All Kinds of Everything Those Were the Days

For more than half a century, the BBC has captured the changing

face of everyday life in Londonderry and the north-west.

In good times and bad times,

this vibrant region has given us

some of our finest singers and writers.

These are the archives and those were the days.

I think it's absolutely crucial

that we hold on to, erm,

really unique...

moments in time.

I think that it's wonderful to have these archives

and these films to look back on because that's who we are.

Memories, you know, it says memories are made of this,

the old song, and it's very appropriate, that,

because if you haven't got memories, then you have nothing.

The world may have been reeling from the swinging '60s,

but back home in Derry, an altogether more sedate melody

was providing a different soundtrack for the uncertain '70s.

Its singer...

a certain Miss Rosemary Brown,

better known as Dana.

This teenage schoolgirl from Derry

won the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland.

And even before her feet had touched the tarmac at Ballykelly airfield,

BBC cameras were there to see Dana delight waiting fans

with an encore of her chart-topping hit.

It was an extraordinary experience coming back because going,

I think it was two cleaning ladies and a porter who waved us goodbye!

And when we arrived in Ballykelly,

then all the people meeting me

were people I knew.

You know, that for me, was very emotional.

# Sailboats and fishermen

# Things of the sea

# Wishin' wells, weddin' bells... #

'When I won Eurovision, I remember feeling

'that it wasn't just for me,'

you know, it was for everyone who had been through such terrible times.

# All kinds of everything

# Remind me of you. #

In a way, it was the true identity of the people of Northern Ireland

and the true identity of the people of Derry

and the feeling of sharing this was so strong.

And it wasn't just Dana who connected Derry

with the world's most enduring song contest.

Composer and compatriot, Phil Coulter,

who arranged All Kinds Of Everything,

had triumphed at Eurovision

with a shoeless Sandie Shaw classic, just three years earlier.

'I think it's quite unique, you know,'

that Derry has kind of an ongoing thread with Eurovision.

Of course, beginning with Phil Coulter who...

the song he had co-written, Puppet On A String.

# I-I-I wonder if one day that

# You say that you care

# If you say you love me madly I'll gladly be there

# Like a puppet on a stri-i-ng... #

'Winning Eurovision, I mean, we were so proud of that.'

I mean, it was incredible, the first win for England,

but one of the co-writers was a Derry man so we were so proud.

# One day I'm feeling down on the ground

# Then I'm up in the air... #

The system for choosing the song for the Eurovision

back in 1967 was that the BBC announced,

we have chosen Sandie Shaw to represent United Kingdom

in this year's Eurovision.

We're inviting songs from, you know, songwriters out there.

Make your demo and send it in, no names,

so that everybody got a crack at the whip.

# A puppet on a string... #

So when we sat down to write Puppet On A String, I think,

the smart thing was... I can well remember the discussion with

Bill Martin, he said, you know, everybody is going to try

and write a Sandie Shaw song.

Everybody is going to listen to Sandie Shaw hits and try

and write a Sandie Shaw song. We should be smarter than that,

because this is not about Sandie Shaw, this is about the Eurovision.

# I'm all tied up in you

# But where is it leading me to? #

Eurovision had been won maybe two or three years

previously by Luxembourg and a song called

"Poupee De Cire Poupee De Son",

which was a little kind of a cutesy thing.

I said that's the way we have got to go.

# Madly, I'll gladly be there

# Like a puppet on a string... #

Part of the other research was another big song

out of Eurovision was a song called Volare

and that started with...

# Vo-o-o-lare... # and I thought, I like that,

that long note at the front, that's a good idea.

# I-I-I wonder... #

So we went, I-I-I wonder if one day...

so, you know, it was carefully thought through.

Sandie helped secure Phil Coulter and songwriting partner,

Bill Martin, a 1967 Eurovision win and the talented pair came

a close second in '68 with Cliff Richard's Congratulations.

Global success followed with acts from Elvis to the Bay City Rollers

recording their carefully crafted pop songs.

Meanwhile, BBC cameras could not get enough of Derry's Eurovision Queen,

but a combination of unpredictable weather and an open-top car

was the least of Dana's worries.

Hello. I am driving to the south coast to do a Sunday concert.

And I know it looks it looks a bit dull,

but the weathermen have promised some bright intervals later.

So, let's see if we can find some.

'I loved that series, A Day With Dana.

It was a totally unique series. I don't think they have one like it,

'before or since.'

# Winter froze the rivers

# And winter birds can sing

# If winter makes you shiver

# Well time is going to bring the spring... #

'The series was built around me driving throughout the country

'and stopping here and there and ending up with a concert.'

Unfortunately, what they didn't know

was that I didn't have a driving licence.

# If he swears he'll never marry

# Says that cuddles are a curse... #

So on the first day when I'm driving, singing live to a backing track,

I had an L plate on the side of the car,

the camera would not pick up and I had a petrified soundman,

crunched up in the driver's... you know, seat beside me,

petrified, and I am driving and I am singing

and I thought to myself,

this cannot be real, you know, this just cannot be real.

But challenging for me, but moments I will never forget.

As Dana gave way to disco,

Derry in the '80s was as much about tradition as the pop charts.

Every Easter, the city's Guildhall saw thousands of young people bring

their curls, clothes and choreography

to the annual Derry Feis.

# We're lost in music

# Caught in a trap

# No turning back

# We're lost in music... #

The Feis was the cultural highlight of the year.

It involved at least one third of the population and several generations.

There were the competitors themselves,

usually quite young, then there were their mummies

who carried all their costumes and all their bits and pieces

and then there were the grannies who were there to applaud loudly

and to criticise the adjudicators loudly!

# Have you ever seen Some people lose everything

# First to go is their mind... #

When you walked into the Guildhall at the time of the Feis,

it was mayhem.

In the corridors, there were so many people, there would be

Irish dancers there or there would be kids rehearsing their songs.

The corridor, of course, was the social avenue

on which everyone paraded.

The children practised,

you were in severe danger of being danced to death

by kids practising for the 16 handreel, and all 16 of them

were coming towards you like a tsunami!

Among these fearless young competitors were singer,

Patricia O'Donnell,

French Horn player, Paul Goodman, and Irish dancer, Melissa Bond.

Decades before the days of reality TV,

the BBC cameras were there to follow every well-drilled move.

It was a great opportunity for the three of us at the time,

because there was not much filming on those aspects being done

and Derry was a new kind of concept and you were thrilled to be

asked, and TV were going to come and follow you and see what you did,

what your hobbies were and how you got on at your practice

and then follow you through into a competition at the Derry Feis.

Melissa, I think we'll start with the Kilkenny Races

for this coming Feis.

It's a favourite dance of mine and I have done well with it before,

but I know that you also like the music of it.

'It made me very proud seeing the part with my mother

and me in it, because she wanted to do the thing right for my sake

and I don't want to let her down, so I am trying to do the thing

right for her sake, and I'm afraid to smile and I'm afraid to talk

and I'm afraid to say anything!

Here I am, trying to do what I'm supposed to be doing!

HER MOTHER HUMS

It's lovely looking back on that, you know, my mother looks so young!

It was lovely.

At the time of making The Gates of Derry, I learned the horn

with my father, he was my teacher.

Sometimes it was very handy

having your teacher live in the same house. Sometimes not!

APPLAUSE

He's a very promising player

and he's, of course, getting a first prize with 87 marks.

APPLAUSE

It was nice to win it.

I think I was the only one in for that competition!

# Oh, I'll not sit on... #

The thing about the Feis...

you expected to win, you know,

you were geared up, you were in for a competition

and you were used to getting a prize of some description, whether you got

first, second, you were used and that particular competition, I didn't win.

What did the adjudicator say about your performance?

I've got my wee sheet here.

I'll quote it.

"There's a certain hoarseness in the voice.

"The voice sounds as though it needs a long rest." So he noted it.

I took a ten-minute rest and went in for the next competition

and came third. With a different adjudicator!

The thing is my parents would have said the adjudicator was

sitting on his ears. You know! It wasn't your fault.

The adjudicator didn't have good judgement,

but if you won, the adjudicator was right!

The Feis highlighted varying degrees of onstage success.

But the local theatre scene

saw one of its own sons achieve worldwide acclaim -

Brian Friel.

# The changing of sunlight... #

This former Derry teacher penned some of the 20th century's

most evocative Irish plays.

And in 1971, the famously private playwright allowed BBC Northern Ireland

a rare glimpse into the mindset of this most modest of men.

It's such a rare thing to see Brian Friel do an interview

for television at all, and he hasn't done one for years

and years and years and won't ever do one again, I imagine.

But I found that portrait really so very frank.

Well, I think for a period, I was going along what I thought

was a reasonably logical kind of course,

and then I deviated with one play

which was The Mundy Scheme.

I regret that play now.

I love the fact that the two, the interviewer

and Brian, are kind of bunched together in two seats.

They're really snug together going, hello!

Yes and he is talking and I am just thinking, oh, I would love,

love, love to have been that person sitting there talking to him,

so frankly, so genuinely.

Why do you regret The Mundy Scheme?

I regret it because it should have been better.

I think it was half good, but that's not good enough.

He said that his first play, he completely dismissed it

and said it was no good.

And that...just blew me away, you know,

to hear him talk in such a way

with such feeling, with such passion,

it was so intimate and so special

that I was so, so delighted to see it.

His portfolio of plays has been performed far and wide,

from Buncrana to Broadway.

And as this BBC documentary discovered,

Friel ensured his work translated seamlessly from script to stage.

Brian has always paid huge attention

to the rehearsals of his own works.

He takes every syllable of every word very seriously

and I loved his analogy of... He said, an oboe player does not

come in and decide that he's going to leave or change a bit of Mozart.

I have yet to meet an oboe player who will take a Mozart concerto

and say, I don't like this phrase, so I'll change it, I'll cut it.

We constantly have this situation where directors and actors think,

I don't like that phrase, I don't like the way that line is written.

We'll change it, we'll cut it, we'll add to it. This is nonsense.

'I see where he's coming from 100%, in his own plays.'

Why should somebody cut or edit words that he has spent hours,

weeks, months, for somebody

to come in and say, "We'll snip that bit out". I don't think so.

# If I listen long enough to you... #

The cameras kept rolling as Friel welcomed viewers in through the doors of his Donegal retreat,

nestled on the shores of Lough Foyle.

Surrounded by manuscripts and no doubt inspired by his quiet, rural surroundings,

this father of five shared everything from the uniquely insightful

to the deliciously mundane.

To allow a crew into your house is quite a thing.

You're exposing a lot of yourself not alone into your house,

but to allow them into your bathroom to see you shaving.

It's kind of great.

I think very much of its time, that film,

I don't think we would see programmes like that now.

People would be much more cautious about letting the crew into that domestic world.

The fact he was out weeding his garden.

Brian Friel, the playwright, weeds his garden!

And the dog, and he was in his wellies... I loved that.

While you had this access to Friel, they weren't going overboard about it

and literally in every nook and cranny of his house.

There was a sense of familiarity with him

and allowing him to let us see him.

# If I listen long enough to you

# I'd find a way to believe that it's all true... #

I found it just such an open and candid denoument of himself.

I learnt a lot about Brian from that and he's a man I know well.

As they did with Brian Friel, Donegal lured many

with its rugged beauty and measured pace of life.

So close to its urban neighbour,

yet a world away from Derry's bustling streets and festering turmoil.

The call of Donegal was one few Maiden City natives could resist.

Most people who are from Derry,

they automatically feel they're also from Donegal.

There's a very strong connection.

I think Siamese twins is the only way I could explain it!

Donegal was never a place apart.

If you walk in one of any three directions from the centre of Derry, from Guildhall Square,

you're in Donegal.

It was a place you could walk to,

to do a bit of shopping on a Sunday afternoon.

It's not far away, it's not alien to you.

And because Donegal had different licensing hours,

later licensing hours, pubs opened on a Sunday in Donegal.

Because of that, once you reached a drinking age, you could be living in Derry

but doing your growing up, or an awful lot of it, in Donegal.

Donegal was always the place that you wanted a second home,

if you could afford it, of course.

But most people, a lot of people in Derry have got mobile homes of caravans in Donegal

and... If I ever make money,

that's where I'm going to go, Donegal.

# There's no place else on earth

# Just like the homes of Donegal... #

Stonewall cottages are reminders of age-old traditions

before the onset of modern life.

Determined to capture the past, in 1980,

BBC producer David Hammond documented a Donegal

whose Artisans as well as homesteads were fast becoming a rare commondity.

I loved the film because I liked its sense of pace.

Unrushed, as was David's Hallmark.

I loved the respect that was paid to the houses in Donegal.

The roof of the house is thatch.

It is held on here with ropes and these ropes are held by stone pins

known locally as baghans, which are held in the wall themselves.

I loved the detail when he talked about the baghan,

I found that very informative.

Those scenes that we see, those big wide scenes,

where we see thatched cottages, such a thing of the past,

and the trade of the thatcher is gone.

I was talking to somebody in Donegal recently who was telling me

they were going to bring in somebody from Germany to thatch a house.

It has gone, really, from the country.

As magnificently coiffed as his cottage creations,

Donegal weaver Patrick McMenamin shared the dying art of thatching

with a curious BBC reporter and his equally enchanted viewers.

You've learned to thatch yourself?

A bit, I can do a bit of thatching all right.

The thatcher, I loved his shirt. A great shirt.

I want one of those shirts!

How do you fix the thatch onto the roof?

Every layer of thatch you put on, you put on a scallop across

and two or three for a clasp.

He's telling us how you thatch.

Wouldn't it have been much handier to go to a roof?

You sharpen it with a knife. At each end, so it will go through.

You place that one and you bend one over the top.

'He has these sticks or something in his hand and he's telling you,'

I bend it over this way and I put it in here and then I push that in there

and then I press the whole lot down, and he does this...

Why not just give him some thatch?! Show us how you do it.

No, let's pretend.

Patrick, what about the walls and the decoration of the walls outside?

Yes, there we always use whitewash, ordinary lime.

To see Paddy McMenamin, the thatcher, I love Paddy's shirt, as well,

and he's a great dancer, a terrific dancer.

I see him dancing in Donegal every winter.

Light of foot.

Donegal has long harboured those of a somewhat mysterious disposition.

So, who better than Gerry Anderson to unearth one particularly unconventional guest?

I know the fairies play a big, important part in your life.

As a matter of fact, you could say that they rule it.

-Didn't they bring you here?

-Yes, they did, definitely.

Let's take this from the very start - when did you first become aware that they were there,

that there were fairies?

The first time I actually saw fairies was when I was eight.

They looked like tiny monks. They were in brown with cowls on them.

They were walking in single file, and we saw them

and we knew that these were not people.

She was the one who told me, this wasn't in the programme,

she told me there were three different types of fairies.

Some little tiny fairies who wear cowls over their heads

and other medium-sized fairies that are the fairies we know,

and then there are others that are 15-foot tall.

I remember saying to her, it would be very hard to conceal a 15-foot tall fairy,

and she said, I think you're probably right.

Anybody who believed in the fairies or anybody who worked with nature spirits

wouldn't say anything about it.

Because they were afraid of being ridiculed, but a few years ago,

the fairies said, come out of the closet.

'She talked about the fairies coming out of the closet!'

From mystical sightings to the small screen debut of a local legend.

Amid this convoy of Irish country idols,

the Make Mine Country juggernaut was about to set up in Coleraine

and witness the birth of a star.

1988, the Riverside Theatre, Make Mine Country,

it's a date that should be remembered by everybody.

This is a hugely significant moment

in the history of Northern Ireland broadcasting.

The first television appearance of the Wee Man from Strabane.

The Wee Man from Strabane, Hugo Duncan!

# Darling, since you left me, I'm so sad and blue

# I count my memories one by one with photographs of you... #

'He looks like an extra from Goodfellas,

'he has the shiny suit and the white shoes. He is done up to the nines.'

He's got the shirt open to the waist, right down to the navel.

He has the old chest rug going on.

# Though you found a new love, no-one can take away... #

People are going to remember his name and even if they don't,

he has it on a little gold chain around his neck, just in case.

# I can hear you whisper and I can hear you laugh

# But I realise through misty eyes, it's just your photograph... #

It was so difficult to get on TV and I was delighted to get on Make Mine Country

with my big black beard

and my black hair and my blue suit and white shoes.

-Sure, I thought I was Elvis!

-HE LAUGHS

# Pictures from the past bring back memories... #

The song I sang that night was a song called Pictures From The Past.

This is the song we were actually told to sing.

At that time, if they had told me to sing Three Blind Mice

to get on TV, I would have sang it.

# It's all that I have left of you Our pictures from the past... #

'He's an absolute natural and it's the first appearance

'of a broadcasting legend, and it should go down in the history books.'

Make Mine Country, 1988, Hugo Duncan arrives!

Almost a decade later, and Uncle Hugo was a regular on our screens.

Not even the dismal Donegal weather

can dampen the Strabane singer's spirits during one particularly rain sodden episode

of Anderson on the Road.

Anderson on the Road in Buncrana was probably the worst day ever God sent, weather-wise.

It was a complete downpour.

# Why does it always rain on me?

# Is it because I lied when I was 17? #

Sometimes when you do a live programme like that,

you have to deal with what God send you.

It was horrendous but when I look at it, I thought it was worse than it was.

Or maybe you don't agree!

# When the clouds began to gather and the thunder it did roar

# Barney MacShane came down the lane... #

Poor wee Hugo Duncan, he nearly got electrified.

His stage was sinking into the mud!

# We'll cuddle up together We'll talk about the weather

# Barney dear, there's a queer... #

I was jumping about that much, that the stage was going down and down.

It was just good fun to do.

The song fitted in very well because the song said,

"Come in out of the rain Barney MacShane."

It should have said, come in, Hugo Duncan, you eejit, out of the rain!

The band was soaking and the cameramen and the sound men,

everybody was soaking, but it was enjoyable.

I've always enjoyed working with Gerry, I've worked with him

a number of times, and he has a great sense of humour.

It is a peculiar sense of humour, but when you get used to it,

you can accept it and you have to take what comes with it.

Because of the weather, everything was forced, because everybody had to up their game

and everybody had to pretend to be enjoying themselves.

That's when I learned not to do any more live TV shows,

in Buncrana, or anywhere, in the summer, in Ireland, ever again.

From dancing to Dana, and all kinds of everything in between.

The story of the North West's music and culture through the decades

is the story of how we used to live.

Thanks to a rich archive and the magic of film,

we can bring those bygone days back to life.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd