Episode 1 Michael Smiley: Something to Ride Home About

I'm Michael Smiley, comedian, actor, North Down hallion.

I've done stand-up, I've done drama, I've done film and TV.

I've done all right for myself, but my true love is cycling.

30 years after leaving home,

I'm back for a pedal around Northern Ireland.

This could turn out to be the ride of my life.

I'm Holywood born and bred, but I've been away in London for 30 years.

I'd hate to think I've lost my accent.

People always say to me, "You're from Holywood. Snobby Holywood."

Like, you know, Holywood, we're all just down there,

peeling pomegranates, you know.

That gives me the hump, because, yes, the Bangor end of Holywood is really posh, you know.

If you go east of the maypole it becomes posh, you know.

It's judges, you know, and it's multi-millionaires down there, so it is.

And they are giving scum like me a bad name.

Holywood always had that reputation that we're a bit snobby, but not the bit I come from.

Proper Holywood. I'm talking about Holywood when everybody was John Wayne

and nobody was Cary Grant. I'm telling you that for nothing.

Holywood, to me, had three accents. The Bangor - they'd talk to you like that,

-POSH VOICE:

-"How are you doing, Michael? Lovely to see you back."

But I noticed since I went away and came back,

the accent was different.

"Paddy! How's it going?!"

"Happy days, good to see you back. When are you going away again?"

"I'm speakin' out of the side of my mouth, and movin' my head like a demented chicken.

-"How're you doing there, boy? How the..."

-HE CLUCKS

"..are you doing? I haven't seen you in ages."

Then you get the ones who like to jam together,

playing records and learning the Neil Young back catalogue.

That sort of jazz-cigarette culture, you know. They would just talk to you like that, man.

-SLOWLY:

-"How are you doing? Good to see you, man."

The voice is a wee bit...pulled out a wee bit further, a wee bit more nasal.

"Lovely, that's cool, man. You're looking good, anyway. Lovely seeing you, now.

"What's his name again?"

# Well, ain't got no money

# No fancy car. #

There are so many places near and dear to me.

Belfast is as good a town as any to kick off my trip.

Later, I'll be pedalling around Portaferry,

helping to educate some tourists.

Northern Ireland, it's like a TARDIS.

In Newtownards, I meet famous photographer Bill Kirk

and discover the secret of eternal youth.

-How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?

-I'm 76.

You look ten years younger than your age.

-And that's the bicycle?

-Probably.

And I'll be reliving some childhood scrapes, riding down memory lane over in Bangor.

I managed to stick my leg out and drag him in. I saved his life.

But first, Belfast and one local icon that holds strong emotional ties to the Smiley clan.

This is St George's Market, in Belfast,

and it is in the Markets area, which has a very strong place in my heart,

because my mother was born and reared in the Markets.

The Markets people are a special sort of people.

You had to be a bit whoo, a bit wey, as they said in the day.

You had to know your onions.

You had to be light on your feet.

You know, quick with mouth, quick of mind.

Maybe there's a wee bit of that in me, too.

That in-your-face quick talking, if you know what I mean.

Half of me is Holywood born and bred and the other half of me is from the Markets.

A good wee combo.

MUSIC: "Double Barrel" by Dave and Ansell Collins

I'm here with Paddy Lynn, who is one of the foremost men in the Markets.

He has got a lovely stall there, with his beautiful wife Joy. Joy!

How are you doing?

Paddy, you're from the Markets and you've been working in the markets all your life?

Yeah, well, I grew up in the Markets, this was my playground as a kid.

We came from East Street

and my grandparents were originally from Market Street.

What would you say would define a market man?

My ma was a real wheeler-dealer. She'd say, "I can make a tanner look like a tenner."

There was one thing about market people, they were survivors. They had to be.

They were very close to where food was being brought in.

There was fish being brought in from all the ports,

such as Portavogie, Ardglass, Kilkeel.

There was always food here and there was always work here.

But there were hard times, too, because, after the famine,

this area took off in the 1850s.

People came from the countryside.

No-one is originally from the Markets.

The Markets is originally in them

from somewhere else in Northern Ireland.

So they brought their culture...

Market people came to the Markets area?

Yes, they came from County Armagh, they came from Donegal, they came from all the other places.

St George's Market is the last of the ten markets.

-It's come full circle, from what it was to what it is now.

-It has.

Apparently, when you're down in the Markets in these situations,

you have to have a montage scene, apparently.

So this is doing it as quick as possible, OK.

So, montage, montage, montage.

# Diddly-duh, duh-duh, montage

# Diddly-duh, falafel, falafel, falafel, falafel

# Montage, montage! Diddle-dah

# Ginger Rosie montage. #

Pretty girls blushing! Pretty girls blushing!

-You're making me blush.

-There you go!

Best girls in the world.

Belfast girls blush.

Then they'll knock you spark out.

Here we are on the enigma that is the Ormeau Road.

You never know where you stand in the Ormeau Road, do you?

Could be one thing, could be the other. I like it, you know.

My whole life in Belfast has been wrapped around the Ormeau Road, pretty much.

My mum was born down in the Markets and my granny and granddad moved out

of the Markets and here we are, the legend that is the Hatfield House.

This part of this area, Lower Ormeau, is republican.

Nationalist, rather.

Over the bridge is loyalist and mixed.

So the Orangemen always wanted to march down here.

They'd set up a barricade.

The police and the army were out.

Everybody was out in this area trying to hold the Orangemen off.

Orangemen at the other side of the barriers, trying to get down.

There were helicopters in the air,

police and army all over the place, except in the Hatfield.

There was the barman and two old men sitting in the corner.

Pint bottle of Guinness, a half and a whiskey, doing the crosswords together.

You know the old type - strawberry noses,

hat at a jaunty angle on the side of their head, smoking a wee roll-up.

One of them looks at it.

"Old MacDonald had one.

"Five letters, what is it?" "Pig?" One went to the other,

"That helicopter's been up there all day."

-The other one went, "It's probably broke down."

-HE LAUGHS

I'm really interested in the history of cycling, and luckily for me, so is Ian Knox.

A political cartoonist,

he is one of only six penny farthing owners in Northern Ireland.

The thing before was that thing where people pushed themselves along.

Yeah. That started it. That was two, if you like.

The big jumps were, first of all, the hobbyhorse.

Then there was Macmillan in Scotland, who made the treadle drive.

Then there was the growing of the front wheel, when they found out

about steel and its tensile properties, and this huge wheel.

The size of that wheel just screams danger at me.

How dangerous were they for the unskilled?

For the unskilled, they were lethal. It's strange. It's like a kangaroo -

you wonder how it ever happened.

Why people were crazy enough to make and climb onto such things.

And just gently into it, like that. Pick up the pedals

and then you're away.

He looks brilliant, though, doesn't he?

You're sort of holding it underneath, as well.

Yes, I like that particular grip, because...

Well, partly because of all these cameras.

He looks fantastic,

but the idea of that scares the living things out of me.

It fills me full of fear. Look at it. He looks amazing.

He looks just majestic on it.

It wasn't a short man's sport, was it?

Aye, exactly. It wasn't. You've got it in one.

If you saw a group of spindly, abnormally tall guys walking down the street,

you reckoned there was going to be a bicycle race somewhere later that day.

That's brilliant. Ian, that is absolutely gorgeous.

-It was a man's sport, too. No women.

-No women did it.

For good-looking tall men in the 1880s, you were laughing.

-You were laughing. Or you were dead.

-Or you were dead!

Bring it over here so I can get up on it.

You can lower me onto it like a lady!

'This is production researcher and human stabiliser PJ.

'I'm risking my life for your viewing pleasure.

'You can't say I didn't do anything for you, now.'

I'm not balanced.

It'll happen.

The forward movement makes it happen.

-I've heard of Ian talking about "bicycle face".

-Yeah.

That's all I'm thinking about now.

You've got a lovely bicycle face, sure. You're made for it.

This was made by a bicycle, this face.

I thought he meant "bicycle face" was the face you ended up with when you landed.

And I've had that. I wasn't born looking like this, you know.

I was a Tom Cruise lookey-likey when I was a child.

-Oh, this is really freaky.

-You don't want to start racing just yet.

-Right.

-This is freaky, man.

-Go for it.

-Oh, no. I don't know so much.

Even though I knew, like a wee child, everybody was standing

either side and wasn't going to let me fall off,

I couldn't. I couldn't. My brain wouldn't make sense of it.

It's mad. It scared the life out of me!

Bicycle face. MICHAEL LAUGHS

Look at my face! Is that the wind behind me?

That's you going at speed, as you did when the camera wasn't on you!

Thank you.

We didn't want to get that on the camera because I didn't want

people to know that I'm quite a proficient penny farthing rider.

Just off the Ormeau Road is the Belfast Bicycle Workshop, on Lawrence Street.

Not everyone remembers their first bike,

but mine was really something else -

a late '60s Christmas present that left me wondering

if Santa Claus had stuffed the wrong stocking.

-This is a Stone Special.

-This is the Stone Special, yeah.

-When does this go back to?

-It was built in 1958.

Stone's was a big shop in Cromac Square, down near the Markets.

So when I came to get my first bike, we went to Stone's.

And my Christmas present was a bike and, of course,

-you know when you're a kid, you want things just so.

-Perfect.

-Has to be just so.

-In your imagination.

-And if you have parents who just think a bike's a bike, is a bike, is a bike...

-Yeah.

And I got a girl's bike,

which was red, white and blue, green, white and gold, yellow and black

and had white wheels, so I couldn't even skate on it either.

So the morning I knew I was getting a bike, I ran downstairs

and opened the sitting room door and there was a girl's bike.

-You started to cry?

-"It's a girl's bike! I'm going to get laughed at."

So here we are, coming full circle.

This is the only one with the actual "SS", Stone Special.

-A part of Belfast cycling legend.

-Totally.

My dad used to ride fixed gear

and his famous story is that he rode from the Vale of Avoca

to the Antrim Road in one afternoon

and then went to a dance.

At that time, the Stone Special was the bike to have.

This looks like a type of workshop,

an ethos that is part of the community. Are you community-minded?

Would you help people who are, say,

-for the want of a better expression, underprivileged?

-Yes, I do.

This year, I've worked with a group of Syrian refugees here.

They are not allowed to work,

so any refugees or asylum seekers have to have a bike for transport.

So when the bike breaks down, if you want to bring it to

one of the bigger players, they're going to charge you a wee bit more than I want to charge,

a good wee bit more, and, also, I sort of teach them the skills.

They can come to the classes and they don't get charged for them.

That's the classic, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.

"Teach him how to fish and you can feed him for the rest of his life."

-This is it.

-I love the socio-political thing about the bike.

It was a tool that motivated

and got the working classes and the peasants out, you know.

Got them out of the village, got them to work.

If you go to Third World countries, that is the tool.

-We're right smack in the heart of Belfast...

-Yeah.

-..and you open the doors and, like, a secret garden.

It reminds me of The Secret Garden. Everything was black and white and grey.

You come in here and there is a big ping of colour and creativity.

Recycling and old bits that have been reused again. This I love.

We're going to do a little practical thing now.

I know people are going, "It's all very well yous going on about your bikes,

"because yous are loving it and know about your bikes."

I like that about biking, though. But say I had a puncture,

it's getting those tyres on and off, for example, that gives me the fear.

The only tool you need to take a tyre off a wheel

is a couple of tyre levers.

All you've got to do is basically put it into the tyre.

And then, straight round

and you can pull it right off from the other side. Presto.

-Nothing to it, dead, dead easy.

-There you go. Couldn't be more simple.

Couldn't be more simple there if I tried!

"Getting it off is easy," you're saying.

"That's all very well, but what's it like putting it back on again?"

Thank you very much. That was from Deirdre in Culleybackey there!

You put one side of the tyre onto the wheel first, like so -

boom-boom,

and then you bring it round to the other side

and then everybody fears this last little bit, because it's so tight,

but if you use both thumbs evenly and push, look at that.

Anybody can do it.

-And you pump it all the way round to make sure it's all sat in.

-Oh, yeah.

Always check that, because I've fallen foul of that.

You go, "That's sorted," and pump your tyre hard, because you want to get going

and the tube comes out the side and, before you know, you hear a massive...

BOTH: Bang.

-Yeah.

-..Bob's your dad's brother.

They're having to get you out of a wheel arch with a pizza shovel.

We are here in Great Victoria Street bus station, or as it's called now, I think, Glengall Street.

30 years ago, on the 7th of January 1983, I got an Ulster Bus to London

and have been there ever since.

It's a weird feeling being here, because it evokes memories

and I just remember the wee lad who left. He was about 19, had a Walkman.

I played Jackson Browne's Stay as we left the bus station.

Even in those days, I was very melodramatic.

He was frightened and excited, skint and determined to leave,

because he felt this place had nothing for him.

It's quite an emotional place for me.

MUSIC: "Stay (Just A Little Bit Longer)"

As the fella says, nostalgia ain't what it used to be,

but with all this talk of leaving, I think it's time

for a spin around the place that I left.

Heading out of Belfast towards Holywood, my home town,

and my birthplace.

This is the Holywood Hills.

The original Holywood Hills. One L of a town.

Holywood, you see? One L in Holywood. One L of a town.

This is where I'm from. A very respectable housing estate.

That's the house I was born in. Reared in.

When I was a wee lad, my ma opened the front door, kicked me out.

You weren't allowed back in the house, you know.

Even if it was blowing a gale outside

and it was lashing out of the heavens and there was snow up to your kneecaps,

your ma would still put an anorak on you and throw you out of the door again.

Because she was always hoovering.

I'd come up here. We'd build huts, climb trees.

We would snog wee girls, you know.

One of my first girlfriends, she lived in the front row there.

You were youngsters, kissing and cuddling and stuff,

and holding hands, going to the pictures.

Except she had a mate and her mate hated me.

Unbeknown to me, she decided to drop me. You know, you get dropped?

They say it takes your loved one and your enemy to hurt you to the core.

One to slander you and the other one to get the news to you.

So a knock on the door and Ruth was there.

She went, "You're dropped!"

"What do you mean?"

"Debbie doesn't want to see you any more."

The look of glee on her face.

My young pink heart was crestfallen.

I looked at her and said, "Why?"

She said, "You move your head around too fast when you're snogging her."

I just imagined I was doing this sort of thing,

with my mouth wide open.

Like a flip-top head with a tongue attached to it.

God love the wee girl, you know what I mean?

I have an emotional connection to this field.

There was a big tree up the back there. And I remember the morning

that I decided to leave

and I was leaving Holywood and I was leaving Ireland. It was dawn.

I sat and I looked over the loch and the sun was coming up.

It's a bit misty today.

And I made a decision that I was leaving and I wasn't coming back.

Luckily, things worked out for me. I've got a really good life.

There are many people who left who didn't and struggled

and there are many people who left and would love to come back

and can't, you know.

# I'm leaving for the country... #

This is Graveyard Lane. Guess where it leads?

A lot of family buried in this graveyard -

a lot of family and friends.

When I was a kid in Holywood, there was an older graveyard.

There was the Priory graveyard.

Me and my dad used to walk around, his hands behind his back,

and look at how old the graves were and the people who were buried there.

And he'd tell me stories about them.

Like our connections to family members, because my dad is old Holywood.

And that was part of our connection -

that both of us were proud that we were Holywood born and bred.

The only ones in the family.

And now he's in this graveyard, so is my ma.

Yeah.

WIND HOWLS

That's life, isn't it?

One thing I've noticed being back is that tourism is a much bigger deal now.

Out in Portaferry, I join a German, an Italian and two Polish students

for a cycle tour run by local company Iron Donkey,

led by tour guide Gary Sloane.

I haven't been back home much in the past 30 years.

I left 30 years ago, which is part of the programme.

In a short period of time that I've been over this time,

and cycling around, it's made me want to come home more.

What is it that draws people back to Northern Ireland,

or draws people to Northern Ireland, tourist-wise?

It is a fantastic place to cycle.

I can't pretend that we couldn't improve some of our more urban cycle routes, but I think it's the routes.

-They are spectacular.

-Here we are, look at that beautiful sun setting.

-You can even see the sun, somehow?

-Just about see the sun.

It looks really magical. Like in one of these King Arthur movies.

Off the main roads, there are some fantastic routes we have planned

and spent many hours presenting and sharing.

And they're quite light on traffic. So have you picked them so they're specifically...?

Light on traffic, yeah,

and spectacular in terms of the actual scenery.

We can give them full support in terms of cycling with them,

or staying maybe a few hours behind them.

The backup van is always there

if people get into a bit of bother, but that is a rare experience.

We usually find they stop in some pub or other for lunch and we have to get them home.

Have to go for a wee sleep in the snug and then wake up,

-"Where's the bikes gone? Don't worry, we can always get another bike!"

-Yeah.

So you would come back again, would you?

Definitely, definitely.

-I was planning on travelling through Ireland in the summer.

-OK.

-When I finish uni.

-All over's lovely, you know.

It's such a small country, but there's a lot in it.

Northern Ireland, it's like a TARDIS.

Usually they're very fit people and they're usually experienced cyclists,

who come for the guided and independent tours and the customised tours.

We offer tours for all range of abilities and ages.

-We find we get all age groups and...

-Shapes and sizes.

-Yes, shapes and sizes.

Boys are boys, huh?

Now that I've done my bit for the Northern Irish Tourist Board,

I can head off towards my final stop at Newtownards.

First, I thought I'd check out the site of many young Michael Smiley's escapades -

Bangor.

Since I've been away, it's acquired a fancy new marina,

so clearly Bangor is another town with tourists on its mind.

It's lovely around here, isn't it? It's beautiful, it's beautiful.

When I was down here as a child, we used to come down

and go to the swimmers up there and we used to come down to the Pickie Pool.

I guess this turned into an amazing wee park for kids. They would love it.

And there are older people here. Look, they've got their motorised boats out, huh?

When I was a kid, this was the Pickie Pool, which was pretty much just seawater,

closed off using reinforced concrete.

It was freezing, it was absolutely freezing.

It didn't matter if it was 40 degrees, it was still freezing.

My first-ever heroic gesture was done here.

Me and a mate of mine, James, we were inseparable as children.

We shared the same pram and everything. He lived across the road from my ma and dad.

I was the quiet one of us two, so you can imagine how mad Pepe was.

Pepe never told me he couldn't swim.

And in the Pickie Pool, there was a slide and a diving board.

Of course, the slide shoots you into the water.

And it shot him into like... It must've been 12ft deep.

And he hit it. Whoo!

And he came up and he couldn't, and he's drowning.

I didn't know what to do. I was only a wee lad.

I managed to hold on to the side of it,

the diving board, and stick my leg out and drag him in.

Saved his life.

But it was so cold and, you know, people talk about it now,

but it WAS hotter in those days.

And we sat around the edges getting sunburnt

and then into the water and you'd get frostbite.

That's probably the two things

I suffered from in childhood in summertime -

frostbite or sunburn, you know.

As I say, we are a country of extremes.

A short hop from Bangor is Newtownards, home of keen cyclist,

acclaimed photographer and personal hero of mine, Bill Kirk.

I remember Billy Kirk's photography from when I was a kid.

My dad was an amateur photographer. So he was a big fan of Bill's stuff.

-It's an absolute joy to meet you today.

-I'm sort of honoured.

This was the first photograph I had seen of yours

and it's probably the most famous one.

It's a brilliant photograph,

the way that you've got it so you don't see his face.

I think he was trying to prevent me making a successful photograph.

Ah, right. That's even better.

So he put the megaphone in front of his face to ruin my photograph.

-And he made the photograph.

-He made the photograph.

Where did you get your photographs first published?

The Klondyke Bar book was published in 1974 by Blackstock Press.

Some people frowned when I took up work at the Tourist Board.

They said, "Oh, you've sold out."

But working at the Tourist Board refined my technique.

-I was under pressure to do photos to order.

-Yes.

I've got a picture here, Central Bar, Cushendall.

A group of people who could be out of

-JM Synge's Playboy Of The Western World.

-What year would that be?

-1979.

He is ready for the pose

and he's stood there. He's got a wee butt, he's leaning on a stick. He's ready.

She's pushed to the front. He's having a go at pushing for the front.

He is somewhere between, he can't make his mind up whether he wants to stand up or sit down.

And I think you've hit the nail on the head about what I love about your photographs.

There's a play there. You could look at that.

If you were feeling inspired to write something,

you could get one of your photographs and it would just tell you.

That looks fantastic.

Let me show you. I don't claim any great skills. Very often it is luck.

Yeah, but who is it who said, "The harder I work, the luckier I get"?

I could have taken photographs in that pub

-and I would never have got that shot.

-Thank you very much.

-There's one, see - button's open.

-His zip's undone as well! Ha-ha! Look!

Ah, brilliant. Love it.

-This picture, Edenderry, 1983.

-That's the year I left.

A very hot summer.

And that summer I got married. I got married in the August.

-Yeah.

-Got married in a Catholic Church

and had my wedding reception in the Orange Hall

-and the army did the catering!

-LAUGHTER

Look at this.

There you go. A field in Ireland.

# Put a candle in the window... #

-You always cycled? Did you cycle from a young boy?

-Yes, from a boy.

I was a very late learner,

which was probably the key to why I became such a fan.

I didn't learn to ride a bike till I was 12,

-but the day that I learned is...

-Like an epiphany?

"Epiphany" is a good word for it.

The early death of my parents from TB made me also want to keep my health.

I also wanted to prove to the world that I wasn't in bad health.

That's brilliant. That that thing there can bring so much into your life.

It gives you health, gives you self-determination,

gives you the freedom.

-How old are you, if you don't mind my asking?

-I'm 76.

-76.

Look at that. You look ten years younger than your age.

-And that's the bicycle, would you say?

-Probably.

During my entire cycling career, I actually had TB.

The medics at Forster Green Hospital said to me,

"Mr Kirk, there's an element of mind over matter in your case."

-So, from that point on, I was never going to...

-Got to give it up?

I was never going to give it up.

-That expression, "tapping it out", have you heard that expression?

-I have heard that.

Just keep tapping out. Keep tapping out the pedals.

Don't give up. And that's a metaphor for life for me. Just keep going.

I think you're just amazing, I really do.

I want to ask you a favour, if I may?

My late father was a keen photographer,

amateur photographer, and I was bequeathed one of his cameras.

And I've had it checked.

I was wondering if you'd have a wee look at it

and see what you think of it.

Maybe if you'd take a photograph of us, of me and you together,

using my dad's camera?

That would bring it full circle for him.

-I've brought some film to put in it.

-Ah.

-Would you?

-I would.

Where do you want me?

Just lovely and ca... Easy, like that.

# Picture yourself...#

-That didn't...

-I never thought I'd see this day.

Maybe it's the ghost of my da taking the BLEEP!

If I know him, it probably would be.

"That Bill Kirk fella. I bought his books and all that,

"and he's using my camera!"

"I haven't passed away, just passed on, you know."

If he was doing that, he'd have a roll-up out of the side of his mouth.

I always remember him doing that.

Yeah. Winding it on.

"All right, there now, just stay back in that position. There you go. Good lad, good lad."

Get back! Look at you! Your slobbers are all over that.

You hound dog! And you've been drinking my isotonic drink as well.

So, Bill, why did you bring me here to take the photo?

Well, this road, the Ballyreagh Road,

it was only a mile or so from where my mother died.

-Right.

-And her house at... Ballyalicock was the town.

-Ballyalicock?

Ballyalicock.

But my mother was born in Ballywatticock,

which is about a mile from here.

-So.

-Who makes these names up?!

-Oh, this is it. I know.

-It's a privilege then for you to take a photograph of me here. Thank you.

-Yeah, here we go.

HE LAUGHS

Are you getting me underneath here, look?!

Song in my heart, wind in my hair,

dead flies in my teeth.

You're a beast. You're a beast of a woman!

You just said we're doing a 25-mile time trial.

You never said it was the Ulster Championship.

I'm in the Ulster Championship now.

-Who's got the waxing kit?

-LAUGHTER

Oh, no, no, no!