Travel in Time Those Were the Days

For more than half a century, the BBC have 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...

With film archive,

it's important to preserve it in and of itself -

a picture, a snapshot of how we were then.

It makes the past live.

It brings it to life

and makes sense of it for us.

CHILDREN CHEER

It is easy to look back on a nation by simply looking at news footage,

but I think the best way to find out what things were really like is to talk to ordinary people.

You cannot beat a person on the street telling you, "Yeah, this is what it is like to be alive.

"This is what I do when I go home."

And although there is a place for the footage of the big news incidents of that day,

you can't beat somebody just telling the way it was, because, you know what,

that is the way it was.

In the 1950s, flying from

Aldergrove Airport meant dressing for the occasion.

# Come fly with me, let's fly

# Let's fly away... #

This stylish runway

showcased a new generation of jet-setters,

blissfully unencumbered by baggage restrictions

and upgrades for in-flight meals.

# Let's fly Let's fly away... #

For these passengers, the novelty of airline food

and dreams of far-off destinations

represented the very height of sophistication.

# In llama land there's a one-man band... #

'I remember my mother and father going to Nutts Corner, to fly to,'

must have been, London, I think, from there.

And I just couldn't comprehend how far away London was,

because the furthest I had been at that time was probably Bangor,

which was a long trip, to me.

So anything beyond that, I couldn't actually comprehend.

# Oh, they say

# Come fly with me, let's fly,

# Let's fly... #

# Pack up, let's fly away! #

Now, horizons have expanded and people talk quite nonchalantly

about heading towards the Caribbean

or heading off to Scandinavia or whatever,

as though it was just an everyday occurence.

And one destination, in particular, was enticing a new wave of ex-pats.

Trans-Atlantic flights had brought

the fast-paced North American continent even closer.

For many Northern Irish people,

the lure of a better life in Toronto, Canada,

was too tempting to turn down,

as this 1968 documentary revealed.

The piece of film, A New City, 1968,

was absolutely fascinating,

because, in a way, Toronto is a very, very new city.

150 years ago...certainly 200 years ago, there was nothing there.

# Give me some lovin'... #

TV: 'And it is to this city, over the last 100 years or so,

'that thousands upon thousands

'of Ulster men and woman have come to make their homes.'

The relationship between Ulster and Toronto is very strong.

In recent history, in the 20th century,

there was some large-scale emigration from Ulster to Canada.

I live in Tyrone and it always interests me the number of people

who had relatives who lived in Toronto.

And so to see this film was really, really interesting.

It was a cleverly put together piece of filming, as well,

because it showed you people from across all the classes and all the age groups.

# It's been a hard day... #

And one of those people was Dave Beatty,

a Banbridge man who embraced

the locals' love of all things automobile.

Now a suited and booted car salesman,

Dave had also acquired a new lingo.

It drives as high as 30,000 miles a year...

The first thing that

I noticed about Dave Beatty was the accent.

CANADIAN TWANG: For instance, when I came to this country,

I didn't have the cash to buy, say, a television.

I bought it on terms. That's a small item, really,

and you put one third down

and you off pay the balance over, say, 12 months.

His absolute wonderment at hire purchase was a joy to behold.

He said when he went at first, he had been able to buy a TV and paid it off over 12 months.

Then he got a suite.

So you buy a suite of furniture, which is more money.

You pay that off, your credit rating becomes good,

you can buy a car, then you buy a house.

He clearly was

someone who had assimilated himself entirely into Toronto society.

Another ex-pat profiled was Constable Everett Douglas, from Limavady,

who had joined the Toronto Police Force in the 1950s.

Unlike his contemporary, Everett had retained the local vernacular,

as he patrolled his new city's streets.

It depends what age they come out. If they come young...

'Everett Douglas was a fascinating figure.'

I was very drawn to his accent. I never really got beyond that,

because he sounded like he was driving around Limavady or something.

I just talk into this, almost like a tape recorder, at headquarters.

And they will type them out.

'He talked about Ulster as being a very quiet place, compared to Toronto.

'You can understand that.'

He emigrated in the 1950s and he is talking about a time

just before the start of The Troubles.

As we all know, the place got very, very busy after that.

Belfast is quiet compared to Toronto.

You don't get the same amount of domestics or crime, particularly,

indictable offences, as you would down here.

'We know that, even in the height of The Troubles,'

what you might call traditional crime and how you define crime,

there wasn't very much of it going on.

Maybe because there was a lot of the other stuff going on,

but he's right, in that sense. What I liked about him was he'd kept the accent

and he was still very much connected, in that way.

I did wonder if there is a class thing going on there.

The other people we see are quite middle class in their aspirations

and so on, but he is still a working-class man.

TV: 'John Cross, an accountant, and his wife, Daisy...'

Leaving home may have seemed a journey too far for some,

but for the Cross family, from Belfast, settling in Canada

meant acclimatising to the harsh winters.

And when summer came, the Cross's escaped the big city,

in search of downtime at the country retreat.

MR CROSS: Our cottage, from here right to the cottage door,

is about 80 miles.

We can go up... Oh, I've timed it - an hour and 20 minutes, it takes us.

'The cottage is representative of'

the kind of goals to which you can aspire.

MRS CROSS: And, of course, you just live for Friday afternoon,

to get the gear in the car and head for the summer cottage.

'I think anyone seeing that in Northern Ireland'

would have been very jealous of the lifestyle that this couple

appeared to have.

Their general lifestyle - you saw them having a barbeque -

and the size of the steaks

and they painted a picture of a very affluent kind of lifestyle.

And it wasn't just the steaks that were supersized,

as fellow Belfast emigrant, Anne O'Donnell discovered,

when she shopped in Toronto's majestic, modern superstores.

But when it came to convenience and choice,

Anne still harboured halcyon memories of home.

# To show, to show you what... #

Clothes are much more expensive over here.

I honestly don't think that they are as well finished as they are at home.

'She was continually smoking, you could see the smoke,'

and she looked like a dark-haired Dusty Springfield,

but she could not get away from her roots, and so she would

talk about how this was a very modern city and had good opportunities,

but she shopped in Eaton's.

The two main stores are right down in the centre of town.

They are Simpson's and Eaton's.

Eaton's, of course, is an old Northern Irish family,

from Ballymena, and they... It's a very, very big store.

'Eaton's was an absolute institution'

in Canada and, of course, there is a local connection,

because Timothy Eaton came from just outside Ballymena.

One of the things they would do is bring turf from Northern Ireland

to Canada and they would include a piece of turf in these Christmas hampers,

so you could put it on your open fire and you could smell the smells of Ulster.

'Toronto is seen as being a highly-modern city.

'However, a city that was like Belfast.'

This is what we could be in the future if we would just get our act together.

This is where we are going. We can be the Toronto of Northern Ireland.

I think that connection was being made.

# Don't it always seem to go

# That you don't know what you've got till it's gone... #

'When I first watched the film,

'thinking about what people from here'

would get from it. I would say, a great sense of envy, a great sense of jealousy,

thinking, "I want some of that, too! I want to be there."

Back home, Aldergrove Airport aided the annual exodus,

as sunseekers sought respite from the gathering storm.

The Troubles were taking hold

and dreams of a bright new metropolis had failed to take off.

But while the city had a long way to go,

increased air links between Northern Ireland and Toronto

saw the arrival of a giant of the skies.

TV: Canada seems set to become big business for Ulster tour operators.

To cope with expanding demand,

Aer Lingus's only jumbo jet in its own service has been chartered...

It was the one and only jumbo jet

ever to land in Aldergrove and take off again.

It was a really big thing in Belfast at the time,

because everybody that was on that flight

all had some sort of relative in Canada.

The Atkinson family are going to North America for the first time in 15 years.

'I just remember us all going on the plane, and the family.

'And I was quite'

surprised when I seen myself on this film, after all them years.

I like Northern Ireland and I can't see me going back to the States to live.

'He never got a word in. I was doing all the talking on the film!'

I must say, it didn't sound too bad!

-I would prefer our way of bringing up a family.

-Why?

I don't know, I can't really give you a definite answer...

'Well, I basically thought it was a better place to be,'

rearing a family here, than America.

'To me, it was safer and you were in the country and they were

'running about and they could play.'

I know travel is good,

but as I say, I would still favour Northern Ireland

over these other countries, so I would.

# That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh

# I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh

# That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh

# I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh

# That's the way... #

'We actually spent three days in Toronto and, as I say,

it had a massive connection from the Northern Ireland people there in Toronto.

The Canadian National Tower is a monument to a new attempt

to forge a new sense of Canadian national unity.

'In the 1970s, there arose'

this great structure in downtown Toronto called the CN Tower.

# That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh I like it... #

It's right across the lake from the United States.

You can imagine that it is, sort of, throwing up a finger,

in a very interesting gesture, to the United States, saying,

"Look what we can achieve."

# Hey

# Hey... #

It was like something

from another world, when you got on that lift and went up

and seen it. It was really magic, so it was.

At that time, they made it look like something from outer space.

I'd never seen anything like that. It was amazing.

# I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh

# That's the way, un-huh, uh-huh... #

This archive reminded me very much of who I was in the 1960s and '70s.

I certainly recognise a lot of the buildings and a lot of the places.

For me, it made me very proud to be Canadian.

From the skyscrapers of Canada's urban sprawl

to the mountains of Northern Iran.

In 1978, the BBC embarked on

on a 3,000-mile coach trip,

with a group of altogether more adventurous travellers.

# On the first part of the journey

# I was looking at all the lights... #

On board were 21 mountaineers,

eager to explore this little-known outpost.

Among them, a nun, a lawyer,

a BBC television presenter

and a 19-year-old health worker

from Castlewellan, Mary Hawkins.

'I had never been in the Middle East before'

and I just thought of Iran as being just so exotic.

# In the desert you can remember your name

# Cos there ain't no-one for to give you no name... #

Joining Mary on this journey of a lifetime was her father, Teddy Hawkins,

himself an experienced climber from the Mournes.

'I had already been'

in Afghanistan and I had been in the Pyrenees

and I had been climbing in France, so this was

a different part of the world and I think that is the exciting part of it for any mountaineer.

But even the most rocksteady climber had to be daunted by the challenge ahead.

This remote mountain range had remained largely unexplored

and essentially isolated from the rest of the world.

In terms of its general location,

it was certainly well away from civilisation.

What happens if somebody breaks a leg, somebody takes seriously ill?

How quickly can you get professional aid?

You're talking four or five days.

So, it's not just a matter of phoning 999 and getting help.

It wasn't like in the Mournes, where if something goes wrong, you call mountain rescue.

If something goes wrong out there, you have to carry the person out.

Goodbye.

Despite the lack of multi-lingual tourist guides,

an advance party has reached the valley chosen for base camp.

Jeremy Paxman was with us,

and I suspect that Jeremy, being a very ambitious lad, was a bit miffed

at being sent off with a group of mountaineers from Northern Ireland.

Compared to what was going on in Belfast at the time,

it mustn't have seemed exciting.

From the relative comfort of base camp,

Paxman and his fellow trekkers split into smaller exploring parties.

And, for one such group, ahead lay a gruelling five-day trek

in search of the mythical, unchartered Valley of the Assassins.

Nowadays, you could actually go onto Google Earth

and you could get much, much more detailed maps of Iran

and the Alborz mountains than we had access to at that time.

The maps that we had were terrible.

I think we'll have to go... I'm not quite sure. We'll have to go down and see.

'We had to piece together a map for ourselves.

'Whenever we were out in the mountains,

'we had to do reconnaissance trips

'and try to map out what looked like the route

'to the Valley of the Assassins.'

I think that's actually the head of the Assassins Valley that we can see,

just straight through there,

but we're not quite sure till we get there.

'Although we could see down the Valley of the Assassins,

'we could see the first castle or habitation,

'the scale of the place was much bigger than what we had anticipated.'

As one group grappled with the valley,

a world away from the Mournes,

another was tackling Iran's second-highest peak.

At 800 metres, the granite north face of Alam-Kuh

is one of Asia's most-treacherous ascents.

Do you as a group feel yourselves different

to the rest of the expedition?

We just feel different.

We just feel we have been given a particular job to do.

Rock climbing is very much a competition

between you and the rock.

"That's a piece of rock there. I wonder, could I find a way up it?"

I think the challenge itself overcomes the fear.

There's a lot of exhilaration involved in this as well,

and perhaps what's not coming across very well is that fear

is part of the exhilaration.

We knew it was going to be quite a difficult climb.

We knew, by the look of it, at some parts it was overhanging,

that is wasn't just a straightforward face.

So there was about nine of us getting up at four in the morning,

get to the bottom of it and just start heading for it.

# If I leave here tomorrow... #

Every step of the way, you're concentrating,

and it's natural stress, it grows on you.

When the two of us got to the top, it was coming up to nightfall.

We had set out to do a short climb,

and we finished up climbing to the top of the mountain.

# There's too many places I've got to see... #

When we were approaching the top, it was getting dark.

We ran into a few problems, getting up, finding which way to go and how to get up it.

And then we finished up on this charcoal rock.

There was nothing to hold onto, there was nothing to anchor to.

It was just faith and a prayer to keep going, get up,

there was no turning back.

# Cos I'm as free as a bird now... #

I've seen people that got to the top of their first climb,

and they're just bursting with joy.

It's a terrific feeling, to have conquered,

especially someone young, getting to the top of something like that.

It's something that you will always look back on.

I was a lucky individual to have the opportunity to take part

in something like that, and it went well, so that's more of a bonus.

It's a great euphoria to realise that you have climbed a new route,

and so on, and of course, because it was 12th July,

they called it the Ulster Route. Why not?

After a month exploring Iran,

this eclectic mix of climbers had formed an enduring bond.

And making that journey from 1970s Northern Ireland to a country

on the cusp of revolution had inspired camaraderie

and ensured lifelong friendships.

When you think of Northern Ireland in the 1970s,

and that we had a couple of students,

a social worker, we had two doctors,

we had a QC who was top of the line at that particular time

and a policeman,

in 1978, to me, that was the most astounding thing about it.

People that were in it, I know that I could walk into their houses

any day of the week, and nothing's changed.

I just feel very lucky I was selected to go on it.

It's just one of those occasions that stay with you forever.

I'm envious of that younger me, in a way.

I'm envious that I got the chance to do that, and I wish I'd done more.

It was a very special time, with a very special group of people.

In the 1980s, travel for many young people meant a passport

out of Northern Ireland and into the world of working holidays.

This was the gap-year generation of jetsetters,

and BBC Northern Ireland was on the trail.

The idea was no more complicated than saying,

"If you want to go off and work this summer, here's what it's about,

"these are the things to think about."

This is pre-internet, pre-everything. We're still in the land of leaflets.

The purpose of the programme was really to say,

"Let's go and have a look for ourselves."

Hello, and welcome to Working Holiday,

live from Broadcasting House here in Belfast.

There were some depressing things going on in the town around then,

in and around Belfast, and you thought, "It's time to get out,"

and a lot of the young people I dealt with said,

"I want to try something different." And if you're young,

you've got to make it happen cheap, so a lot of guys were going,

"Where can we go?"

"You can go to Israel on something called a kibbutz."

And we're going, "What the hell is a kibbutz?"

We sent somebody out to go to a kibbutz,

and when you look back at the film,

everybody that worked on these places looked like

mini David Hasselhoffs. They were all walking around

with very dodgy curly perms. These are the blokes.

And very tight shorts that shouldn't have been allowed.

That was the '80s!

I also remember, we interviewed this girl, but she kept saying,

"It's great to go and get a life experience

"that you can't get in Belfast," and she was herding cows.

It looked like a scene from anywhere in Northern Ireland! I'm thinking,

"Is that what you do at a kibbutz, work on a farm like anybody else?!"

Let's get the ball rolling.

You're the co-ordinator of Project 67, the organisation responsible

for recruiting people to go to that particular kibbutz.

'We brought a guy in to plug kibbutz, and his name was Efrim.'

Talk about a guy trying to sell the kibbutz to you,

he was the most bland person I think I've ever interviewed in my life.

Lovely gentleman, but very straight and very serious.

It nearly put them off going to the kibbutz.

What type of people, Efrim, are best suited to working on a kibbutz?

Well, to be between the age of 18 and 32,

healthy and fit,

almost everyone can do that.

Healthy and fit rules me out, Efrim, you know that?!

We'll go over to our audience now, Efrim.

'I remember on one of the particular programmes,'

Jackie Hamilton actually being the lucky one

that got to go to New York City,

and I remember thinking at the time, "What a fantastic opportunity,"

because that was as different as it could get.

I don't know if it's still the same now, but certainly for my generation, America was the holy grail.

And it does take you in.

The simple things for me were, like, the car horn sounded different.

He told me it was like going into a cinema,

going into a television programme,

steam coming out of the ground, dudes hanging out on the corner,

traditional New York traffic lights.

It's like a movie when you walk into that.

I suppose New York, it's one of those cities that is an iconic city,

it is somewhere that is known for being so magnetic,

so alive, so vibrant.

When you saw the presenter in New York, again,

it was that whole wide-eyed approach,

"Oh, my God, we're in this massive city, we're not in Belfast anymore!"

And that came through

in terms of the presenting style.

# Living in America... #

Here we are in New York. It's fast, and it's a real culture shock.

I'm telling you, even the car horns sound different.

If you fancy coming to America during the summer

to work and live for a few months, you've got to be very pushy,

and you've got to be streetwise. If you're not, you soon will be.

'I think I was being mindful that,

'if you choose to go to work and not be on holiday,'

you've got to know how it works and be up to speed on it,

cos if you don't, there'll be somebody else in the line

who'll come up behind you. So I think that was the intention,

if you like, of that kind of link.

It's common knowledge, a lot of Irish people come out here every year

to work illegally on their holiday visas.

The money's good if you can get the work,

but there are some things to think about.

I thought it was interesting when Jackie Hamilton spoke

to some of the people who were there as illegal workers.

Is it difficult to get work in New York?

It's difficult...

'Suddenly, we were in a bar,

'talking to some anonymous figure who'd gone the illegal route.'

It was quite funny. Again, it was quite...

There was something quite innocent about it.

"Right, here's the proper way to do things,

"and here's the improper way to do things,

"and don't be doing it the bad way!"

To put a figure on it, if you work four or five nights a week,

you can make about 600 or 700.

They could make, actually, good money.

I'm sitting there going, "Am I doing the wrong job here?!

"Tell me that bit again!"

I think when you look back at the people who got an opportunity

to travel, it was always to the greater good.

It was always giving people a different perspective on life.

# Living in America I feel good! #

We kind of take it for granted now, because travel is relatively cheap,

but back in those days, that chance to travel and do something like that

was a big opportunity, and there was no doubt whatsoever

that it was a mind-expanding thing

and probably helped society in Northern Ireland today.

I think travelling does broaden the mind.

I think it's good for people to experience different cultures,

different ways of doing things, different ways of seeing things.

So in general, for people from Northern Ireland,

no bad thing to get out and see the world.

The story of how we travelled

and saw the world is also the story of how we used to live.

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

we can still bring those bygone days back to life.

# Those were the days, my friend

# We thought they'd never end

# We'd sing and dance forever and a day

# We'd live the life we choose

# We'd fight and never lose

# Those were the days

# Oh, yes, those were the days... #

Everyone!

# La, la, la, la, la, la

# La, la, la, la, la, la

# These are the days

# Oh, yes, these are the days. #

E-mail [email protected]