Hugo Duncan Story of a Lifetime

In my line of work, I'm lucky enough to meet really interesting people

'and in this series, I'm going to share with you

'some of the most moving stories I've ever heard.

'You may laugh, you may cry,'

but one thing's for sure -

you'll definitely be touched by what they have to say. I know I was.

She was my ma, my dad, my protector.

Hugo Duncan is the Marmite of radio. You either love him or loathe him.

It's your Uncle Coo!

But behind the smile, his life has had as many twists and turns

as the road to Strabane he travels every day.

I was a real bastard, by name and by nature, at this stage.

He was popularly known, to be fair, as Drunken Duncan, like,

there was no question about that.

He wasn't at home.

-Because he was out on the road?

-Aye, or he was in the pub.

One thing's for sure -

there's much more to the wee man from Strabane than meets the eye.

"I just want to ask you a question," I said. "I just want to know,

"are you my father or not?" He just looked up and never spoke to me,

he never said nothing to me, at all.

# The day that the rain came down... #

It's the wettest day of a very wet summer

and Sod's Law - we've turned up to film.

But rain hasn't dampened Hugo's spirit.

He's a natural performer.

# Well, I'm praying for sun in old Fermanagh... #

'The skies opened up about 12:30

'and we were stuck here in the middle of it.

'We didn't know if we'd be able to go on with it or not'

and when we started, there would have been about...

I'd say a dozen people there.

Hello, and welcome to the glorious, sunny Belcoo!

CHEERING

Here we go!

# Sha-la-la la-la-la-la-la... #

Do you know, Hugo, I promise you, I'm not going to bullshit you.

I'm not going to compliment you, just for the sake of it.

I wouldn't want it.

There is no other broadcaster in BBC Northern Ireland

that would have pulled that crowd, in that rain. It was bucketing down

-and they came out for you.

-I get very embarrassed when you say that.

If you see, my face is blazing. I'm very, very lucky.

'Me going out there, it's not like work, at all.'

# Well, I just dropped in last week from down in Nashville... #

'I remember going up, Christmas, about 12 months ago

'and the snow was piled up each side of the motorway

and there was hard ice and all that,

and I looked into the mirror of the car myself, and I says,

-I know you can't say this, but I says,

-"BLEEP

-me, I love this."

# Open up your heart and let my love in... #

He's a natural performer, happy to do a turn, at the drop of a hat.

'If I see a stage anywhere, I just want to get on it. It's like a drug.

'This is where I feel comfortable. This is me being me.'

Go for it, go for it! Yo!

'I can't do nothing else.'

I don't want to do anything else. Do you know something?

I've never been on holidays.

-I never, because...

-Ach, Hugo, you've never been on holiday?

I went to Nashville to record TV, I went to Nashville to record...

-But part work.

-No.

Full stop. No.

No lies, thanks.

# Now yesterday's gone Sweet Jesus... #

Well, during this journey I'm on with you,

I want to try to get behind that smile.

The reason I work is because I'm frightened to leave a gap,

because when I leave a gap,

I get a wee bit lonely.

I get a wee bit bored, I get a wee bit down,

and I fill my life with work. Is that what's happening to you?

Stephen, we could be twins, only I'm a bit older.

-Is it what's happening?

-Same thing.

And every time you're away, you're worrying.

It's not healthy, though, is it?

But you worry, you go away, and I'm being honest with you,

you go away at times and, you know,

you say, God, maybe they might think,

"Sure, we've done without him for a fortnight,

"we'll do without him for the rest of the schedule, you know?"

You've nobody to dance with?

Not a big wonder!

# Do you remember... #

62 years ago, Hugh Anthony Duncan was born

at the head of the town in Strabane.

He's never lived anywhere else, nor does he ever plan to.

This is his home.

But it wasn't the best of starts for baby Hugo.

His mother, wee Susie, wasn't married,

and in the Catholic community in the 1950s,

that was altogether quite shocking.

I remember one day standing down, there used to be an old cafe

in the Main Street in Strabane, called the Windmill Cafe.

And this woman walked round,

and I was about seven or eight years of age, a wee thing

standing with my ma, and this woman says, "You know, he's well like..."

She says, "You can say, cos he knows about it, anyway,"

-Because my ma told me, from the word go.

-Did she?

Oh, aye, my ma never held back to me.

-My ma told me from when I was...

-How did she explain to you?

She didn't explain the nitty-gritty part of it,

but she explained that I had no daddy.

But he did have a daddy, one who lived just down the road.

I've asked Hugo to take me to his father's house.

On down there, to your left, again.

It's just over there now, to your...

to your side there, Stephen, the gable house,

-and...

-Will we get out?

No.

It's got no fond memories for me.

'Hugo grew up just a few miles from here.'

One night, in the early '80s, he decided it was time to meet his dad.

I'd never met the man that they called father, and...

I suppose I wanted to meet him,

just for the sake of clarifying

the fact that if he was my father, if he wasn't,

so I wanted to ask him that, that's all I wanted to ask him, and...

I went over and knocked the door myself, and his wife came out,

God bless her, and I got to know her afterwards,

and she says "He's not in," and I said, "Excuse me, can I go in?"

And I went on in, and he was sitting, and...

So here were you in your early twenties,

walking in to speak to your dad, for the first time.

Yeah. And I asked...

I asked, "Could I... I just want to ask you a question.

"I just want to know, are you my father or are you not?"

His wife said, "He's not your father." She said a few things.

The next thing was...

He just looked up and he never spoke to me,

he never said nothing to me at all, and just nodded his head, like that.

Hugo never spoke again to his father

and his father went to his grave

never, ever having said a word to his son.

On the surface, post-war Strabane didn't have a lot going for it.

# Oh, my papa... #

High unemployment meant that money was in short supply,

and with no father to provide,

it can't have been easy for Susie and young Hugo.

# To me, he was so good... #

Well, now, I'm told that through these doors is your old classroom.

Come on.

Do you want to sit in the seat and see if you still fit?

If it goes down, sure, we'll charge it to you!

-Look at that.

-Look at that, boy.

As a wee child, you would have been sitting down here.

I would've said, if you and I had sat together,

-we'd have been two bad wee articles!

-And I hear you would have done...

CONVERSATION FADES OUT

-Now, what's this?

-What year did I come here?

I don't know, you tell me. There's '56.

It must be around that, 56.

STEPHEN LAUGHS

Where am I? Look, look at the very top there. Read it out.

"First of the seventh, 1957."

"Duncan, Hugh Anthony."

Do you know what I've noticed in that book?

If you look at the pupils who are registered beside you,

it's their father's name, father's name

and beside you, "Susan."

That's right.

You're going to get me going again.

That's the way it was.

She was my ma, my da,

my protector.

When you see your mum's name there,

what's in your head?

It's... It's very emotional.

Very, very emotional,

and there's so many thoughts going through my mind

and, you know, this is reality

and this brings it back.

That woman was, she was rearing me on maybe £3 or £4 a week.

She went out and she did home help.

She went out and cleaned two or three houses a week,

to get money for me, to go out and to keep me,

and if I wanted anything, I got it.

It shouldn't have been so, given there was no father figure

and very little money in the house,

but Hugo's early life sounds idyllic.

He and wee Susie were inseparable and totally devoted to each other.

So many great feelings when I walk in here, just look around me.

It takes me away back.

I won medals here, for singing,

and I won medals for Irish dancing.

'I know you wouldn't think to look at my figure nowadays,

'but I could dance.'

My whole life was here.

It was like an egg, a small egg, and everything was inside that wee shell.

The shell just was here,

head of the town, the school,

the chapel, here.

This was the best times.

My mother used to make the tea downstairs

and she worked with two sisters, called Katie and May Slavin,

and they use to make the tea.

There was a wee stage up there, and I sang on the stage.

I performed Buttons in the pantomime on the stage,

I sung at every guest tea.

It wasn't more of a guest at a guest tea, it was more of a torture.

I had to get singing all the time

and my ma was pushing me up and pushing me up to sing and...

This is... This is me.

'It's just full of memories.'

You'd love to be able to turn the clock back

and meet all the lovely people you met when you were younger

and you hadn't a problem in the world.

Hugo was growing up at a time when the showband craze was at its peak.

One of the biggest bands in the country, the Clipper Carlton,

was from his hometown.

He left school with no qualifications

and found himself working in the local factory

but his dream was to make it as a singer.

-# Is there water in the well?

-Is there water in the well?

-#

I went to all these talent competitions

and I never won a talent competition. I was always "also ran." "Also ran."

Not one for giving up,

Hugo was soon singing part-time with a local band, The Melody Aces.

He couldn't pack in the factory job just yet, though,

because he had fallen in love.

Hugo and Joan got married in 1970,

two weeks after his 20th birthday.

It was a month that would change his life.

This is where the wee woman is, then. Brought me into the world.

'I was 20 on the 26th of March.

'The following Thursday, the 2nd of April, I was married.

'And the following Thursday fortnight, the 16th of April,

'I was holding the candle in my mammy's hand

'and praying in her ear. She was dying. All inside a month.'

So, that's what life's about.

-But she got to see you getting married.

-She did.

And it's funny, I danced with her that day. This is the God's truth.

I took her out for a dance that day

and the minute I put my arms around her, I started to cry

and I cried, and I cried

-and I cried.

-Why?

I'm one of these people, I get these, I get these premonitions,

and I cried.

And I went on my honeymoon on the Thursday

and I came back on the Sunday, I couldn't stay away.

Just didn't want to stay away. Three days' honeymoon.

-Didn't want to stay away from your own mum?

-Couldn't stay away.

I just felt there was something wrong.

That week, she was very ill,

and I came home that night.

Mass at eight, Thursday morning.

And I was going to my bed.

But we had the old roller blinds on the front of the wee house

and the blind was down for about...

maybe five or ten minutes.

And the next thing, the blind just...

rolled up,

and I looked at Joan, and I says, "My ma."

And she died that day, at half 12.

I went down, she died. I was just two weeks married,

and I used to be lying up in bed, then after we buried her,

me lying up in the morning and me shouting, "Ma!"

Just a normal thing to do, "Ma,"

because Ma, if I wanted anything, Ma got it. Ma, Ma, Ma.

And I didn't realise for long enough that she was gone.

I've got a place booked beside her.

# I go to church on a Sunday

# The vows that I make, I break them on a Monday... #

Within weeks of Susie's death,

the newlywed Hugo had joined The Tallmen.

Finally, a full-time job with a showband.

His career took off.

I recorded a wee song called Dear God,

and I sung it in this wee voice, wee virgin voice.

# Dear God... #

And I sung away like a good 'un,

and it worked and, for the first four or five years,

We had about ten songs in the top ten in Ireland.

So you were tasting success.

I was tasting success, and I was tasting a lot more than success!

My God, was I what!

# And I'm off to Lisdoonvarna... #

Singing for The Tallmen was living the dream for Hugo,

but he was constantly on the road -

yes, working hard, but playing hard, too.

By now, he was drinking day and night.

Hugo quite simply was out of control.

He was, kind of, a half an problem since we met him, wasn't he, John?

His managers still remember how bad things were.

He was popularly known, to be fair, as Drunken Duncan,

like, you know, there was no question about that, you accepted.

-Drunken Duncan?

-Yeah.

-That's right.

-It's not a great image.

No, it was a problem the fella had, like, you know.

Brandy, when he was flush, and when things were running short,

he'd be down on the wine, like, you know.

I used to drink poteen, and she had you to some tune, boy,

and she would send you off, but I enjoyed it, you know?

Lots of people, Hugo, who I've been talking to,

have told me you were a happy drunk.

I was.

You enjoyed the drink, and people around you enjoyed you drunk?

I enjoyed the buzz of people. I used to go into a bar in Strabane

and the bars used to be packed then,

because I used to say, "Give the bar a drink."

John Wayne was the worst thing I ever seen, because John Wayne said,

"Give the bar a drink", so I thought I was John Wayne most of the time.

But while Hugo was living it up on the road,

his daughter Suzanne, born in 1971,

was in Strabane

and, just like Hugo, she was growing up without her daddy.

He wasn't at home. That was the main thing, he wasn't at home.

-Because he was out on the road?

-Aye, or he was in the pub.

And I spent whole days in the pub, you know,

when I was off, I would have went to the pub

at maybe ten or 11 in the morning,

came home at five or six in the afternoon,

and away down again that night.

At what point, Suzanne, did you realise your dad had a problem?

I think I always did.

-I always did, to be honest with you.

-Why?

Because of him always lying on the sofa, being drunk

and being in the pub all the time,

but he was very sociable, you know.

I would say, sometimes he could have been in the pub,

I'm not saying he wasn't drinking, but it just had to be a place to be,

all the friends, everybody was there that he knew.

They might have been dropping in and out

where he was there the whole day, you know? But...

But at one time, the time I was in hospital, I remember it.

I got my appendix out and I came home,

and we went to the pub on my way home from the hospital.

-What?

-Aye. That was that.

-I had to celebrate her coming out of hospital.

-Me, with my stitches in.

Can you tell your dad what it means,

what effect, what impact it has on a child

having someone coming home drunk constantly, or in the pub, drunk?

You just don't feel like...

You feel like you're on your own.

You really don't know what it's like till you live with it yourself.

As a young man, with all of that attention, success,

did he lose the run of himself?

It was a person who, at that time,

might have had his priorities slightly wrong.

Spit it out, what do you mean?

I mean, by that time, he had the emphasis

on the social side of things rather than the business side of things.

Hugo would have been more interested than the pub he was singing in

before he went to the dancing, the crowd that was at the dance,

even though he was getting no money for singing a few songs in the pub,

but it was more important that the people there enjoyed them,

than the people who paid in to enjoy him, like, you know?

And as Hugo toured the length and breadth of the country,

he was leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.

So when you were drinking, you were driving?

At times. There's no point lying about the thing. I was, aye.

-I would have went through about 17 cars.

-No?

-Aye.

17 cars, what? Sorry, 17 cars what - written off?

Not written off, but hit and damaged,

-you know, not written off, but...

-17 car crashes, Hugo?

-Yeah.

Well, maybe just over hedges or something like that, on my own,

-with nobody else involved.

-Talk me through some of the 17.

Ach, well, I had a new Triumph Dolomite

and the first payment wasn't paid on her.

I was driving this way,

so the car hit the kerb at this side,

which knocked me across to the kerb at the far side.

The kerb at the far side was about ten inches or a foot high,

so I went up on the kerb, over the kerb, over a wall,

turned over a few times, and landed on the four wheels in the forecourt.

And the car was up the middle like a banjo, a bridge in a banjo.

-So you wrecked the car.

-A write-off.

-And you hadn't, not one payment?

-No.

I was wearing a, sort of, a greenish three-piece suit

and the suit was completely dark from here down,

and the waistcoat was all blood, blood the whole way down,

and I ended up in hospital.

I got caught drunken driving on the 13th of September.

I stopped drinking on the 28th of December

and I sobered up the 29th.

-Forever?

-I haven't drunk since.

1983, I haven't drunk since.

With Hugo off the drink, family life was beginning to become more normal,

but one small incident in the mid-80s

showed him just how much pain his drinking was causing.

I pondered for a long while about shaving off my beard

-cos I'd the beard on for a lifetime.

-So you'd always had a beard?

-Aye.

-All the days you were drunk, you'd had a beard.

-Yeah.

-Exactly.

Never without a beard during the time Suzanne would have seen me drinking.

I shaved the beard off and Suzanne came in from school.

-Do you remember this?

-Oh, I remember it well, aye.

And Suzanne came in from school

and walked up to the top of the stairs

and she just stood and said nothing

and she walked around into her room again

and she came back out, and started crying.

-I remembered I asked you...

-What was wrong?

Her mother cried, she was crying first, I started crying,

-her mother was crying.

-You saw the pain in her eyes.

-I didn't realise.

-Talk me through,

as you walked up the stairs that day, little girl from school.

I just came in, a normal day, and he just looked different.

It was scary. It wasn't nice, it was scary.

Just, like, if something hit you,

deja vu, you were going back to the way it was before.

-You were so scared you couldn't speak.

-No, I couldn't.

-She just cried.

-I didn't want to know the answer, didn't want to ask, "Is he? Are you?"

I didn't want to ask, I just went into the room.

And I says, "What's wrong with you?"

And she said, because I'd shaved off the beard,

she thought I was back drinking again

and I tell you, that was some stabiliser.

Why?

Well, she's my world! She's my life!

And I was...

I don't know what I was doing.

-It hurt.

-But why, at that moment, Hugo, did it hurt you so much? Why?

Because I never realised, I never thought,

I was too busy in myself, I was too wrapped up in Hugo.

I didn't realise about Suzanne. I didn't realise about her mother.

And what suddenly hit you?

That I was a real bastard. Because that was it.

By name and by nature at that stage.

It made me realise where I was going.

And of course, we all know where he ended up.

We have to do a running order.

-Do you feel like doing the running order now?

-Are you ready?

It was the late '80s. The showband era was at an end

and when Hugo was invited to present on BBC radio,

he grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

That's my wee box, ready now to go up the stairs.

He's part of the furniture now, but when he first arrived,

some eyebrows were raised.

I remember one man saying... I said, "I'm here for six months anyway,"

and one man said to me, he says,

"Well, that will be true enough, because you wouldn't suit in here."

-Someone in the BBC said that?

-Yes, yes.

And there was that slobbery there.

The next thing was, the press says the BBC were dumbing down

and the dumbing down meant,

I went in there, Stephen, I had no education, I couldn't read.

-You couldn't read the words?

-I could not.

What did that do to your self-confidence,

in broadcasting, when you can't read, in the BBC of all places?

I tell you, it was a shock for them!

But having to learn to read

wasn't the biggest challenge he faced at the BBC.

It was years before he joined the organisation,

and it was during the time he was still drinking,

but Hugo did record an album of rebel songs.

When Ian Paisley Jr complained,

Hugo was convinced he would be sacked.

Why did you sing them, Hugo?

This was recorded in...

..the late '70s, 20 years previous,

when these things were, sort of, common practice, you know,

people sung Irish ballads, all different ones.

Your stomach must have been churning, though?

Stephen, I was sick. I never thought about it at that time.

I didn't think about it. I just wanted to get in and record.

So everything you'd built up,

you'd beaten the drink, you had your dream job in the BBC.

-And now...

-It was on a knife edge.

Honest to God, I never slept.

I had cramps in my stomach for weeks, and I didn't even know what to do.

If there ever had been a reason to hit the drink, it was a good one.

Hello, good afternoon, you're very welcome to the programme.

It's your Uncle Coo!

I've learnt a lot about Hugo while making this film.

Skiddley-dee, and that's me!

Make no mistake, he connects with an audience like no other,

a true gem in the BBC.

All the very best you, and here's a kiss from your Uncle Coo.

How are you doing, boy?

Yet, despite the success, I sense he's still haunted

by what he's put his family through all those years he was drinking.

All that angst he's been bottling up for decades.

Now it's time to bring it out in the open.

He feels like he constantly has to make up for it all the time.

What do you mean?

It just feels, everything he does

is trying to make up for all the years with the drinking.

He doesn't have to. I mean, he's made it up many a time

but everything still goes back to the drink.

"I still have to make it up to you."

There's nothing to make up any more. It was made up long ago.

-So you've forgiven him?

-Oh, long ago. Long ago.

SHE SNIFFS

Long ago.

He's the best dad I could have asked for.

-The only one you're going to get!

-With or without the drink.

I wouldn't change my life

and that's it, wouldn't change it.

It's not that I want to apologise to her.

I just want her to be my daughter, and I want to be her father.

That's it, and we have to be there for each other.

We're doing good.

-We're doing good!

-We're doing good.

And what about this man who is so, so popular now on the radio

and with everything he's achieved, are you proud of him?

Oh, very much so. He's a big softy.

-Are you?

-Oh, very much so.

Of course I am. I always was.

When I was growing up, he never left the house without giving me a kiss

and lots of love. We wouldn't have had much else, but lots of love.

-Good one!

-That's it.

With drink or without drink, there was lots of love.

So.

-Thank you.

-Thank you, Stephen.

-Thank you.

What is life about to you?

What do you want Hugo Duncan to stand for?

My biggest wish would be

to leave an impression on my family's mind today

that I didn't leave 20, 30 years ago.

I want them to remember me as who I am now.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd