Episode 2 Real Lives Reunited

Extraordinary stories from a shared past.

There was 12 people on board the aircraft that day.

Six of us made it, six of us didn't.

Bonds forged in tragedy...

-SHE SOBS

-Sorry.

..and triumph.

THEY CHEER

The little girl that you helped 15 years ago...

'Brought together by fate.'

It's just overwhelmed me a little bit.

'But separated by time.'

God, where did all those years go?!

'Decades on, we reunite them.'

The Northern Irish are well-known for their generosity

when it comes to charity.

And so it was when an appeal to help girls in an orphanage

thousands of miles away was answered.

The kindness and self-sacrifice of a group of volunteers then

would change the lives of the young orphans forever.

January 1999,

and a Belfast-based charity received shocking photographs of neglect and

deprivation at a children's home in Moldova.

The charity Romanian Connection had already been helping orphans in that

country, but its director, Karen Kelly,

couldn't ignore the terror of these images.

It really was heartbreaking.

It was like these kids had just...

..given up.

You know, nobody was ever going to lift them up, talk to them, you know.

That's what it felt like.

You just can't walk away from this, it's terrible.

The call went out to churches, schools and communities for help.

Within three weeks, they'd collected a warehouse full of aid,

from beans to boilers and jumpers to jerry cans.

Even after years of charity work,

Karen Kelly was taken back by the kindness.

It's unbelievable how generous people will be.

Whenever you get an old-age pensioner walking up to you and

handing you a black bag, and said, "There's a few things for the children,"

and you open it and there's ten brand-new coats out of Dunnes in it and ten brand-new pairs of pyjamas.

Now all they needed were the volunteers to go to Moldova.

Electrician Colin Kenny was one of the first to step forward.

For some reason it just clicked.

You hear the advertisements all the time,

and for some reason this one hit me in the gut.

Local haulage firms offered their trucks and drivers.

Among them, McCulla Transport, and son Ashley was up for the adventure.

I didn't really know much about Moldova at the time.

I knew where it was geographically.

It was more the excitement of helping,

being involved in...

I'm from a trucking background,

so a convoy's quite a fun thing to be involved in.

Nobody can prepare you for what you're going into.

It's all right telling stories,

but until you actually physically see and smell and hear the noises,

you could not be prepared for it.

It is extremely harrowing.

There wasn't a life for the kids.

They were animals in...

Really treated like animals in cages.

The unique trip would be filmed by documentary-maker Jeremy Higham.

We didn't realise that we were stepping into a project

that would take two years to complete,

impact everybody's life who took part, and end up being

an international BBC documentary that went all over the world.

A convoy of seven trucks packed with the much-needed aid left for Hincesti in Moldova.

Nothing could have prepared the volunteers for what they'd encounter.

There was no lights on whatsoever.

We pulled in, the director came out to meet us.

And then we were led into the orphanage.

'First, we are taken into Block A.

'There is heating in these rooms.

'The girls seem relatively healthy compared to the photographs we've seen.

'As we go down into Block B, however, the situation is very different.

'There is no heating whatsoever here.

'The stench of human waste is overwhelming.'

It was like something from a horror picture.

It was like one of them islands of Dr Moreau,

where you go in and hear the screaming, and it's freezing cold.

It was -16, there was no heating.

And the girls were all cuddled in the corner.

It was horrendous, absolutely horrendous.

I've never seen anything like it in my life,

and I've been in many orphanages in Romania.

And I'd never seen anything as bad as that.

It was utterly shocking.

The only thing that kept me going was, when I had the camera in my hand,

I really felt like it was a weapon and it was like,

"I am going to tell this bloody story."

Because I don't think otherwise I could've coped with it, I really don't.

I think there's a couple of rooms we've been in here that they actually

would have asked us not to go into if we had have asked for permission.

When they open the shutters and you see, you've maybe got six or eight cots,

and the kids were in them, and they were lying in their own, erm, dirt,

basically, and it was just horrible, it was horrible.

'For some of the volunteers,

'their encounter with the children is hard to bear.

'Some break down, others are physically sick.'

Oh, it's disgusting.

Shocked by what they'd seen,

the volunteers were more determined than ever to try to do what they could

to make life better for the girls.

This place is going to be right.

I don't care how long it takes, it is going to be put right.

I want to see these kids up, healthy,

and I want to give them a start in life.

They're not going to be the dregs of the earth any more.

These kids are going to have a life.

'The first task is to rip out the old heating system in Block B.'

ELECTRIC SAW AND HAMMERING

But the poor state of the heating was just part of the problem.

It soon became obvious those in charge at the home weren't in any rush to

get the much-needed aid out to the children.

The home's director insisted he had to do an inventory check on every item

before it could be released from his stores.

'Six days have passed, and the counting hasn't even begun.'

And then we came across a door which was locked.

It seemed strange why this door's locked.

With a new padlock on it.

So, drivers being drivers,

we took a wee liberty ourselves to look inside this room.

And just seen loads of food, loads of food there.

There was fresh food which was rotting.

There was cans of food.

There was loads of food. Yet the night we arrived they were getting fed

like what you would only call gruel.

Very, very angry.

Uh...

We would have hung him up if there had have been gallows there,

if we'd have been allowed to do it.

Forced to wait on the director to release the food,

the volunteers decide to take things into their own hands.

They remove the bedding and clothes, and, in a highly contentious move,

burn the lot.

The kids'll just go straight back into these clothes if we don't do it.

And they'll take all the brand-new clothes to one side,

which isn't what you want.

These clothes were sent out for these kids to wear.

Just opened up the back doors of the lorry and started carrying all the beds in.

We worked late into the night there,

getting all the beds in and getting the kids into comfortable, clean beds.

-That was a great day.

-HE LAUGHS

That was brilliant, that was a super, super day.

-Even the girls were helping us.

-HE LAUGHS

The risk was worth taking.

Unable to resist any further, the storerooms full of food were unlocked.

Yes, seeing the girls getting fresh beds, fresh linen, fresh food,

that was, aw, totally unbelievable.

But that wasn't all.

The volunteers wanted to leave a legacy of their trip.

Building a play room and filling it with toys so generously donated by

people back home.

It was great, it was great.

You know, just giving a child a teddy bear, a dolly, or, you know,

a little bracelet or whatever, I mean,

they were all over the moon, cos they didn't have anything of their own.

And you could see the hope on the nurses' faces as well.

It was a sense that this long, cold, winter was over.

And all this hope was breaking out.

Colin would return to the home later that year to work for nine months.

Karen and other members of the charity lobbied the Moldovan government for change.

Eventually the director was removed from his post and a new regime put in place.

# We'll never get over the girls of Moldova... #

The BBC broadcast the award-winning documentary in 2000.

The hard-hitting story would create ripples that would lead to great

changes at the Hincesti home.

# We have plenty and much more to spare... #

Neither Colin nor Jeremy have been back at the home since.

Today they will make that emotional return journey.

Hi, Jez!

-MUFFLED:

-How are you, bud? Good to see you.

Yeah, really good. I see you've lost all of that...

-You're getting a nice colour like I am.

-Seeing your face does take me back.

Yeah, back into the place again.

-It's going to be interesting going back.

-Yes.

It really is good to see you.

Coming up later in the programme...

The pair see first-hand what became of the girls that so touched their lives.

MUSIC: Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss

Paraffin Pencil, the Rocket and the Great White.

A plane so special, one name wasn't ever enough.

Concorde, the supersonic, record-shattering speed machine.

-ARCHIVE:

-It is without doubt the most beautiful aircraft ever to evolve from the mind of man.

But this form of 12-mile-high luxury travel was only for the

super rich, celebrities, and royalty.

LOUD ENGINES

That was until May 1983,

when the supersonic aeroplane made a unique detour here to Belfast's

International Airport.

This time her passengers would be very different.

Winners of a competition run by the Belfast Telegraph.

Ordinary people on an extraordinary trip of a lifetime.

On board that day to look after the passengers was Belfast-born BA purser

Margaret Dolan.

Suddenly a celebrity in her own home town.

What did you feel like when the aircraft arrived over Northern Ireland?

It was the most exciting moment, for me, of my life,

to actually come home on that fabulous aeroplane.

Margaret Dolan worked with British Airways for 25 years,

nine of them on Concorde travelling at high speed all over the world.

But this trip, the first out of Belfast,

was one she was determined to be part of.

I spoke to a person and said,

"I would love, love to be on that flight."

You were going to be on that flight come hell or high water?

Because I was flying into my own home on this beautiful aeroplane.

And the captain very kindly, I don't think he had much of a choice,

poor man, but he let me sit in the flight deck for landing.

So, you know, I came in and I could see the whole thing.

It was just wonderful.

One of those excitedly waiting to board was nine-year-old Gillian Caroe,

the youngest of the competition winners.

I guess I was maybe a bit of a nerdy kid, and I loved wordsearches,

which was all fine, except when I was filling out the bit when it said

your name and address, there was a little line saying,

"You must be over 18 to enter this competition."

I said to my granny, "Oh, I need you to fill something in for me,"

so she filled it in, gave me a stamp,

and I remember going off and putting it in the postbox.

The determined young Gillian thought nothing more of the competition

entry, until her mum took a phone call to the house one morning.

She burst into my bedroom and she goes, "You'll never believe it, you've won, you've won!"

And I said, "Won what?"

And she goes, "You're going to Concorde, you've won the Belfast Telegraph competition!"

The wordsearch competition wasn't the only way to secure one of the

Concorde golden tickets.

Newspaper boys with the highest sales that year were also in with a chance

of a seat on the supersonic flight.

In 1983 I was 14,

I was a paperboy in round the Cavehill Road area.

A young entrepreneur in the making,

Mark Magee threw himself at the challenge.

The more new customers you got who were taking the home delivery,

the people who got the highest qualified for prizes within the competition.

But the high-flying salesboy wasn't eyeing up the top prize.

He had his sights on one of the more down-to-earth prices.

I think at the time there was a Walkman or a TV or stereo as the second prize,

and I think that's what I was aiming to try and get.

When I won the Concorde trip, I was a bit, it sounds daft, but I was a bit disappointed.

I think I was more interested in a Walkman than I was, at the time, of going on Concorde.

But in Carrickfergus, one of the other winners, newsagent Jim Simms,

had no such disappointment at winning the top prize.

-Hello!

-Hello, you must be Jim?

-I am indeed.

-I'm Jo, lovely to meet you.

-Come on in.

-Oh, super.

'My newsboy, Norman McKeown,

'he came out tops.'

What did he do? Was he bribing him?

JIM LAUGHS

Possibly, yes!

So, as the newsagent, then, how did you come to benefit from his increase in sales?

-Because I employed him.

-Right. HE LAUGHS

And was it a big deal to go on Concorde, then?

Oh, fantastic. It was the first time Concorde had ever been to Northern Ireland.

And it was just massive.

It created a lot of fuss.

-ARCHIVE:

-Concorde's distinctive shape loomed out of the skies at around

half past eight in the morning.

And a perfect landing.

There were people along the road in cars, and waving and who had banners

and cameras and I remember tapping my granny going,

"Who are all these people? What are they doing?"

And she said, "They're all here to see Concorde."

So, I started waving back. I just thought, "Wow, golly, it must be a really big deal."

When I walked down the steps I felt like the Pope.

I wanted to kiss the ground.

SHE LAUGHS

I remember, outside the plane,

everybody gathering and getting organised for group photographs.

There just seemed to be endless amount of photographs on the day.

Champagne reception on the Concorde.

More champagne.

Getting on to that plane, what was going through your mind?

Just, my head was buzzing, as much as anything.

HE LAUGHS

It was just the excitement of the whole trip.

# Don't stop me now

# Don't stop me

# Cos I'm having a good time, having a good time... #

Then 72 of the luckiest people in Northern Ireland that day boarded

Concorde's inaugural flight out of Belfast.

That takeoff was just a jolt and a thrust.

You just got fired back in your seat.

I think I expected it to be really noisy, and what struck me was it was

very, very quiet.

We were really well looked after and the memorable thing was,

obviously, you know, when you're in the cockpit, as a 14-year-old you see all the buttons and the lights.

It was exciting at the time.

There was a kind of dial, and it showed you when you are going at the

speed of sound and I remember, you know, people going up and standing beside it and

having their photograph taken.

We went up to Iceland...

..and we reached Mach Two.

-ARCHIVE:

-At a height of 55,000 feet, Mach Two, twice the speed of sound,

1,350mph.

And then there was a big cheer whenever it hit Mach Two.

At supersonic speed they'd reached Paris in time for lunch -

all expenses paid, of course.

Margaret Dolan was in her element among her own people,

showing them her world.

Cos these people were not "Concorde passengers."

They were ordinary people. They could have been my next-door neighbour.

I sat beside my granny and I remember there was a lovely air hostess called,

I think, Margaret was her name.

Really beautiful lady whose hair was just,

I had never seen anybody whose hair was so fancy, it was lovely.

And, she was the one person who,

A, who I remember really vividly and who summed up the day for me in a way.

She was just so beautifully presented and really made me feel special.

Um...

Out of everybody she's the person that I'd remember most and, yeah, would love to meet again.

And today she'll get the chance to do just that.

The Ulster Aviation Society's museum a perfect setting

for this trip down memory lane.

Some of the people that you looked after on that flight

back in May 1983, so well I might say, are here.

-They're not here?

-They're just over there.

I won't.. They'll be expecting me as I looked 33 years ago.

Oh, sure, you're gorgeous, don't be daft.

MARGARET LAUGHS

So, look, go over and have a quick word with him.

And I'm sure they would all like to say a big thank you to you.

-So, I'll leave you...

-Just over there at that table?

-Just over there.

Good luck. JO LAUGHS

Give us a hug, you'll be all right.

MARGARET LAUGHS

Thank you.

Right.

Waiting to meet the former purser,

those special passengers from more than three decades ago -

Gillian, Mark and Jim.

I don't expect you to remember me after 33 years.

I do, Margaret.

-You do not. Do you?

-I do, hello.

It's Gillian, only I was a wee bit smaller then.

-You weren't the one that was sitting in 11D with your granny?

-GILLIAN LAUGHS

I don't know if it was 11D, but it definitely was my granny.

It was the first seat in the second cabin?

-Yes, uh-huh.

-11D.

There you go, you remembered.

You haven't changed.

I hope I've changed a wee bit, Margaret.

You really haven't. I'm so delighted,

I didn't think I would recognise anybody.

That's amazing. Great memory.

Gosh, I do remember that day, it was one of the best days of my life.

It really was, it was lovely.

I do remember you, and I remember your granny.

Ach, that's lovely.

-Cos I remember... Do you remember what she said to me?

-No.

She said to me, "This is the first time I've ever been in an aeroplane."

And for it to be Concorde...

-And I said, "Well, there's nothing like starting at the top."

-THEY LAUGH

-Is that right?

-Did you always work on Concorde?

No, no, no. Oh, no.

I worked on Concorde for nine years.

I flew on other aeroplanes.

For goodness' sake, I'm so old,

when I started flying they were nearly flapping their wings.

LAUGHTER

-I was only a child at the time, I was only 14 at the time.

-14?

-Yeah.

Are you here?

-That's me here.

-That's you? Crikey!

-Some difference.

-That's you, is it?

-That's Mark.

-And that's me.

-Oh, for goodness' sake.

-I loved everything about Concorde,

but that day,

the thing that sticks in my memory was walking up and down the aeroplane

and hearing all the Northern Ireland voices.

LAUGHTER

It was fabulous.

Isn't it lovely to have been a part of it?

-Yes.

-Absolutely, to have had that privilege.

Really, it was really terrific.

Happy memories of a really happy trip,

when just for one day, Belfast played host to that great icon of the skies.

Concorde stopped flying back in 2003, but for Jim, Mark, Gillian and, of course,

Margaret, memories of flying supersonic style will never be grounded.

In 2000 the BBC broadcast a documentary about an orphanage in Moldova.

The harrowing reality of life for the children the cameras filmed

would have a wide reaching impact on many of those who'd watched it.

And for those involved, like charity worker Colin Kenny,

and the film-maker Jeremy Higham,

their experiences at the Hincesti home would change their lives forever.

You've seen what life was like on the other side of the world where people

were struggling to make ends meet.

And I found it very difficult to settle back into normal life again.

Colin and some of the other members of the Belfast charity would spend

the next year working at the home trying to make life better for the girls.

But that meant leaving his own family behind.

It really did take its toll,

I kind of went down the road of drink for a while.

Alcohol just compounds the problem.

And we ended up getting divorced and everyone went their own way.

Once you hit rock bottom you have to decide on your own,

"It's time to stop here and start again."

-So, everything's back on track again.

-HE LAUGHS

That whole year was a massive life change for me.

When I began this journey I was a very atheistic

Channel 4 director on the rise.

By the time I'd finished I was an utterly sold-out, born-again Christian.

And I think there was something about the experience of the orphanage that unlocked that.

16 years on, they return to the place of their nightmares.

This... This is beyond my wildest dreams, it truly is.

-This...

-HE SOBS

Sorry...

HE CRIES

This is...

This is glorious!

Super, fantastic.

Thank you, God. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

THEY LAUGH

I want to feel every raw emotion that I can.

Yeah.

-Chalk, cheese!

-It's like a reward for all the hard work - raw emotion.

The only thing I can say is I don't know how I feel.

I've blocked that out at the moment.

-Here we go.

-Here we go.

Come on in.

After all these years, they've no idea what to expect.

Noroc.

Noroc, Elizabeth.

Worker back then, but now the director in charge,

Elizabeth Yakob is waiting to greet them.

THEY TALK IN ROMANIAN

OK, OK.

Even from the outside it's clear things have really changed here.

-Do you mind if we just walk...?

-Yes, no problem.

You can tell it's not being put on. It's real.

The other thing I feel, so it's a feeling that it's been refreshed that

immediate, but also it's a spirit of playfulness here.

Yes. The spirit's completely changed.

There was no sense of playfulness at all in this place.

There was a sense of survival.

It feels like the windows have been opened at last and there's some oxygen in this place.

It's like a holiday villa now.

You'd be proud to go to this in Spain and stay for your two weeks' holiday.

There is no words that can explain what has been done here.

It's just beyond, it's beyond miraculous.

This room is absolutely glowing with life.

It is absolutely amazing.

It's got plants, it's got colour, individuality, it's fresh, it's just...

It's joyful, being in here.

All day the emotions keep rising,

and then you see something new and incredible, and there's, like,

a new surprise round every door.

PIG SNORTS

This is incredible.

A self-sufficient food farm.

It smells like a hotel in here.

This food is truly amazing.

To see this place now, in the hands of somebody who looks like

they can naturally care for children and run a team, is very reassuring.

HE LAUGHS

What had begun as a convoy of aid from the people of Northern Ireland led

to an expose that would spur others into helping in ways they could have

only have dreamed of.

A Dublin charity, Outreach Moldova,

was established and to this day it continues to work alongside the Moldovan Government,

bringing volunteers and staff to the orphanage.

Their aim - to take proper care of these girls.

In my heart, now, I feel I have a phrase from the Bible for you guys.

"Well done, good and faithful servants."

"Well done, good and faithful servants."

Never stop doing good things.

Yeah.

And there's one more good thing in store for the pair -

still at the home, some of those girls, now young adults,

that they remember from their time here.

Does she remember me?

-Yes.

-I remember you.

I just keep looking at faces and thinking, "hang on, hang on a minute,

"hang on, yes!"

And these are girls that appear in the shots of this just tragic film that we'd made.

THEY SHOUT WITH JOY

JEREMY LAUGHS

And suddenly here we are, standing in the sunshine,

and they've made it through the other side, you know,

and in some way we found our way back here, and...

Just...

Quite an amazing experience.

LAUGHTER

These are my girls! Look how old they are!

Just, it's just...

It's night and day, black and white, evil and good -

whatever way you want to put it, whatever knowledge you want to use.

It's the complete opposite of when we left.

And that's good.

-The song the guys sang when we were here, do you remember?

-Yeah!

COLIN LAUGHS