Episode 3 The Travelling Picture Show

The Travelling Picture Show is out on the road again,

visiting towns and villages right across Northern Ireland

and reliving our past through home movies.

It's lovely to see the films again,

because those are the days that you forget.

It brings a lot back and you think how lucky you were

and how happy and content we should have been in those days.

Road racing is unique.

You're racing the like of Cookstown

down the centre of the main street,

which is a huge, wide street,

and then you move on to Mackney Bridge

and you go over an iron bridge that's only maybe ten feet wide.

It's very, very exciting.

Today, we're going to meet the people who took the films

and people with a story to tell.

At that time, you had to get it developed, wait on it,

get the projector out, set up your screen.

That was the whole glory about it,

you know, there was a wee bit of magic about it.

Hello, and welcome to Lissan House in Cookstown,

a very substantial and impressive country residence,

and it's been the home of the Staples family for 400 years.

It's beautifully set in 250 acres of woodland.

Now, the last in the Staples family was Hazel,

who died back in 2006,

and it was Hazel's absolute passion

that this house would be restored to its former glory,

and that the past would be kept alive. If you think about it,

that's exactly what we do on this programme,

so welcome to the Travelling Picture Show.

This time we're in County Tyrone,

one of the most beautiful but least-known parts of the North.

The landscape is impressive. No wonder, then,

that people born and reared here feel the tug of the place.

It's a lovely part of the country.

You can travel the world, but really, there's nothing like home.

And home to Fred is this farm, just outside Cookstown.

This land has been farmed, lived in and lived off for generations.

This goes back to around the mid-'50s

and it was shot just across in the fields across the road here,

by an old 8mm cine camera which we hadn't a clue how to use.

It was my father, my two brothers,

myself, and another chap, a schoolfriend.

It shows making hay.

Now, that was building the hay in the shape of a hayrick.

This would have been a forerunner to baling the hay.

You could move them up the field, around, whatever,

or perhaps put them in a lovely row.

I remember my father saying, you know, "We are on the road here."

Now, this was way back in the '50s and there wasn't much traffic,

but it's like, if you did something,

you built a corn stack or you build a hayrick or whatever,

what would the neighbours think if it wasn't right?

It would have to look properly.

I suppose they paid more attention to detail, as perhaps maybe not today,

but in a way farming was totally different.

I think it's great to see times past,

the things that are in it, to look at those.

That was Work spelt with a capital W.

It was all we ever knew. That was farming, that was life.

But it wasn't all work and no play.

Cricket was a fascination.

We came in for lunch.

That was the time when it was black and white television

and I suppose the test matches were on and we'd watch the test matches,

then we'd come out, try our skills here.

And I'm sitting on this wall. This was the boundary.

The other little hedge on the other side was a boundary as well.

The skills weren't great, now.

The dog was an important part because the dog was a fielder.

If the ball did stray over the fence or whatever,

that dog fetched it back.

A bit of recreation, I suppose, a bit of a break from work in those days.

We only remember the good days, the sunny days, the bright days.

It was just something that maybe sticks in one's memory.

Good memories are a gift that keeps on giving,

just like this footage of Cookstown

getting ready for its annual road race.

The Cookstown 100 was formed in... I think it was 1922,

and it may have missed a year or two during the War

but other than that it's gone on ever since.

It's been held on different circuits,

during that time there've been three or four circuits used.

They need an awful lot of supporters

to run the like of the Cookstown 100,

marshals at every corner, at every junction,

so you need a lot of help

and if the help comes from a certain area,

they want the race in that area,

so that's how it's come to change over the years.

Raymond was brought to watch the races as a young boy

and this ignited his lifelong appetite for the sport.

After I left school, I first of all brought a Norton

and from there, then, in the early '60s,

I bought bikes similar to what's behind me here, AGS and Norton,

but only raced for maybe a couple of years

and then I was out of it for a couple of years,

and back, then I came back for a couple of years.

Not a long time racing, but I enjoyed it.

Road racing is unique.

Most racing across in the UK are on short circuits,

where there's a lot of safety control there,

but in road races, where you're racing the like of Cookstown

down the centre of the main street, which is a huge, wide street,

and the next thing, you go down the Drum straight,

maybe two mile of a straight,

then you move on to Mackney Bridge and you go over an iron bridge

that's only maybe no more than ten feet wide.

It's all the different aspects of the course.

You've got to be so alert all the time.

In a short circuit, if you do make a mistake or come off,

you usually have a run-out area or something like that there,

but if you make a mistake in road racing, you're in against a hedge

or a fence or a house or something like that there.

And I think that's what draws people over here to race.

They come here because of the excitement of racing on the roads.

People would say it's very dangerous

but it's only as dangerous as the person that's on the bike.

Cookstown was very, very good because they catered for everyone.

They catered for the cross-channel riders, they had a section,

the local riders had sections

where they could have won prizes as well, so it catered for everyone.

At one time, you would have had maybe 70, 80 riders.

It's got more professional now. In the '60s, the like of Len Ireland,

who was a very, very good rider.

He rode the bike to the Cookstown 100 and then raced it.

Now they're in transporters at 30 and 40 thousand,

but that's the way things have changed.

I would say it's as strong now as ever,

and they have plenty of support.

And so from a landmark event to a landmark building.

This is Lissan House.

This BBC film was made over 20 years ago

and it's a beautiful observation of Hazel Radcliffe Dolling,

a glorious celebration of her life,

a life she lived with both joy and regret, but above all,

a passion to see Lissan House restored to its former glory.

I was born here in the big bedroom at the front of the house.

'I have neither sense of duty to the house nor commitment.

'It's love, it's just love.'

Come on.

'It's a sense of love, it's a sense of belonging.

'I lived alone for a long, long time'

and I came home in every sense of the word when I came back here.

The golden thread which ties us all to this place

is unbroken throughout the centuries.

I have to say, it's a fascinating house just to wander around

and see all that social history.

I've just been to have a look at Hazel's bedroom.

It's pretty well exactly as she left it, apparently, in 2006,

but what I find really interesting is that when Hazel died

she decided to leave the house and the estate to the community,

and so nowadays, a group of 16 people in a trust, they run it

and they meet once a month

to decide how exactly they're going to improve the house.

Hazel would have loved that.

They've already reroofed it, they've rendered the outside,

which makes it beautiful as you drive up the drive,

but already, of course, they have plans to have a tea room.

Everyone wants a cup of tea

when they come to wander around the grounds or the house,

and only yesterday, they had their very first wedding,

so I can see that is going to be a thing of the future,

so many plans to make this house very accessible,

everybody remembering, of course, Hazel.

Raymond, when I was watching the film,

it's quite interesting about the Cookstown 100

because there aren't that many races like that left, are there?

There's maybe about 12 altogether in North and South.

-They used to have some in Portrush, didn't they?

-They still have one there, yeah.

And you ended up with one of the prettiest girls in Ireland,

-didn't you?

-I'm very lucky, yeah.

I recognise Helen because we went to school together.

We did, Gloria. We'll not tell them how long it was ago.

-Isn't that good? At least we recognise each other.

-Absolutely.

You haven't changed today.

So what did you think of the film when you saw it?

I thought it was excellent, Gloria. Great for Cookstown as well.

-Well done.

-Lovely to see all that social history, isn't it?

Absolutely, yes. It's nice that it's remembered.

I've got an idea, actually, for Has Ulster Got Talent?

Because I think that Darkie is just a gem. That dog.

-How did you train Darkie?

-Wait till I tell you,

that little dog was brought home in the middle of the night

from a next-door neighbour we were down visiting,

and my younger brother bought this little pup home

and my parents were all horrified,

this little thing, a totally useless dog,

but it turned out quite well, yes.

I really loved watching the haymaking as well,

because my grandmother had a farm.

-Yes.

-And we used to go on the hay shift,

-but it was like the shift that picked up the haystack.

-Yep.

And we sat on the end of it, but I'd never seen

-one of those sort of machines before.

-Those are very rare, Gloria.

Those are very rare. They were made about the '50s

and there were only a few made in Northern Ireland,

but they were brilliant. They were a great innovation, really.

Because really, up until then,

-people just stacked it manually, didn't they?

-Yes,

but then when those were turned upside down

and the finished product was beautifully manicured,

you had a row of ricks, so it looked very well.

And how do you feel when you watch all that old footage?

Oh, it brings back... The only thing is a pity

my parents or somebody weren't there to watch it.

But really fascinated by it, to see it again.

It's got a kind of an innocence and fun about it, hasn't it?

I think it brings back a lot of memories

and people looking back can smile

and reflect on what probably... what life was like years ago.

I've a funny feeling you always smile, Fred.

Well, I don't know!

Anyway, thanks for turning up today. Great to see you all.

From the splendour of Lissan

to the mythical beauty of Beaghmore Stone Circles,

and it seems that our picture show

wasn't the first one to travel through the Glenelly Valley.

Years ago, there used to be a man come around this valley here

with a wee trailer on his car

and inside it he had a portable cine outfit

and he showed films in the parochial halls and places.

I remember going to watch Laurel and Hardy a long time ago in Cranagh Hall

and we paid our two shillings to get in to watch it,

but I think that started me off.

I bought a cine camera whenever I was a young fella

and any weddings I went to or any activity was on around the place,

I took a wee film of it,

so I wasn't a professional, I was probably a novice at it,

you know, so it was a great interest,

and because of my work, I was working on the farm,

I never took it up full-time.

I'd have loved to have been a cameraman,

but any of the weddings I went to, I took a film of them.

See, once you took a cine camera out, everybody run away. That's a fact.

Whenever you point the camera at them, they turned their head,

so you couldn't get a face shot,

so I went to two or three chapels,

or two or three weddings up in Cranagh Chapel,

and I got craftier for that,

so I stood out at the gate and I started to film anonymously,

you know, amongst them, as we say here.

The last time I took a film I would say is over 25 years ago.

In fact, it was very costly to do filming that time,

because I think I bought a film from Alfred or Kodak

and it would have cost a fiver, or maybe £5 or £6,

and you posted the film then in a wee yellow package

and you sent it over to Macclesfield and London,

and you had to wait then for maybe two or three weeks

for your film to come back.

You'd open this yellow packet, you pulled out your wee black reel,

and then you went that night, maybe that evening, didn't wait till night,

get the projector out, get everything cleaned up in the kitchen

and set up your screen.

That was the whole glory about it,

you know, there was a wee bit of magic about it.

The films were Super 8mm, no sound,

so you had to improvise your own imagination when you watched it.

People were amazed at it, you know?

I'm not in any of them films

because I'm taking most of them or all of them.

Oh, I forgot about that. My wife actually took one one time.

I clipped a few sheep, or I clipped one sheep,

so my wife, Philomena, she held the camera and I done the clipping,

but I suppose I never thought about that, you know,

because I didn't trust anybody maybe with the camera,

that they'd be doing the right thing, you know?

I think Philomena did a very good job because... I was the film star.

As well as taking weddings and other things,

I took the farm as well.

My nephews were down,

that was a great time, that time in the summertime,

they would come down from Greencastle and stay,

help me with the silage, the silage making,

so as you can see in one of the films,

where they're really enjoying themselves, you know.

And then whenever they came down every weekend

I'd get the projector out, stick the thing up on the wall

and make sure that they could see themselves, you know,

the film stars at them times.

Another very keen filmmaker from the Glenelly Valley was John McFarland.

My husband was the local doctor

and this whole area was like home to him.

Plumbridge was a very nice place to grow up.

There wasn't really much for people to do,

but you were very friendly with your neighbours

and went to the local school. You had the children

for parties and things like that.

It was idyllic growing up here.

I went to school locally here at primary school,

and in those days the world was slower

and the countryside always seemed to be more luscious than it is now,

and generally an idyllic childhood.

My father took the films.

He got interested, I think, in the early '50s.

The first record we have, I think, is from 1953.

He was very keen on photography of all sorts.

Sometimes it could be quite annoying when...

..when you are doing something you didn't want to be seen again.

One particular black and white is of my mother and my Aunt Olive

and my Aunt Rita with their husbands climbing what's called The Moat,

and The Moat is just over my right shoulder here

and there's a little cairn on top of it

and you can see the cairn in the film

and they decided to do an expedition up to the top of The Moat,

and you can see them again,

fairly tired, I think, by the time they got to the top.

There's lots of taking the sweaters off

and flopping on the ground in the film.

The family, when they arrived, they were always being filmed.

Learning to walk, and that type of thing.

What's interesting, of course, is that it's nearly always sunshine,

and I suppose that's probably because he only took the camera out when it was sunny.

We have photographs of us on the lawn here and around the house.

At that time, a lot more time, I think, was spent on flowers,

so the gardens were very colourful.

He took film of the local sheep shows.

He took film out and about.

Anything new that came out,

he always was the first to have it, to see what it was like,

and I think he enjoyed taking them

because he enjoyed socialising, you know, with the locals.

The local Orange Hall is just behind us, beside the house here,

and there's another one about a mile up the road,

and originally, back in the '50s, the band at Eden, just up the road,

would march all the way to Plumbridge, join the Plumbridge band

and they would take the bus.

They walked down mornings they were going somewhere,

so he usually was down at the gate to take the photographs.

I had an uncle who was a drummer in Eden band,

and he had sort of lent me a little tiny drum

and of course, like all children,

every opportunity to bash a drum,

and so there's the slightly embarrassing film

of me drumming up at Eden Mills,

which is up at my grandfather's home.

You know, often the sweetest recollections are triggered

by a scent or a sound

or, in the case of The Travelling Picture Show,

films of weddings.

Very often, he filmed people who were local to Plumbridge here

or where the wedding was taking place in one of the churches here,

and for their sake he would have taken these.

