School's Out Those Were the Days

For more than half a century,

the BBC has captured the changing face

of everyday life in Northern Ireland.

It all seems so innocent today but without these moments,

something of who we are now would be lost forever.

These are the archives, and those were the days.

It's completely invaluable to look back at film

because they take us back to another time.

Hearing people talk about their lives - that's priceless.

And we should be proud of the footage we have

of our people talking about their lives.

I think what those films do show you

is sometimes change is evolutionary but sometimes there is a huge leap.

Whether it was a good or a bad thing, those films tell us we have lived in interesting times.

MUSIC: "School Days" by Chuck Berry

# Up in the morning and out to school

# The teacher is teaching the golden rule... #

Fresh faced and raring to go,

these children are a product of the local school system, 1950's style.

And when BBC cameras came calling, they found boys and girls

aged 4 to 14 sharing the same classroom and the same teacher.

This style of education hadn't changed in over 100 years,

as footage of this small rural school in Scraghy, County Tyrone testifies.

It's a real culture shock to see such an old-fashioned school

and to see all the children crammed in to a very small area

and all the old-fashioned equipment.

And the very caustic comments about

how bad the old school was

for teaching and learning, which I don't think I agree with.

'This school was in use two months ago.

'It was not just dull, it was dismal

'and two rooms were crammed to overflowing also.'

# Back in the classroom open your books

# Gee but the teacher don't know how mean she looks... #

The discipline is something that strikes you

when you see all those old films from even 20 years ago,

let alone 30/40 years ago.

Some of these teachers had four sets of different aged young people.

Maybe 70 in a room.

Therefore, discipline was the only way in which you could handle that.

Things have changed greatly since the days when the teacher was the master.

Very often a man and very much revered in the community

and now not nearly like that.

Some schools even allow the children to address the teacher by their first name.

After the minister, the priest and the doctor, there was the teacher.

The idea of teaching then was, the teacher knew more than the children

so the teacher told the children what they needed to know

and they internalised and learnt it.

That's wrong, of course, because you don't learn by being told,

you learn by doing or by experimenting.

Education was completely unworkable.

That time was going through the readers in strict order

book one, book two, book three and you didn't get onto book three until you finished book two.

So, they were able to read. Apart from that,

the standard of education they reached was very questionable.

So the system as a whole was completely flawed.

It was clear the local education system needed a complete overhaul.

And here in Moss-Side village in County Antrim,

a somewhat rustic way of life

was jettisoned in favour of a progressive building programme

whose star pupil was this shiny new school.

What was most interesting about this school building film

was there was a firm belief that if you changed the buildings,

that would make a difference.

The curriculum didn't feature at all in any way.

What was actually being taught didn't seem to have any significance.

It focused entirely on the notion that, if we change these buildings, it's going to be better.

There is a point where they go to the new building

and the narrator says, you can see already that these children are cleaner.

What was really interesting for me was, when you looked at their faces,

they were still bored out of their heads.

They were cleaner but didn't care any more about what was going on in the classroom,

because the curriculum had not been addressed.

'One almost forgets what the old Moss-Side school was like.

'The children have forgotten quickly and that must be a good thing.'

If those programmes were made now,

the first people we would talk to would be the children.

And no-one wanted to hear what these children had to say about the education they were having.

I think the really sad thing about those children is they have, what I would call, lost eyes.

They didn't know why they were there or why this was happening to them.

No-one had explained to them, perhaps, that this was their passport to somewhere else.

And that somewhere else was unveiled in the 1960s

when BBC Northern Ireland rolled out the first of its specially-made programmes for schools.

Designed to educate and entertain,

these films opened a window on the world and beamed new light

and new life into the once insular classroom.

The people who made these programmes had been teachers mainly.

They all knew what it was like to stand in front of a class of children.

They all knew how far you could go and what you could extract from a child.

So, they were working from a very solid foundation.

Hello, and welcome to

the last programme in Ulster In Focus this year.

It's called On A May Morning.

You got little gems of films which stand up even today.

# Ging gang goolie goolie goolie goolie woosha

# Ging gang goo, ging gang goo

# Ging gang goolie goolie goolie goolie woosha

# Ging gang goo, ging gang goo... #

Looking back at the White Park Bay film,

for its time, it was groundbreaking stuff.

And even apart from the educational aspect, it's lovely to watch.

While I was sitting on the bus on my way to White Park Bay,

I said to myself, "I wonder what it'll be like at the hostel.

"Will there only be one big bedroom where all of us will sleep, boys as well?

"Or will it be a long dormitory, like the bedrooms in the hospital?"

In 1971, I was a recently-qualified teacher

and was teaching in Strandtown Primary.

It was just part and parcel of teaching, as far as I was concerned,

that I would be going away

or I would be doing things with children at weekends.

And I think I got as much fun out of it as the children.

The youth hostel was our base the whole time, in those days.

I suppose it introduced the children of youth hostelling

and just the pleasure of going away for very little money.

'We all have our duties at the youth hostel.

'On Monday we have to make the pack lunch

'and on Tuesday we have to clean out the kitchen.

'Each morning we have to get up at 7:30am

'and the girls who make the breakfast have to get up even earlier.'

The one dread on those trips was cooking scrambled eggs

because you were catering for maybe 30 people

and you had 60 eggs in a big pot

and they didn't look as though anything was ever going to happen to them.

So, we did things like that - scrambled eggs and sausages.

We had sausages on that particular occasion

and the cameras had stopped filming

and I had extra sausages which I took in.

I said, "Would anybody like any more sausages?" And there was this great cheer of, "Yes, yes, yes!"

So, stop, get the cameras set up again and it was all filmed again.

-Does anybody want anymore sausages?

-CHILDREN: Yes!

All right, everyone, bedtime. Come on, pack up these games.

CHILDREN GROAN

Come on, hurry up, up to your dormitories. We've had a long day today.

There's a terrific shot where

we see kids at the peak of a cliff. And the kids run down

this quite steep sandy dune.

And, as we do that, the camera pulls

back to reveal a very wide beach and then follows the kids round.

Beautiful art. And you get a sense of complete freedom, openness.

When we pull out to that wide shot, you know that's as wide as the imagination can be.

It's absolutely beautiful.

MUSIC: "Happiness Runs" by Donovan

There's a great scene where one of the kids in the film discovers a dead seagull.

# Little human upon the sand

# From where I'm lying here in your hand... #

It looks as though it's been shot under the wing.

Must've been in flight while it's been shot.

I think I'll just put it back and bury it.

And for the kid to lift that up and to touch it

and to feel that seagull and then to re-bury it in the ground,

you felt you were that kid, watching it. Or you wanted to be.

I was thinking if I'm touching it, how long had it been there, with the hands.

We had to get him straight back to the youth hostel,

get your hands washed - scrubbed - make sure they're clean.

I could imagine children watching that programme in the early 1970s,

really wanting to be there. It was such an attractively made programme

I could imagine the kids wanting to be on that beach,

wanting to go to Dunluce Castle.

And I think, if that film did anything,

it was to give kids that sense of adventure and exploration

and that is so important in children.

By 1971, black and white had given way to colour

and schools television had become a part of the timetable

in our children's education.

But the changing role of the teacher was also coming into focus

and local current affairs television was ready to write its report.

This programme investigated why young teachers

were struggling to cope with a new generation of education.

What were the differences between

the way I made that shape and that rotation, and that rotation?

'Bill Heron is aged 29.

'After eight years spent teaching in primary schools,

'he's earning a salary of £15,000 a year and he's very far from satisfied with that.'

I think people feel that teachers shouldn't talk about money.

It's a dirty subject. But the situation has now been reached

when teachers have to talk about money.

There's a bit of deja vu in that film

because, nowadays, you hear so much from teachers saying they're not well enough paid,

that their workload is very, very heavy,

that the impact of change is really too much to cope with.

We don't really value brain-work. Intellectual output.

We value making a lot of money, having a very nice Paul Smith suit

or a Prada frock. That's what we regard as important.

We don't favour the people who teach.

-Where's the point of rotation?

-It's where the pen is.

I think the image basically is that teachers have a soft job.

It's that teachers have a short day, long holidays.

Whenever I meet someone during the holidays,

they often say to me, "Oh, I see you're on holidays again."

And this sort of annoys me a bit.

What you see the beginning of in that programme is that now

most people in our society think that teaching is for losers.

I don't think it is. I think teaching is the most important job in the world.

This documentary revealed an education system

facing fast-changing and uncertain times.

But it also captured an extraordinarily poignant scene

in which a teacher explains life after school.

Now, in ten week's time, next June, you boys all finish.

School is over. You're schoolboys now, ten weeks from now you become working men.

Mr Clarke is working in a school with boys who are leaving at 14

and he's talking to them about apprenticeships.

And that was absolutely heartbreaking because you looked at those boys

and they weren't in uniform and they had kind of a strange melange of hairstyle.

Some of them were still in the '50s or even the '40s

but some of them were looking forward to the skinhead era and the mid-to-late '70s.

The whole gamut of hair was taken in in a single class.

-So, excuse me, do you start an apprenticeship at 15?

-No, 16.

Usually, you leave school at 15 and you become 16 somewhere before Christmas or so, don't you?

The best way, if you want to get an apprenticeship in some particular firm,

is to get into that firm as a boy and let them get used to you about the place.

The boys had no idea about what was waiting for them,

what they were going to do, what life was like,

and he was patiently trying to explain to them

that they would stop school and then they were going to go out into the big, bad world

and they had to work and support themselves.

And their faces were extraordinary because they were kind of boy-men.

You could see what they would be like when they were men

but they were still boys. There was that strange mix of,

the were naive and enthusiastic and sullen and right-hard, all at the same time.

And you knew that what they were going to go out to was what?

Early '70s - horrible industrial work here, very low paid,

very dangerous and, in the background,

the entire society is going up in flames.

Awful. Hideous.

MUSIC: "Freak Out" by Chic

If school leavers were facing an uncertain future in the 1970s,

school visitors were proving to be a big hit,

especially when they materialised in Belfast

from the biggest show on television.

I would've killed to have had Tom Baker come to my school.

In 1978, he was the coolest man on television.

It's as simple as that.

That was his own initiative. He had a couple of days

and decided to come to Belfast.

American presidents would eventually do that when they had a few days

but idea that a Time Lord would come in...

Why are you all smiling?

CHILDREN LAUGH

Gosh, I can hardly believe it.

Time Lords do not acknowledge sectarian divides, this is a simple fact.

He has the wit to go to different schools and spread his visit out.

He went east and he went west and the kids on Mersey Street,

they were confined to the classroom and, of course,

you've always got that feeling that the teacher's watching you,

so you've got to be very careful about what you do and say. There may be a test later on.

But in Barrack Street, he went outside and they just ran.

# Aaah, freak out!

# Le freak, c'est Chic

# Freak out!... #

They didn't really know what else to do so they ran up the playground and then back down the playground.

He didn't really know what to do so he ran as well.

That was fantastic cos that is timeless.

You could have landed in Belfast anytime in the last 100 years or the next 100 years

and if you get a lot of kids in the playground, they'll run you up and down.

School visits were dull, generally. It wasn't superstars or guys from TV.

To have Tom Baker in your school letting you try his hat on,

signing posters for you, bantering away,

it's just absolutely priceless.

He has one trick - "Can you put on my hat?"

One wee lad says he wants the hat to look like a cowboy,

clearly not a big Doctor Who fan.

Put it on me and I'll be a cowboy.

Put it on you and you'll be a cowboy. There we are.

Yes, it looks very good.

But he came to Northern Ireland. He came to see us. He wanted to come over.

And I think that's to his credit. I think that is a remarkable thing,

that a Time Lord came to visit us at a very bad time.

Travelling back in time to 1981,

and the world's media had descended on a field on the outskirts of Belfast

to film an exceptional group of 11-year-old schoolchildren.

MUSIC: "New Life" by Depeche Mode

In a school system

that remained largely separated by the religious divide,

these children were pioneering a new era in local education.

For the first time,

Protestant and Catholic children were going to school together...

at the new, integrated Lagan College.

My main interest at that stage was kicking a ball around a playground.

You're an 11-year-old kid,

you're meeting other children at 11,

so whilst this was an educational experiment in many ways,

for us it was making friends and doing the things that 11-year-old kids do.

'The picnic integration was already something of a hit.

'Clearly, no-one had told these Catholic and Protestants

'they were supposed to throw stones at each other.

'And even the prospect of a new school term was beginning not to seem so bad.'

As a Catholic living in east Belfast, I think it was something my parents firmly believed in.

They took this huge risk. It was really, you know, into the abyss.

You had no idea what was going to happen.

But they firmly believed in integrated education

and the ethos of going to school together.

I think it's right how Catholics and Protestants should be able to get on better together.

And that's what the trouble is in Northern Ireland. This is good.

If there were more of them, I think the trouble wouldn't be as bad.

I think it's a solution, maybe,

to solve the troubles in Northern Ireland.

We had gone to a Protestant school, so we had

-and you didn't really meet Catholics.

-But now that we have,

they're what I expected - just normal.

I didn't think there was any difference really.

We're just humans.

The majority of folk in the Lisburn area that I came from

would've been from the Protestant denomination.

So, just by the circumstance of that, I wouldn't really have come into contact with Catholic children.

So, really, this was the first time that that was happening.

And that's just simply the way the education system had been working in Northern Ireland until that point.

# New life, new life... #

I followed the creation of the integrated movement right from the start

and watched Lagan College being set up.

Lagan College started off in a scout hut.

The children seemed to really love being there.

They had a certain freedom and they felt they were pioneers.

And also the teachers felt that they were pioneers,

striking out on their own to do something

which they thought would improve the situation in Northern Ireland.

Lagan College may have started with a media fanfare

but its first term began against a much more subdued and cautious backdrop.

Sensitivities at this turbulent time meant its 28 pupils

were taught in a leafy location far away from the troubles around them.

I think you've got to remember that this was set in 1981.

The political event of that time was the hunger strike.

They were really dark days in Northern Ireland,

really a lot of tension...

So, the fact Lagan College was the first integrated school in Northern Ireland was a really big thing.

I think for some people it was seen as a beacon of hope.

MUSIC: "Only You" by Yazoo

We were always taught that we were the one religion,

which we really were. We were all Christians, in that sense.

It was just the split up of different denominations within Christianity.

So, it was a mix of everyone. There were people from real staunch areas on both sides.

And actually, those were the pupils that probably made the school work.

There were many an argument in the playground over this or that

but, looking back, I don't think I can ever remember an argument over religion - I really can't.

'Religion will be taught through common Christian principles

'and in separate classes for Protestants and Catholics.

'History could be more difficult.'

Yes, history will require very careful planning.

We shall be teaching both British and Irish history

but, obviously, I'm not going to go into detail yet.

We'll start with the early years

and that, perhaps, is a little less controversial.

It was lovely to see the footage of Mrs Greenfield.

She was a lovely person, first and foremost.

She was so welcoming. She made you feel really, really, comfortable.

She was the perfect principal to get that school up and running.

She just had this warmth about her.

I think she was coming into a situation where she had to be very balanced and very fair.

The ethos of the school was it would be as integrated as possible

and they would never let the percentages go more than 60/40.

And that has been the way the school started and continues.

I think Northern Ireland's society has come a very long way since those days.

The school has an excellent reputation now

and I think one of the exciting things is it has forged the way for other schools

who've felt they've now been able to follow.

I'm very proud, actually. Very proud of the school, not so much proud of myself.

I lived away for many years and have come back to Northern Ireland

and when I see kids running around town with the Lagan College uniform,

I look at it and I'm very proud.

There's a little element of "well done".

MUSIC: "The Only Way Is Up" by Yazz

In the 1980s, it wasn't just our education system that was beginning to change.

Local television was also experiencing an image overhaul.

Programmes were not just being made for young people

but by and starring a new generation of movers and shakers.

Youth TV was born.

Hi, and welcome to...

'It was an unbelievable time.'

There were no other youth programmes departments in the entire BBC worldwide.

There were children's departments and then it was adult's programmes.

A very thoughtful man called Peter Vall decided it was time to set up a youth programmes department

and it was time to give young people a voice.

Somewhere over the summer

this new department was starting to gel, being pulled together.

We started this weekly show that was a youth magazine called Channel One.

Now, if girls motorbike and more girls is what turns you on

then stay tuned to the old box cos later on we'll have a story on an all-girl motorbike club

and from Rathcoole down there in Newtownabbey we'll have another story in our Talkback series.

'There was no money in it. We all got hired'

and I think the starting pay went from a pound a week

to 30 quid a week and depending where you were on the radar

and how much work you were doing, nobody was getting more than 30 quid a week.

I was just happy to be working

and kind of doing stuff I was interested in

but I didn't see myself as being a TV presenter - it's not really what I wanted to do.

But equally, I didn't have a proper job either

and I thought this was working OK until someone actually realizes, "He's not that good."

To start off with tonight, we have a band with a big following round Belfast.

They're Ten Past Seven and here they are with Tom Waits.

Youth television was about more than education,

it was about young people being given that all important break.

First time performers like Brian Kennedy,

who, in years to come, would become household names.

# Tom Waits

# Tom Waits patiently high

# I can't leave

# I saw a face, strong bone... #

It was amazingly popular. People never missed the youth programmes.

You'd watch these programmes like Channel One

and hear about this new band - The Hothouse Flowers or Sinead O'Connor or whoever it was -

and they're going to be playing at some venue.

That's where you found out what was happening.

# When I feel your heart beating... #

I thought that it turned into something that was quite strong, good and credible

cos, above all, a youth programme should have some sort of credibility.

We made this programme called the All Square Quiz

and, unashamedly, it was probably a rip off of Blockbusters for young people.

Good evening to our audience

to the second of our semi-finals of our brand new quiz show,

done with the Northern Ireland Association of Youth Clubs

and the programme is called All Square.

CHEERING

I think it was the first programme actually... It was filmed in a cattle shed

up at Balmoral, behind King's Hall, which masqueraded as the BBC studio

but, believe you me, it was a cattle shed with black drapes.

-What country is the footballer...?

-BUZZER

Yes, Cairnmartin.

LAUGHTER

I'd like to see you answer this, Carol, this could be quite interesting. Go for it.

Argentina?

No. OK, hand it over to John Paul - full question.

The funny thing about it, if you look back at the programme now,

there are several things. A, the style. B, all the guys had moustaches

even though we were 14 or 15. That was the style at the time.

So, everybody looked about 35 when they were 15.

But if you look closely enough, in the Cairnmartin team,

there's a very young, slim, plenty-of-hair fella

who now masquerades under the name of Stephen Nolan Esq.

MUSIC: "When Will I Be Famous? by Bros # When will I, will I be famous? #

He was the young guy of the team and he had to do all the challenges like put together a jigsaw.

Could he do it? Could he squat. God love him.

He then had to match up cars and where those cars were made,

you know, is the Mercedes made in Germany or is it Romania.

He had 15 seconds to do it and if you watch those clips now

he's going, "Oh! Oh!" The stress factor.

He comes across as so in control on the radio but the stress factor back then was extraordinary.

OK, what have we got. One... No, we have got one right out of three.

It should have been Mercedes-Benz to Germany,

Volvo to Sweden and Buick to the United States.

Well done, anyway, Stephen. Good show.

APPLAUSE

Looking back on that whole period of youth programmes,

I think it was groundbreaking, I really do.

Not because of anybody that was in it

but because an individual at the BBC decided it was time to do programmes

that were driven by young people, fronted by young people,

about young people, not somebody patronising young people.

The story of our schools, teachers and young people is a lesson in how we used to live.

And thanks to a rich archive and the magic of film,

we can bring those bygone days back to life.

# Those were the days my friend

# We thought they'd never end... #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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