Things Can Only Get Better 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!

Archive is invaluable. It's the way we kind of know about our past.

And they help us to move forward.

I'm kicking myself all the time that I didn't keep a lot of mementoes.

I think it's only as you get a little older that

that sense of history kicks in and you realise how important it is

to have that perspective.

I think that what's most important about looking back

and looking through the archive of the past,

I'm filled with hope about what we can make of the future.

That's the real importance.

# In the chilly hours and minutes

# Of uncertainty, I want to be... #

In 1965, living conditions in Derry City comprised of row upon row

of cramped terraced houses,

often with several generations of family under the same roof.

The documentary A Change of View

called in on the citizens as they said goodbye to an old way of life.

# ..I can catch the wind... #

I think it was brought to the attention of even people

who lived here in a different part of the city,

that there were people living in genuine poverty and want

and the most appalling, almost slum-like conditions.

And quite honestly, I don't think that that was particularly unusual.

# ..To love you now

# Would be the sweetest thing... #

Overcrowded. You'd have two or three generations in the one house.

If someone got married, you came back from the church

and set up home in your parents' home,

and you were given a room, and then you had babies.

And it would not be uncommon. Then when those babies grow up,

your mammy and daddy are still living with the granny.

You would have a baby,

there'd be three generations in one house. It was not good.

I'd have been here since the ninth generation.

School at ten years old.

And I went into work at 12 years old.

And I earned half a crown a week.

There was a shot of an older woman in a black shawl,

and talking just about her family life around her.

But it was as though the limits

of her life were the limits of that housing area that she lived in,

that she hadn't gone any further than that

and therefore had this deep, deep-seated connection

to that small area around her, but also to Derry as a place.

But one wonders how much of Derry she even knew.

Did you see the conditions that she lived in?

There was a cold water tap in the yard.

The toilet was at the bottom of the yard.

The streets were cobbled, the houses were shabby,

and there was no quality of life for her.

They're going to build council estates up in Creggan.

Well, the excitement and the hope in Derry!

They had bathrooms! Indoor!

SHE LAUGHS

We had toilets indoor!

That was 1969. The height of luxury. Bathroom in the Bogside.

# In this sturdy old part of the city... #

The actual filming, it may have been an accident,

but it seemed to me as though in the old houses,

it was being filmed in a very dark kind of way.

And then when they went to the new housing,

it was as though they'd shot it all on a sunny day.

Because these were bright places and they were open.

Now, some people did express...

younger families expressed happiness at being in this new place.

Now, the most important thing in us making this change, that I see,

was before, in the old house,

you were ashamed to bring people, to ask them in,

because the conditions was wretched. But now you couldn't care less.

You could bring in whoever you wished.

The dichotomy between the young and the old -

the young wanted out, to go somewhere else,

the old didn't want to leave.

I don't care for it at all, to tell you the truth.

I'm old now, you know,

and these young people are all dying about it.

But I'm not dying about it, to tell you the truth.

That generation who were eventually rehoused in the shiny, new,

all mod-con accommodation of the new development

were sometimes not all that keen on it.

They had lost the camaraderie and the neighbourliness of the street.

When we get on in years, we don't like to be shifted.

And now, as we are shifted,

I feel a great change in the houses.

You come right out of the door and nobody speaks to you.

Only you're looking over at this man's house

and somebody else may be looking into some woman's room.

Derry is comparatively small as a city, but really,

it's only a collection of parishes stuck together, each of which

has its own distinct identity.

That identity is being erased gradually

because we've all got terribly cosmopolitan.

But to the generations before us,

to us still, and I wonder...

will it be for our children,

will it remain, "Wee Derry, sure, it'll do us"?

As the '60s gave way to a new decade,

it was the declining job prospects of the '70s

that would come to define a new generation.

In hard-hitting BBC documentary series In Question,

reporter Don Anderson discovered the dilemma

faced between working for low wages or opting for life on the dole.

If you want unemployment, come to Derry, it has been said so often.

While there are other parts of the Province

that suffer from chronic unemployment, nowhere can you find

so easily the many faces of this social evil as in Londonderry.

Derry was characterised by mass unemployment.

One of the most common greetings in those days was,

"How are you? Are you working?"

It may have been the most common topic of conversation.

Unemployment is very much

part of the story of Derry.

We grew up with that, we grew up knowing that

that was the case, it always was the story about this place.

-What age are you?

-27.

-How long have you been unemployed?

-Ten years.

-How much are you taking from the broo here?

-£12.09 a week.

I'm far better on the broo because I've £12.02 clear in my hand.

'Nowadays, it's hard to get people to talk about their wages,'

there was nothing like that going on in that film.

People were happy to tell you, this is what I might earn

if I get a job, this is what I get if I'm on the dole,

and what would you do if it was you?

-You had a job, hadn't you?

-I had, yes.

-Where?

Sion Mills, about 16 miles from here.

I started on Monday and they expected me to work up there

for about £12 a week, which was...

I'd take home about £9.10, or £9.08,

and I had to pay my bus fare after six weeks

and that came to about £4 a week in bus fares.

They expected me to work on that,

and pay your grub money up there in the factory. And what have you?

You've nothing at all.

Wages in Derry were historically and traditionally very low.

If you could get more on the dole for your family

than you could get while working,

would it be your moral duty to stay on the dole,

even when work was offered to you?

I remember a young priest trying to offer that

this would be immoral behaviour

and saying, what about a fair day's work,

and the Beatitudes? Or whatever it is!

Local people were standing around saying, we might believe you

when it comes to eternal life, Father,

but when it comes to this life, you're wrong about that one!

There was one part of it where a new company came to Derry

to make hi-fi systems.

It was attracted to Derry from Birmingham under what were then

the grant system, a tax break. They came to Derry -

jobs for everybody in Derry, female and male!

It opened to make record players.

Everybody in Derry had a record player,

because we got them discounted.

It was great!

# When you're weary

# Feeling small... #

There comes a day in Derry when the factory closes.

We walk up to the work, the factory closes. It was...

The grants had just run out. The tax breaks had just run out

on the exact day that factory was closed.

# ..I'm on your side... #

Mammy would say, "Do you hear that?" I'd say, "What, Mammy?" She says,

"You can't hear it?" I says, "I can hear nothing!"

She said, "That's it. Will you not miss the sound of the feet slapping

"on the way to their work?"

She loved that in the morning.

# ..Like a bridge over troubled waters... #

I think it is remarkable when you look back at that period,

how many people, despite the fact that there was little difference,

if any, between what they would earn in full-time employment

and what they would receive on the dole, a remarkable number of people

continued to go out and not only accept work, but to search for work.

That, in itself, was a triumph over circumstances.

# Loving you isn't the right thing to do... #

Alongside the city's ongoing unemployment issues

was the heightened reality of the Troubles.

And in 1978, BBC cameras spent a week in Derry, on patrol

with soldiers and meeting locals to give viewers

an unprecedented snapshot of these changing times.

The historic programme that delivered this priceless archive

was City On The Border.

# ..You can go your own way

# Go your own way... #

It was fascinating for me to see that film in 1978

because at that stage, I wasn't a film-maker. I do remember it,

but when I look back at it now, it's incredible to me

the access that the company had to the Army.

The Army clearly felt they were in a safe pair of hands.

# ..Everything turned around... #

Really long pieces of footage with interviews with them,

with them on the street.

Actually sitting side by side with them, as they went round Derry.

Delta, Juliet, India, 710.

And even when they were looking at the searches going into the city,

seeing that searching again actually brought me up short.

# ..You can go your own way... #

Because you forgot.

You really forget what it was like when you went shopping.

Every town, you had to be searched going into it.

Every shop, you had to be searched going into it.

# ..You can go your own way... #

There's a scene later on where the cameraman asks

an ordinary squaddie on the street, does he like being a soldier,

does he like serving over in Northern Ireland?

And he laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs.

Do you enjoy this sort of soldiering?

HE LAUGHS

Are you serious?!

HE LAUGHS

No. Anybody who likes this, you know, must be barmy.

You know... I don't like it one bit.

# ..You can go your own way... #

They do that thing that

I think is terribly important for every human being,

they think themselves into the other person's point of view.

Would we like armed soldiers walking about our towns?

Manchester, Liverpool? We wouldn't like it.

It's the same feeling by these people.

But when's it going to change?

You had this one crucial individual,

Eamonn Mulloch, who was focused on, and he's talking about

having set himself up as a kind of unpaid social worker.

You could see him going round trying to help people.

And his take on the Troubles was highly intelligent.

Those involved in violence are involved against the express wishes

of the overwhelming majority of the people in this estate

and other estates.

If I am prepared to condemn the mindless violence

of the paramilitaries, I'm obliged to condemn

the social violence of the state,

by creating a situation where

45 percent of the insured male population is out of work.

What I think was most challenging about the film was that

it did not see the Troubles as a political or religious problem.

It saw the politics and the religion

as a product of an economic problem,

and that was highly radical for the time.

Och, aye!

'There was a wonderful scene in the bingo where, at the end of it,

'an old woman'

sang about working in Derry and about work in Derry.

# And it goes by the name Londonderry

# It is famous for shirt-makers

# All of you know

# Just as well as for brandy and sherry... #

'It underlined that feeling I had about the economic situation,

'that this was about'

how she felt her life had played itself out,

and yet within that, huge pride about being a working-class woman in Derry.

# ..I am bound to recall... #

It has a strong connection to the unemployment piece

and to the housing piece that we've been talking about as well.

But it's the City On The Border one

who really expresses that in a very strong way,

that this is an economic issue and if we don't solve

these economic problems,

then we're not going to solve the political and religious problems.

City On The Border highlighted these troubled times

through the words of many contributors.

But no-one so movingly illustrated this divided city

than the renowned artist Bobby Jackson.

# Nothing but a heartache... #

The very venerable and remarkable Bobby Jackson

is featured in the film. He featured in a lot of films

because he was such an amazing man.

He was a great painter,

he was the vesper of the Protestant cathedral here.

But he says this wonderful thing about the redevelopment of the city.

If you stand in the middle of this road here, which is

just not a stone's throw from here, and you look to the left,

you see all these lovely houses. Protestant houses.

And if you take a turn and you look to the right,

you see all these lovely houses. Catholic houses.

-And then he makes this kind of very plangent plea.

-Where is unity?

Where's "love thy neighbour"? When we're all divided.

And where that division is, there's never going to be peace.

# ..It ain't right, with love to share... #

When you look now at the scene that we see in the film,

the corrugated fence that shuts off the Fountain has now been

turned into a brick wall.

Although we have peace, that wall's still there.

And I think that is a mission for us,

that we should try and see if people can actually think about

trying to change that set of circumstances.

THEY LAUGH

There was lots of good humour during the Troubles, you know.

I think it's that thing hat you hear about

Accident and Emergency wards,

where doctors and nurses have a lot of black humour.

It was like that here.

But that's exactly the sort of film

that would have made us say,

"We can tell this story, but in a different way.

"We have the right to tell it." That would have been

certainly an influence on the fact that

I became a film-maker, for sure, you know.

And other people as well as me, you know.

# Stand in the place where you live

# Think about direction, wonder why you... #

Action!

Inspired by the launch of the Foyle Film Festival in 1987,

fledgling movie crews filmed all round the city.

But beyond the big screen,

things were far from "happy ever after"

for the young people of Derry.

So BBC youth programme Article 10 sent reporter Michael Douglas

to uncover the reality behind

the media stereotype of Eighties Derry.

The images are common ones.

Either Derry/Londonderry

as a bomb and bullet-ridden city,

or an almost mythical centre

of humour, nostalgia, and warmth.

As if its residents have got some sort of copyright on it.

Even inside Northern Ireland,

the media tends to support these cliches,

delivered in bite-sized chunks for easy consumption.

But as locals will tell you, these things are never that clear-cut.

# ..Your head is there to move you around... #

1989 was a very interesting year, actually,

in that it more or less marked the end of

the height of the Troubles, as far as Derry was concerned.

# ..Stand in the place where you live... #

The tide of the country receded.

So what came to the fore again,

or what came to the surface again, were exactly the problems

which had existed in the Forties and the Fifties and the Sixties.

Lack of economic opportunity, a sense of...

if not of despair,

at least sort of a deep anxiety about what the future held

for young people in Derry.

It's always been a romantic image about living in Derry.

But there's also a very sad face to Derry.

The hundreds of young people every year that leave

to go to England, to go to London to look for work,

I mean, that isn't very romantic.

The fact that young people were talking about the problems

of poverty and the problems of work, strangely,

the fact that they were doing that indicated a certain hope, almost,

that we could move on to that agenda.

Isn't it funny how generation after generation

will tell this story of exodus?

Of young people finding themselves in a great place, in a place that

most of them will love and connect with, but that they have to leave.

I miss the craic and I've a lot of friends here.

And London's a good experience, but if I had the chance of a job

back home, I'd take it tomorrow, you know?

# ..Stand... #

Derry's a changing place, it's a brilliant place.

This City of Culture, this cultural place, this new Galway.

If it is to be any of those things, it has to keep its young people.

And I bet you a lot of these guys who are maybe looking back 20,

30 years at this footage are going, "That was me then."

I'd be interested to know where they are now. What they're saying now.

And indeed, if they still think the way they thought then.

And in 1994, one young man who had departed Stroke City a dreamer

and returned a D:Reamer made a particularly memorable appearance

on fellow Derry-man Gerry Anderson's prime-time TV series -

Anderson on the Box.

Peter Cunnah and his band

bounded on stage to perform their

-seminal number-one hit.

-APPLAUSE

Things Can Only Get Better, so welcome home Peter Cunnah

and welcome to D:Ream!

# Things can only get better

# They can only get

# They can only get... #

Peter Cunnah, I think he was number one in the charts at that time, which

was a big thrill because of the fact that he was from Derry/Londonderry.

# ..Better!

# I... #

That particular night,

he was great because he seemed to be a very outgoing personality.

He was quite lively and, as it turned out, and I'm sure he'll admit

this himself, he was a little more lively than was good for him.

You can tell in some of the footage, I'm just so happy.

I'm bouncing around like Tigger,

that I'm getting to do this, you know!

Loved it, obviously.

# ..Walk my path, wear my shoes

# Talk like that, I'll be an angel

# And things can only get better... #

He was plucked from basically

Derry in the Eighties, I suppose, late Eighties,

right to the top of the charts.

Right, that's like taking someone from a cave, you know,

who'd been brought up and lived in a cave,

and put them in the middle of the Strip in Las Vegas.

That's what that's like. Because it's very difficult

to come from that kind of, well,

Troubles-orientated life and to become a star like that, you know?

I thought he was great.

# ..Life in a different light

# I found my cause, yeah... #

It was great to come home, but, erm, it felt really, really good.

It was funny, because we came back and we'd police cavalcades

and, like, limos, and it was just really odd...

Because all I know is that the drummer I talked to you about,

Tim Heggarty, he managed to hijack my limo

and go up to his mum's up in Victoria Park, and get his mum in

for a ride around Derry in my limo

while we were actually on doing a TV show!

I only found this out later, the cheek!

But that's the Derry ones for you!

# ..Things can only get better... #

I had to walk up Clarendon Street every morning

to get the bus to school.

Peter would be walking down

because the bus he got to St Colm's College was...

I think must have gone somewhere from the Strand Road

end of town.

And I'm ashamed to say, you know,

he was a couple of years older than me,

so, you know, he was the cool boy.

He was the cool boy, he came out of his house,

his hair was all kind of... his fringe...

And it's so funny, when he became D:Ream, you were just like,

"Yeah. Of course. Of course there are girls standing outside screaming.

"Of course they are!" Sure, I was there! I was 13, going...

Oh! And now... I met him around the time of Things Can Only Get Better

and even then, I was like... I was 13 again! I was...

(SQUEAKY VOICE): "Hello, Peter!"

The tartan suit wasn't my idea, of course.

I just loved to go the other way.

I just thought, psychedelic skinheads, we had all this money,

we could buy nice suits and stuff hitherto denied to you.

You kind of, you do sit down at the table and, you know, you go for it!

I have no tartan clothing, honest.

Not under these garments hiding, not even in my wardrobe!

You can rest assured!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Finding a means of expression was always a lifeline

for the people of Derry. So it seemed only fitting when, finally,

the city received the accolade it deserved.

In 2010, the announcement came that it had been named

UK City of Culture for 2013.

And BBC Newsline was there to capture the joyous event.

CHEERING

As news spread, it seemed everyone in the city

was celebrating this unique achievement.

It's absolutely fantastic. Brilliant.

Great news. Great news altogether.

Coming through the Guildhall this morning was just...

the atmosphere was brilliant.

There's this cliche about Derry that it's a cultural city,

that it's the City of Culture.

But in actual fact, it's true.

I think there are a number of reasons why it is the case.

And it has to be said, you have the kind of discrimination

and poverty which we've seen in the films we've been looking at,

like housing problems and unemployment and so on,

and when you put that mix all together,

the only way in which a people can express that is through their voice.

Be it in music, be it in literature, be it in poetry, be it in drama.

That is the only way in which they can express

that feeling of being a special people, in a special place.

CHEERING

It's not unusual for social deprivation

to produce great popular art.

When there's nothing to do in an area, what you can do

is build a little hut, get together, and sing in it.

Or play instruments. And people had the time.

We had lots of time in the Bogside! There was lots of spare time!

Music is everywhere in Derry. I mean, it's in the air.

It's a very passionate thing.

There is that wonderful legacy, of course, which goes back to

bands like The Undertones, and you can still see that in bands today.

You're going to get people that are going to be basically

included within music.

The community's going to get so much stronger and then

you'll have a lot of tourism coming in as well, because of it.

Because they want to be drawn into that scene.

We are the City of Culture and we are on our way up.

And we've great hope. We have great hope for our children

and our grandchildren here in Northern Ireland.

Local people who don't have to leave Derry,

in the sense of going to find work elsewhere, which maybe

would have been back in the day, in the olden days, you know.

And people love coming here, you know.

So the Arts, it always has had such a special place in Derry.

But, you know, more so, it's growing enormously in the last few years.

It IS a big deal! It makes everybody proud.

# We're from Derry!

ALL: # We're from Derry!

# The City of Culture! #

Culturally, the things that we have loved

and done for years are still here.

Children today have more scope than we would have had,

and everybody is loving it.

City of Culture, which is this international, magnificent event.

CHEERING

It's a magnificent growth to see that

what we now refer to as that bright, brand-new day.

If you wanted a marker, you know, that we're now in a new era,

this is the new chapter, we'll draw a line under all of that stuff.

This is the perfect marker.

# Once upon a time

# There was a tavern... #

From those early black-and-white images,

through decades of success, resilience

and community spirit, the story of the North West's music,

culture and traditions show us 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

# We'd sing and dance

# For ever 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... #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd