All Growed Up Read online

  ‘Centuries of English oppression against the Irish …

  ‘Oh, so now you’re Irish, so you fucking are!’

  ‘Now you and your snotty, middle-class, English twit accent are trying to censor the same people you oppressed for centuries so that we couldn’t even speak in our native tongue … SO YOU ARE!’

  I was aware that I was starting to sound like Gerry Adams. If Granny had heard me speak like this she would have taken the poker to me.

  ‘Idiot!’

  ‘Eejit!’

  ‘Retard!’

  ‘Capitalist!’

  Byron stormed off. He was so angry he forgot his Guardian. I hadn’t seen him this angry since ‘Shaddap You Face’ kept ‘Vienna’ by Ultravox off the number one spot.

  I was angry too. After months of learning not to say what I really wanted to say, now I had to learn not to speak the way I spoke. I understood that this was what becoming an intellectual was all about, but I was finding third-level education very demanding. I gathered up my soggy revision notes and got up to leave. Conor O’Neill was holding court with a group of first year sociologists at the table behind me. He was talking about politics and going very red in the face as per usual.

  ‘Oooh, Thatchurr!’ I heard him growl.

  I swiftly escaped the debate chamber that was the university café to go play a game of Frogger in the Students’ Union. I had been trying to communicate to Byron that I was excited about my first opportunity to make a proper radio programme. When I was younger I imagined I was a Radio 1 DJ counting down the Top 40 on a Sunday night and played each song in turn on my stylophone, but now I had the opportunity to become a real, bona fide broadcaster like Terry Wogan on the BBC and Big T on Downtown Radio. For the first time I was going to have the opportunity to be like Woodward and Bernstein, the American journalists who got Richard Nixon into trouble for all his oul fibs. I had been reading lots of books about Watergate and how these two heroes had persuaded ‘Deep Throat’ to tell them about all the secret shenanigans that went on in Washington. Everyone on my course was inspired by what these two talented journalists had achieved, and Marty Mullen kept boasting that he had seen a brilliant video called Deep Throat, but I got most of my information about Watergate from books in the university library.

  Once the professor had informed his eager young hacks of our radio production task I got to work on my ideas immediately. How could I uncover a major political scandal, make a documentary about it and have it finished in time for the professor to mark it over the Christmas holidays? There were plenty of burglaries in Belfast, but I was fairly certain they were not politically motivated like Watergate. Killing tended to be more politically motivated than burglary in Belfast, and in any case, the paramilitaries would kneecap you if you were caught breaking into someone’s living room to steal their TV or Betamax video recorder. Once, burglars broke into our house and stole my mother’s wedding ring and engagement ring, which she had taken off to do the dishes and left on the windowsill beside the kitchen sink. Even though Daddy bought her a new ring she was heartbroken and cried buckets because she said the originals were irreplaceable. If I ever found out who stole my mother’s rings I would have abandoned my pacifist principles, and although I would not have blown their knees off with a gun, I would certainly have kicked the burglars very hard in the kneecaps and possibly the goolies.

  I simply didn’t have enough time to conduct a major political exposé before the end of the Christmas semester, so I began to consider tackling a major social issue in my documentary instead. First of all, I considered a programme about starvation in the Third World. This was a very good subject for a socialist to tackle, because capitalists caused poverty and socialists helped poor people. After some initial planning, however, I realised that this subject would not work on radio because you couldn’t see the starving children and I had neither the contacts nor the resources to interview anybody in Africa. My next idea was to tackle the controversial subject of abortion. My idea was to record a debate between people who were for abortion and people who were against abortion, and I would be the referee like Donahue on TV in America. However, I abandoned this idea as well when Marina with the Daisy Duke shorts told me that men weren’t allowed to talk about abortion because it was a ‘women’s issue’. I was struggling to find a hard-hitting social issue on which to break new ground in broadcasting until an amazing idea presented itself to me when I was home in Belfast one weekend. I was walking home with a fish supper after ‘The Last Waltz’ in the Westy Disco when I noticed two wee lads up an entry beside the church, apparently blowing into Stewarts Supermarkets plastic bags. It was too dark to see exactly what was going on but they seemed to be very enthusiastic and I could hear the faint, crackly sound of plastic bags expanding and contracting like the respirator when JR was in hospital after Bing Crosby’s daughter shot him in Dallas.

  ‘I saw two wee lads blowin’ somethin’ up the entry beside the church,’ I said when I got home.

  ‘Fruits,’ said my big brother.

  ‘Oh my God, that’s them there wee glue sniffers again,’ exclaimed my startled mother.

  ‘Glue sniffers?’

  ‘Yes son, they squeeze a tube of glue into a wee bag and sniff it to get high,’ she explained. ‘Now don’t you be tryin’ it!’

  ‘Wise up,’ said my big brother, shooting me a look of incredulity that suggested I would have neither the capability nor the rebellious streak required to engage in the sniffing of any adhesive.

  ‘No son of mine is gonna throw away his life sniffin’ glue,’ proclaimed my father.

  This was the answer! Glue-sniffing was my hard-hitting social issue! I decided on the spot that I would make a groundbreaking documentary on the social problem of glue-sniffing in Belfast. Woodward and Bernstein would have been proud of me.

  And so the work began. I searched through all the newspapers and magazines I could find in the library to learn more about the evils of glue-sniffing. I read up on the science of how sniffing adhesives makes you high and how it can kill you. I decided to take a personal risk for the sake of my investigation and experimented with inhaling an adhesive myself, just to help me understand what the attraction might be. I realised it was illegal, and I knew the consequences could potentially be fatal, so I waited until I was alone in my bedroom in Portstewart one evening when Aaron was out at a rugby something-or-other. I turned the lights out, sneaked into the bathroom, and sniffed the back of a strip of Sellotape. I had my big Merantz tape recorder with me to record my feelings during my first narcotic trip, but no matter how deeply I inhaled the adhesive it didn’t make me feel happy at all. As I had never been high in my life I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, so I decided to abandon this personal experiment and look for real live glue sniffers to interview instead. This was where I had an advantage over so many of my fellow academics at university. I had concluded very early in my university career that the job of an intellectual was to talk about social problems and explain who (in addition to Margaret Thatcher) was to blame, rather than actually do anything practical about the problem. I also learned that a good journalist reports only what they see and never brings their own bias to the subject. One lecturer explained that this sort of professional impartiality was essential to stop your own prejudices creeping in and this was why religious people didn’t make good journalists. As usual, I nodded in agreement and kept my head down. I may have been regarded as the wrong sort for a job in the media, but I had contacts on the ground. I knew practically every entry where they sniffed glue in Belfast. My father was correct once again; all of these academics in their ivory tower blocks had no idea how the working man or his glue-sniffing offspring lived.

  The university had a high-tech radio studio and production room. This was where you cut radio tape with a razor to take out the bits where you stuttered or people talked nonsense and then spliced it back together with sticky tape. I learned that this was where the phrase ‘To end up on the cutting-room floor’ c
ame from. I borrowed the big Merantz tape recorder and a microphone and headphones from the radio production room and carried it home on the train to Belfast. I felt like a proper reporter just carrying the recording equipment, and when I got home I practiced saying, ‘Tony Macaulay, News at Ten, Belfast’ in a dead serious journalist voice. I had arranged an interview with the owner of a model airplane shop in the city centre. One of my neighbours worked there and had kindly persuaded the owner to let this bright young investigative reporter interrogate him.

  ‘Don’t worry, he’s harmless, so he is,’ she told him reassuringly before I began my interview. Unfortunately I had to ask the questions twice because I forgot to press the record button on my Merantz the first time, but I explained that I was doing this on purpose to give him practice. I asked the shop owner if he was aware he might be selling glue to feed the habit of addicts rather than to build Airfix Spitfires. He categorically denied that he was a drug supplier, and I decided not to push him too hard because he sold the best Star Wars models in Belfast.

  Next I had to find some real live glue sniffers who would agree to be interviewed and who wouldn’t beat me up, so I went undercover. I left my suede ankle boots and legwarmers at home and wore my father’s Columbo raincoat. I carried my recording equipment in my big brother’s sports bag as I was concerned that if any wee hoods spotted me they would steal my Merantz, sell it in Smithfield market and buy drugs with the proceeds. I cruised around the Shankill in the green Simca, observing the street as keenly as a sectarian gunman looking for a victim. Eventually I spotted two teenagers with glue bags up an entry. They looked too small and intoxicated to be able to deck me. I didn’t want to alarm the boys, because a stranger driving up beside you and winding the car window down at night in the dark was usually a sign you were about to be shot dead. So I parked the green Simca around the corner and walked back to the entry with my bag of recording equipment over my shoulder. As I approached the teenagers, I noticed they were wee mods of about thirteen with ‘The Jam’ and ‘Madness’ written in thick black marker on the backs of their parkas. I was aware that my manner of approach was crucial in securing an exclusive interview, so I drew upon my experience of giving out gospel tracts in the estate and approached the mods with a friendly smile without being too forward, in case they thought I was going to try to convert them.

  ‘Bout ye? I’m doin’ a project for college about glue sniffin’,’ I said, careful not to use a single ‘ing’ for fear of possible alienation.

  The smell of glue was overpowering. It reminded me of the smell in our garage when my father tried to fix my chest of drawers with industrial glue he had borrowed from the foundry. The glue sniffers didn’t seem to be bothered that I had joined them, and didn’t attempt to hide their illegal plastic bags of glue.

  ‘Are you at college, wee lad?’ asked the older-looking boy. When he looked up at me I noticed that he had sad, innocent blue eyes and patches of hardened glue on his cheek. I felt sorry for him.

  ‘Aye,’ I replied.

  ‘Fruit!’ laughed his wee mate.

  ‘I’m makin’ a radio programme but I’m not usin’ any names and I won’t tell the RUC,’ I explained.

  ‘Yer man’s at college,’ said the older boy.

  ‘Fruit!’ repeated his wee mate, who looked as if he hadn’t even failed his eleven-plus yet.

  ‘So, can I interview yousens?’ I asked again.

  The two boys looked at each other and sniggered as if they had just heard a dirty joke.

  ‘Aye, way you go, wee lad,’ the older boy assented.

  I pulled the Merantz from the sports bag, fumbling a bit as I plugged in the microphone. The boys’ eyes were already open very wide, but they seemed to open even wider at the sight of professional broadcasting equipment.

  ‘Welcome to the house of fun!’ sang the older mod, grabbing the microphone and performing as if he was Suggs from Madness. His wee mate inhaled from his glue bag and giggled. After joining in with a good-natured laugh, I retrieved the microphone, wiped off some glue and attempted to begin the interview. The boys were intermittently inhaling from their Stewarts Supermarket bags, swaying slightly, and slapping each other on the back and laughing.

  ‘Tell me, why do young men like you sniff glue?’ I asked.

  ‘Bricks, bricks, bricks!’

  ‘Aye, bricks!’

  ‘Are you aware of the health risks of glue sniffing?’ I continued as professionally as possible.

  ‘Did you see the pigeons?’

  ‘Aye, pigeons!’

  ‘Aye, bricks and pigeons!’

  ‘Welcome to the house of fun …’

  ‘In a town called malice …’

  ‘Oh yeah-heh!’

  I decided to try another approach.

  ‘If the Thatcher government was doing more about your education, do you think that perhaps you wouldn’t feel the need to get high? Because, as it stands and due to her uncaring capitalist government policies, you’ve no chance of ever getting a job?’

  I was really getting into the flow of it now.

  ‘Bricks, brick, bricks and fuckin’ pigeons.’

  ‘No surrender!’

  ‘In a town called malice …’

  ‘Oh yeaaaaah-heh!’

  The boys collapsed into a heap of glue and laughter and then began to sing ‘The Sash’. I decided that I had probably got enough on tape to give an insight into the thinking of the Belfast glue sniffer, so I quietly departed mid-Sash, just before the ‘Kick the Pope’ chant after the final line.

  When I went home to review the material I had gathered, I was devastated to discover that I had recorded absolutely nothing. The tape was blank! In all the darkness and confusion I hadn’t plugged the microphone in properly and all of my courageous undercover journalism had been a complete waste of time. Back at the university, after hours spent editing the small amount of material I had gathered, it came to pass that my first piece of major investigative journalism was marked a miserable C, and I was so upset I briefly considered an elicit sniff of glue myself.

  To become a great broadcaster I would have to do better, and my next chance to excel came with the announcement of our first video production assignment. I gave considerable thought to my first television production, but once again, lack of time was a major barrier. I had to rule out my original idea for the pilot episode of a new, hard-hitting soap opera set in West Belfast. Snugville Street would have been just like Coronation Street, but with Belfast accents and the Troubles. It would have made Brookside look like Sooty and Sweep, but it was much too ambitious for a university assignment. I also had to give up on my proposal for a documentary about UFOs over Northern Ireland as there weren’t enough sightings and most of those were British Army helicopters. In the end, I settled on the same idea as most of the students on my course – I decided that I would make a pop music video. Everyone was making music videos for a new station called MTV that played nothing but videos of Duran Duran all day long, like a 24-hour Top of the Pops. My first radio production may have been a major disappointment but this probably didn’t matter because, as The Buggles said, ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’. I realised that this new genre of music television provided me with an opportunity to shine as one of a new generation of radical young television producers. So I decided to make a Cliff Richard video.

  Cliff was a Christian rock and roll singer who everyone said looked very young even though he was ancient. My granny said he was ‘a lovely wee good livin’ fella’ which I could identify with. My decision to make a video for a Cliff Richard song was not just artistically ground-breaking, it was intellectually courageous as well. I decided that I would use this assignment to finally reveal to my fellow Media Studies students that I was one of those dreaded establishment-propping-up, capitalist-supporting, responsible-for-the-murder-of-millions, practicing Christians. It had taken me a full year to pluck up the courage to admit that I was a wee good livin’ fella, but I had decided I couldn’t live a double l
ife any more. If I revealed my beliefs at the end-of-term presentation on a big screen in front of all my lecturers and classmates, then at least next year (if I passed this year) I wouldn’t have to sneak in and out of Christian Union meetings as if I was going to secret meetings of the UDA. My big admission of faith would be like when homosexuals in America told everyone they were gay. This was known as ‘coming out’, and Diana Ross had released a brilliant disco song all about it. When someone ‘came out’ they told everyone who they really were, even if it meant people would hate them. When George Simpson came out in the Christian Union no one hated him, at least not out loud. Everyone prayed that God would heal him and make him heterosexual and this worked for a while, but then he became mentally ill and everyone had to pray for him to be healed again.

  When I confided in Byron Drake that I was going to come out as a Christian using a Cliff Richard music video he said that this was deeply ironic because Cliff still hadn’t come out himself. I chose a song called ‘Thief in the Night’ from one of Cliff’s gospel albums. This song was all about Jesus suddenly coming back at the end of the world and people either going to heaven or going to hell, depending on whether or not they were saved. The lyrics created some artistic challenges, as I had to film the whole video in Portstewart and it was difficult to recreate the end of the world in a small seaside town with a nice beach. Of course, this was exactly the type of creative challenge that I would have to rise to if I were to become a great film director. My video needed to have all the horror of the Omen movies, combined with the optimism of Little House on the Prairie. My first brilliant concept was to make use of the wooden chess set I had bought from a Romanian peasant in Mamaia the previous summer. I shot the chess set in close-up as some of the pawns were lifted up to heaven by the hand of God and others got knocked over as a metaphor for eternal damnation. The first line of the song was ‘I could talk for hours but you wouldn’t hear a word’, so I needed to shoot a close up of someone’s mouth talking a lot. I thought Lesley from up the country would be ideal for this part and when I asked her she was most obliging. I had to recruit a larger team of actors to help me to shoot the end-of-the-world scene, as I needed to represent all of humanity running around in a panic during an earthquake on Judgment Day. Lesley helped me to recruit her small friend with the glasses, several Heathers from Portadown, and Aaron Ward and some of his rugby-playing mates who were good at running around. I also persuaded my cousin Paul from the Donegall Road to come up from Belfast as a visiting actor especially for the location shooting. This group of young people was too small to adequately represent everyone in the world, so I had to use clever camera angles to fool the viewer into thinking that there were thousands of them. The main locations for filming were the beach and the graveyard. I was aware that too many of my fellow students’ videos were set on the beach so I decided to use the sand dunes rather than the seashore. I was concentrating much too intensely on the creative process to allow my mind to drift to thoughts of me and Bo Derek writhing naked in those dunes. I got to shout ‘Action!’ like a proper director and this was the cue for my troupe of amateur thespians to run around the sand dunes in a panic, imagining it was the end of the world and the devil was coming to get them. I cleverly shook the camera to simulate an apocalyptic earthquake, a technique that had been used for years to great effect whenever a Klingon missile hit the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. In the graveyard, I filmed my actors rising up from the graves and hoped that no one would call in to visit their dead relatives while we were filming. There was a real risk that mourners might mistake my actors for genuine zombies and I would get in trouble with the council. After many hours of takes and retakes my actors became a little tired and short-tempered, which I understood was behaviour that every great director had to deal with.