film, I've realised that a lot of the films

I've made have a value, that's very rewarding, very rewarding.

So maybe my films and my stills are my legacy if you like,

my gift to the world

and because they reflect the way I look at the world

and the way I look at the human spirit

so I can't ask for more than that.

Other than possibly the chance to live a little longer

because I feel I've still got so much more to give.

But the characters, the tales,

the experiences, what a privilege!

There's nothing more to be said really.

End of story.

I think a good documentary opens eyes,

often takes people into a physical place

or an emotional journey that they could not possibly witness.

So that is the great satisfaction for a film maker, is taking an audience

into meet people

who have just great tales to tell.

And so to take a camera in and record that and tell it back

and show people, I think, is just fabulous.

People have never stopped loving documentaries because they educate,

they illustrate, they illuminate...life.

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