I remember John taking my picture,

pictures of everybody at the wedding.

He took one of me and the wind was so great

that it took the veil and put it nearly off my head.

He was always taking pictures

of every time you were around the place, too,

and lots of times you weren't just in the mood

for having your picture taken,

but nonetheless he carried on.

I think it is probably more joyous as a time, the '50s and '60s,

in that we didn't have the troubles that we have at the moment

in terms of sort of money and all the other things that annoy families,

and I think people just had a much closer-knit community

and the result was that they were always joshing with each other.

I've an Auntie Caroline.

You'll see her right from 1953, I think, to the 1970s,

and every single wedding, her favourite thing was

to ambush somebody with an entire box of confetti

and film after film, my father catches her, his sister,

rushing around ambushing people, pouring confetti down their necks,

so it's quite amusing.

My father is normally taking the films,

but there are several occasions where he appears in them.

Originally, my mother would take these.

In the latter years, I took some of them.

He was always slightly self-effacing

and didn't like to appear in front of the camera,

but he's there in some of them

and, again, an enormous sense of humour and very jolly

and you can see him smiling,

and there's one in particular, on the lawn here,

where my aunt has loaded him up with my two sisters and myself,

all on top of his back,

and of course, he eventually buckled with the weight,

so it's quite interesting to see him

rolling around the garden here with the children.

Over recent years, I've shown it to my aunts and my mother regularly

because I think it's interesting for them

to just rekindle memories of their childhood

and when they were younger, and of course the weddings in particular

are full of the most amazing fashions of the 1950s and '60s

that you simply don't see any more,

and they find it very funny looking back on that,

saying, "I don't remember you having that dress," and this sort of thing,

so they have lots of fun watching them.

We find looking back at the pictures is very interesting,

and sometimes most amusing to see what we looked like years ago.

It's nice to have them.

Just to look back at the years that are gone, sort of thing,

and how you... It would be interesting, you know,

looking forward to see what you wore and things like that.

It's lovely to see my father and mother as they were years ago,

but I can hardly recall them just so active as they were in the films.

I think more of my mother when she was more of an invalid

and to see her walking around is really good to see in the pictures.

It's lovely to see the films again

because those are the days which you forget.

You have some memories of them,

but when you actually see the pictures it brings a lot back

and you think how lucky you were

and how happy and content we should have been in those days,

but probably, growing up, you're always looking ahead.

Aren't we so lucky that Dr John McFarland did look ahead

and filmed life here in Plumbridge and the Glenelly Valley,

and rendered it in loving detail?

I think my father would probably have been slightly embarrassed

because he was a very sort of modest, self-effacing man.

At one level he'd be thrilled, but I think he might be slightly worried

about people being critical about his technique on the camera.

Alan, I gather your father was the local doctor,

but why was he so interested in taking cine film?

He just got into it.

I think his brother-in-law was interested in film.

He got into it, and he went from black-and-white into colour

and has left us a wonderful legacy.

I know, I loved all the weddings.

He really captured the flavour of fashion and weddings at that time.

Yes, there's some wonderful footage of weddings, and the colour involved

and fashions that don't exist any more, and it's funny,

my children watch it and fall around the place laughing at their aunts

and great-aunts and all these wonderful, wonderful costumes.

How does it make you feel when you watch it?

Well, it's rather strange.

There's some footage of me as a very small child

and, of course, you suddenly realise

the passage of time has not been kind to any of us!

-Are you the drummer boy?

-I am, yes.

-I thought that was so sweet!

You looked like you were drumming away all by yourself

and nobody else around.

-And did you keep up drumming?

-No!

It was just something that happened at that stage.

What do you think the value is

of this kind of footage that's been well preserved?

I think it records a particular period of time

and indeed people and family who are long gone now,

so it's quite interesting just to see how things were then,

-a much simpler life.

-You know what strikes me?

When I look at the footage, everybody seems very happy.

It seemed to be very carefree.

Well, I think they were local communities,

and families lived fairly close to each other,

and weddings were a big, important occasion,

where even people who'd moved away came back,

and I think it was probably a much more joyous time

with fewer cares than we have today.

Well, at least the film has given your family, your children,

a bit of a laugh with you being the drummer boy.

Yes! They fall about laughing when they see that.

Thanks very much.

I'm afraid that's where we have to leave it from Lissan House.

I've really enjoyed a rather gentle look back

at life as it was in Mid-Ulster,

those who made the cine films and of course, those who starred in them,

particularly Darkie, the cricket-playing dog.

I still think he would have been a great contender for Has Britain Got Talent?

So from all of us here until next time, bye-bye.

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